Tulsi Prajna 1990 12

Author(s): Mangal Prakash Mehta
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 2

RAJASTHANI AND L. P. TESSITORI
G. V. Tagare*
Some 80 years have elapsed since the passing away of the Italian Indologist L.P. Tessitori (1887-1919). This Sk. scholar was a linguist, grammarian, historian of the culture of Rajasthan. Deputed to Rajasthan in 1914, he discovered and published hundreds of manuscripts from the states of Jodhpur and Bikaner in five volumes of the JASB-the Bibliotheca Indica series. These MSS. shed valuable light on the social and political history of medaeval Rajasthan.
In 1940, while working on my historical grammar of Apabhrams'a I got interested in Tessitori due to his "Notes on the Grammar of Old Western Rajasthani with Special Reference to Apabhrams'a and to Gujarati and Marwari". The Notes are so valuable that no historical grammarian of Rajasthani can ignore them.
Some years later, while a member of the Folk-lore Committee of my State, I tried to find out what work in Folk-lore has been done in other Indo-aryan languages, I was surprised to find that even before 1918, Tessitori carried out "Bardic and Historical Survey of Rajasthan". Fortunately Rajasthan had a glorious bardic tradition. Caraṇas and Bhaṭas were maintained by Rajput chiefs by grant of villages. The Bards in return glorified in flowery language even minor exploits of their masters. But in the mass of exaggerated encomiums, historians could get rare information like nuggets of gold. Further, the credit of showing Pingala and Dingala as separate dialects and not mere styles of poetry (as presumed by H. P. Sastri) goes to Tessitori.
Having got support of the Archaeological Survey of India Tessitori explored some 85 places (including Rangmahal)-some along the dry bed of the ancient Sarasvati and had intersting collections of old coins, figurins etc.
It is unfortunate that such a promising young Indologist should pass away while he was hardly 32. But he has laid under obligation generations of scholars by his valuable cotribution to the history, language and literature (including Folk-lore) of Rajasthan.
*3, Govt. Colony, Vishrambag, Sangli-416415