Operation In Search of Sanskrit Manuscripts in Mumbai Circle 1

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

Page 84

IN THE BOMBAY CIRCLE.
the grant without prejudice to the objects for which the grant was sanctioned. “The allotment of Rs. 2,000 for cataloguing purposes," Dr. Kielhorn wrote, “will leave only Rs. 4,500 for the purchase of new manuscripts. But in my opinion this sum will now, when unknown or desirable manuscripts become rarer every day, and after I have secured for Government many of the ancient palm-leaf MSS. known to exist, be amply sufficient, and I venture to point out that the proper cataloguing of the manuscripts which Government possesses is as important a matter as the acquisition of new manuscripts, and was one of the main objects for which the search was originally ordered by the Government of India."*
I am persuaded that no one who is himself actively engaged in the search for manuscripts in India will homologate the views here expressed, in so far as they point to the desirability of contracting our efforts for the discovery and purchase of unknown works, or of better copies than those already secured of known works. To me it seems that the time is ripe for effecting even more than has yet been done; and that Dr. Bühler's great success in India, and the acquisition of palm-leaf MSS., to which Dr. Kielhorn is here referring, are an incentive rather than a discouragement to future effort.
In two important respects the existing conditions are certainly more favourable than those in which Dr. Bühler had at first to work. Thanks to an enlightened encouragement of secondary education, we have, scattered over the country, a body of men who have learnt Sanskrit in our colleges, and who, I am confident, want only leading and encouragement, to explore libraries in numbers vastly greater than the officers in charge of the search can hope to undertake, with an energy and intelligence which may be trusted to secure good results. And it is also, I think, true that the old feeling of jealousy as to the motives and objects of Government in making this search is dying out. That feeling, in so far as the educated classes are concerned, was by no means either unnatural or unjustifiable at the time when the search was first ordered, and when a Secretary to the Council of the Governor-General was found urging that everything
# Dr. Kielhorn's letter to the Director of Public Instruction of 30th Novem. ber 1881, as given in Government Resolution in the Educational Department No. 2053, 27th December 1881.