Operation In Search of Sanskrit Manuscripts in Mumbai Circle 1

Author(s): P Piterson
Publisher: Royal Asiatic Society

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OPERATIONS IN SEARCH OF SANSKRIT MSS.
Among my first acquisitions in Jeypore were two small works which must be added to the already long list of writings by the Kash. mirian author, Kshemendra.* The Cháru charyásatakam, No. 51,† of that writer, is a century of moral aphorisms in very simple Sanskrit, cach with a sanction of the orthodox kind appended, which gives a quaint and pleasing picture of virtue's Ways of Pleasantness as they appeared to the Kashmir poet of the eleventh century.
The Charucharyaéatakam and the Chaturvargasaingralia of Kshemendra.
Here, for example, is Kshemendra's version of our proverb "The carly bird catches the worm": -
ब्राह्मे मुहूर्ते पुरुषस्त्यजेन्निद्रामतंद्रितः । प्रातः प्रबुद्धं कमलमाश्रयेच्छ्रीर्गुणाश्रया ॥
"One hour before sunrise let a man resolutely shake off sleep: the lotus wakens early, and therefore it is that a discriminating Goddess of Beauty (prosperity) takes up her abode there."
But the best of the few European Orientalists who have had the good fortune to be able to pursue their studies in India, have never been slow to confess their obligations to the accuracy, learning, and energy here so ruthlessly depre ciated. There have been of course exceptions. I have before me now a Report, which is to my mind chiefly remarkable from the fact that, neither on the covers, nor anywhere within the covers, docs the European scholar, whose name appears on the title-page, give that of the native who, unaided, and after great excrtions, procured for Government the valuable collection of palm-leaf MSS. so complacently exhibited, or make any reference at all to the other native collaborateur without whose special knowledge of Magadhi, and the Jain literature, that part of the Report, I make bold to say, could not have been written. Such a proceeding-and it does not, I regret to think, stand alone-may tend to confirm the relative estimate of native and European learning; but it is at the expense, I submit, of somothing more valuable than even a character for learning.
*For Kshemendra, see Bühler's very valuable Report of his Kashmir tour, published as an extra number of the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, to which I shall have to make constant reference. Of Kshemendra's works there were known to European scholars, previous to Bühler's visit to the poet's home, (1) Vṛihatkathâmañjari, (2) Bhâratamañjarî, (3) Kalâvilasa. Bühler found in Kashmir (4) Râmâyaṇamañjari, (5) Dasâva. taracharita, (6) Samayamâtṛika, (7) Suvṛittatilaka, (8) Lokaprakása, (9) a commentary on Vyasa's Nitikalpataru, and (10) a Vyasashtaka found at the end of a copy of the Bhâratamañjarl.
The references are to the list of MSS. purchased by me for Government during the period under report, which will be found at the end of this paper.