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USĀNIRUDDHA
that it is corrupt in many places. From the confusion of certain letters, etc., I am inclined to suggest that the Ms. in the Madras Library might have been copied from some Ms. in the Malayālam characters.
The transcript contains the Prākrit text as well as the Sanskrit Chāyā of Usāniruddham. In fact the Chāyā is written first in two or four lines according to the metres,and then comes the Prākrit text. This reverse order that the Sanskrit Chāyā precedes the Prākrit text is interesting, if not strange and contrary to the usual practice.
The transcript does not contain any numbering of the verses which are distributed over four Sargas or Cantos. According to my numbering, there are 77 verses in the First Canto, 58 verses in the Second Canto, 63 verses in the Third Canto and 82 verses in the Fourth Canto. Thus the total number of verses comes to 280. The text has not come down to us intact, exactly in the form in which it left the hands of its author. There are clear indications that some verses are altogether lost at the close of the Second Canto : The Prākrit or Sanskrit colophon found at the close of Cantos One, Three and Four is conspicuous by its absence at the close of the Second Canto. Following the conventions of the Kāvya the author changes the metre at the end of Cantos One, Three and Four, but no such stage is still reached in the case of the Second Canto. The Ms. has suffered a huge confusion at the close of Canto Two : many verses, with or without Chāyā and partly intact and partly mutilated, from the Third Canto are added there in a strange disorder which covers pp. 43-54 of the transcript and which must have resulted from the confusion of leaves in the original. These additions are noted
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