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INTRODUCTION 2 Cu. Cambridge University Library MS. No.. Add. 21151 Reads viracaritra 880' on the back of the title-page. Size 101" x 44". Contains forty-one folios, of which 1, 2, 18, 21, 22, 24, 26, 31, and 32 are missing. Has eight lines to the page, except the last, which has nine Very good and clear Devanagari handwriting. It is not dated, but from its look appears to be a little over 300 years old It is written on two kinds of paper the first, dust-coloured, extends to folio 30, and the second, yellowish, begins with folio 33. Folios 31 and 32 are missing. The MS having been soaked in water has retained distinct traces of this along the margins The paper is very brittle. Some of the folios are mutilated and worm-eaten The right-hand margins are somewhat decayed, though the letters are intact. About one-eighth of Folio 3 has gone along the right-hand side. Folios 17, 18, 25, and 28 are a little damaged along the margin, though this has not affected the text much The last line on folio 23a and the first line on 236 are considerably injured. The right half of the last line on folio 279, and of the first line on 27b, are almost gone Similarly the right half of the first line on folio 28a, as also the right halves of the two lines copied by the reviser to supply a passage in the original, are entirely lost 2
It begins with ta-kutumba-vyavahrtır (I. 11) and ends rti Srīvīracarrtram samāptam il subham astu ll It extends to V 46 Act I ends at 11a, II at 20a, III at 26a (folio missing), IV at 356, V 46 at 41a. It numbers verses, though wrongly About a couple of times a number is attached to a prose passage Curiously enough, Act I, verses 24 to 57, are not numbered According to its numbering there are 62 verses in Act I, 38 in II, 44 in III, 59 in IV, 45 in V. The MS has no chāyā for Prakrit passages Yellow pigment has been used to obliterate or modify letters Mistakes of dittography have always been corrected by paint drawn across the line. The MS., as it stands, is very correct. All the corrections made or omissions supplied and their number is very largeare the work of only one reviser, as is evident from the different bandwriting, which is very inferior to that of the original scribe, and from the use of a different ink and a finer pen. In one place (after V 5) there is a long omission, which has not been supplied by the reviser.4 The MS appears to have been copied from the same original as K, though with some corrections. Among its orthographical peculiarities the following may
1 Bendall's Catalogue of the Buddhist Sanskrut MSS in the University Library, Cambradge (Cambridge, 1883), does not includo this MS, but it is mentioned as Add Cu 2115 in the Catalogus Catalogorum, Part II
2 These injuries are duly pointed out in the Critical Notes below the text
3 In the variae lectiones the corrections thus made and the omissions so supplied are duly pointed out
Vide V. 5, Note 15, on p. 121 of the text.
