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Pothikhna of Jaipur: Khas-Aluhar 1 341
Maharaja himself and was issued to the Officer whenever needed. Thus only such manuscripts were issued to the usual staff of the Pothikhānā as were required to be copied out or mended. The same were placed back after the needful was done. It is therefore, that copies of very important manuscripts. under Khās-muhar, are found to have been prepared by the later lekhakas or scribes. Consequently, two collections came into existence (1) Khās-muhur collection and (2) Pothikhānā collection, which remained in the charge of Pothikhānā officials. The third one was added in 1962 V.S. (1905 A.D.) when the manuscripts of Ratnakar Pundarik, the guru of Sawai Jai Singh, and his descendents were acquired and preserved in the Pothikhānā.
Here, we plan to discuss only the Khās-muhar collection at the Pothikhānā, acquired either through purchase, gift or executed by the order of the Maharaja at the pustaka-griha or pothikhānāworkshop. It has mainly hand written books,
The second section containing both printed and hand written works will be subject of another article. Popularly known as pothikhānā, it is equally important as most of them are first editions and signed by authors who presented them to the Maharaja. Numbers of Journal of Indian Art and Industry, Exhibition catalogues and books printed at Indian presses in vernacular languages - Bengali, Gujarati, Persian and Urdu are highlights of the collection.
The manuscripts of Khās-muhar collection above 7800 in number, maybe put into three categories according to their period of collection and creation -(1) manuscripts belonging to pre-Sawai Jai Singh period, (2) those collected, composed and written for Sawai Jai Singh and (3) others related to post-Sawai Jai Singh period, more appropriately, Sawai Pratap Singh period. In the first category a single manuscript bears the date of Raja Bharmal's time, a few are contemporary of Raja Man Singh (1589 to 1614 A.D.) and the largest number is of those collected, composed and written for Mirza Raja Jai Singh and his scholar son Ram Singh I (1667 to 1688 A.D.). Only a few but important ones, bear the dates of Kanwar Kishan Singh and his son Raja Vishnu Singh, grand-son and successor of Ram Singh
Collections made by Sawai Jai Singh maybe roughly classified as below:(a) Published books, maps, charts and manuscripts (mostly astronomical) acquired from abroad, (b) manuscripts of astronomical works written by scholars under his patronage,
(c) works on religion and devotional philosophy composed by scholars of different sampradayas (sects) for him, some of them finally amended by himself, and
(d) manuscripts of important works of general interest related to various branches of learning, acquired by him or copied out by his lekhakas in his Pustak griha.
The third period begins with Sawai Ishwari Singh and Sawai Madho Singh I, sons of Sawai Jai Singh, whose own compositions are also available in the collection. But the most conspicuous figure was Sawai Pratap Singh who was himself an eminent poet of Hindi and there are about three dozen works written by him. The number of manuscripts containing his own compositions as well as those of the members of his poetic circle is the biggest in this section of collection. The Pandits and Lekhakas remained busy in editing, copying and arranging his writings according to their subjects and descriptions.
Though the compositions of Sawai Pratap Singh and other poets of his court are centred round their devotion to Lord Krishna and Rādhā, yet they fully represent the social and domestic conditions of the time. The sister-arts of music and paintings also developed and Jaipur became a centre of these noble pursuits during the time to Sawai Pratap Singh.
