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LILĀVAI
B-This stands for a modern transcript of the Bikaner MS. of the Līlāvati with a Sanskrit commentary. The MS. at Bikaner, belonging to Anüpa Sanskrit Library, No. 3281, is written on paper. Its appearance in pretty old, and it is somewhat damaged. It measures 10: by 41 inches; it contains 89 folios; each page has 11 to 16 lines; and each line contains 40 to 55 letters. It is written in a clear, large Devanagari hand. The padimātrās are used here and there, and the copyist of our transcript generally misunderstands them. The folios are numbered 1 to 50 and 71 to 109. Folio No. 50 ends with 3190155507 2772113 at Aya (see găthā 501 ) and folio 71 begins with Piafagittar TETTailleet: etc. see the Sanskrit commentary on gātha 806). It is plain that folios 51 to 70 are lost, and thus we have a substantial gap in the MS. On every page there is left in the middle a square blank space. The Prākrit text and the Sanskrit commentary are continuously written, every găthā or a bunch of gāthās being followed by the commentary. On the front page the owner is mentioned as follows: FIAT PARTOTSTIU : 19. 37. श्री श्री श्रीसंजमराजसूरीश्वराणां तत् शिष्य मू. अजयराजस्य प्रति वा श्रीभावदेवदातव्य श्रीरस्तु ।. The Bikaner Ms. opens thus : font HR 24: 11 Take etc. and ends in this manner : 11 : Il a j adi : 11 25 Atif 91 9889 [ is it that later 6 is corrected to 7?] ag no li ft: 11
The transcript which I have received is not very carefully prepared. More than once the original script has baffled the copyist. In some places three ciphers ... are used for i, quite an old trait indeed. Sometimes the letters are not correctly read by the copyist and the padimătrâs have misled him. Consequently the copy, namely B, bristles with errors, rather mis. readings, both in the Prākrit and Sanskrit portions.
The most important feature of the Bikaner MS. is that the text is accompanied by a Sanskrit Commentary. Not being able to use the original Ms. I had to be satisfied with the material given by the transcript. With regard to the nasals and ja-śruti the readings are much uncertain. The tendency to retain initial n is seen on a large scale; but now and then partiality for n also is seen. One cannot rely too much on this transcript for syllabic variations; but all the readings showing material difference are carfully noted. Scribal errors in this transcript are too plenty to be analysed. Very often i and u are substituted for e anda before the conjunct groups. Possibly the vertical stroke on u has been ignored by the copyist with the result that often u is used for o. Besides the major gap, noted above, there are portions omitted both in the text and
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