Bhandarkar Report 1904
BHANDAKAR REPORT on the search of Prākṛit and Saṃskṛit manuscripts 1904 [63 of 69]
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63. Out of all the collections I examined during my tour there were very few — not more than half a dozen — that were in such good order that any required manuscript or even bundle could be picked out at once. Probably time is no consideration with the owners or keepers of them, who are mostly of the old type of Hindus. Probably also most of the manuscripts remain unused from year's end to year's end, and those few that are frequently wanted are kept ready to hand. In one place I found that the owner of a big collection who is him- self a Shastri knew far less of the manuscripts in his possession than another friend of his who had made greater use of his library. But what was more painful to see was that the manuscripts in other respects also were not well looked after. They were too frequently tied up loosely in mere rags and the bundles were thickly covered with dust. One gentleman who had experience of one place only attributed this to the poverty of the owners who could not afford to buy the necessary quantity of cloth, and he seriously asked me to recommend to the State officials that the owners who were mostly dependants of the State should be presented with pieces of cloth for their manuscripts. But that would, I believe, entail provision for periodical inspection to see that the pieces were not put to other uses and similar vexatious arrangements not worth the trouble. Besides, the owners of the ill-kept manuscripts were not always poor. I noticed one who wore a thick bracelet of gold on one of his wrists. The explanation must, in my opinion, be sought for in that character of individual men on account of which in the case of printed books also it is found that one looks carefully after them and another throws them about carelessly. Under the circumstances the manuscripts like printed books must in the course of time come to be lost. But in the case of the latter other copies can supply the place of those lost. In the case of manuscripts, however, one cannot exactly fill the place of another, even if it should be far superior to it on the whole. Then again, when manuscripts come down by inheritance to anyone who does not care for them, the collection begins to gradually dwindle. That would, however, not matter much should the manuscripts that disappear find their way to per- sons who would value them. But from a sense of shame or for some other cause the inheritor does not like to sell them openly. Then they meet with a fate printed books do not. Printed books are sold to Memons or dealers in second- hand books and are picked up by others from their stalls. But the manuscripts which consist of loose leaves are sold, as so much waste paper, to grocers and sweetmeat sellers, and the leaves part to meet no more. There have been instances in Poona and elsewhere of complete manuscripts seen and picked up by chance from sweetmeat shops before the leaves had dispersed. Such destruction only manuscripts preserved and jealously guarded in Jaina and Hindu temples and in State libraries seem the most likely to escape.
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