Bhandarkar Report 1904
BHANDAKAR REPORT on the search of Prākṛit and Saṃskṛit manuscripts 1904 [12 of 69]
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12. I now turn to the subject of the examination of the manuscripts themselves. The examination was by no means an easy matter. By far the greater number of the collections 1 saw had no lists made of them. In such cases it was necessary to examine all the manuscripts even for the purpose of getting a general idea of the worth of those collections. This, on account of the peculiar way in which manuscripts are kept, is a very laborious and time-taking process, which can be realized only by those who have had actual experience of it. The manuscripts, which consist of loose leaves, are usually kept tied up in pieces of cloth and each bundle contains a greater or less number of manuscripts according to their size. There is no mark or anything else to show where one manuscript ends and another begins. Should any of the manuscripts be further incomplete, the difficulty of getting at even the title, which is generally given at the commencement and the end of a manuscript, is very great indeed. But even the lists that there were in a few cases were quite worthless. They gave merely the names of the works in a very indefinite and vague way and that often very incorrectly, and hardly any other information besides. From such information it is too frequently impossible to make out whether a particular manuscript is a manuscript of a hitherto unknown or at least rare work or of a work of which copies are "eternal.” So even here it was necessary to examine a large number of manuscripts. The bundles, however, were usually not in order and if a manuscript that was wanted could be got in so many as five minutes it was a wonder. Generally, ten to twenty minutes at least were required to hunt up a particular bundle. Then again whether it was a whole collection that was to be examined or only a few bundles in it, the owner generally insisted upon himself opening each bundle, handing out the manuscripts and, when I had done with them, tying up the bundle before opening another, even if I felt that I could do any or all of these processes much quicker than he. And when it was an old man with shaking hands who did these things or when the owner, unmindful of his visitor, got too closely absorbed in looking at, and poring over, a manuscript that had long been out of sight, it was an exercise in patience to an officer of Government who had been allowed a strictly limited period of time to do his work in. Not unfrequently the most solemn engagements made by the owners of manuscripts were broken as to the time and in a case or two even a marriage and a funeral had their share in causing delays.
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