Bhandarkar Report 1904
BHANDAKAR REPORT on the search of Prākṛit and Saṃskṛit manuscripts 1904 [19 of 69]
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19. Here I examined seventeen collections in all, two of them being pretty big. Nearly half of them were in a very wretched condition and were thickly covered with dust. The others had some sort of tolerable arrangement and were looked after to some extent. The time and labour spent in examining some of the former had been, I afterwards felt, spent in vain. The very old appearance of the manuscripts tempted me to examine them rather carefully. But of all these old manuscripts, which consisted largely of Puranas and many of which bore dates showing that they were three hundred years old or even more, there were to be found fragments only. Naturally I sought for an explanation and I was told of a curious practice obtaining at Dhar of dividing hereditary manuscripts where there are more heirs than one. It was not that each heir took a certain number of complete manuscripts, but that he took a certain number of leaves of each manuscript. Later I heard of a similar instance of division of manuscripts, but fortunately a single one, at Weir near Bharatpur,
[continuation … → … https://www.om-arham.org/blog/view/9541/bhandarkar-report-1904]
