Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts- Dharmasastra Manuscripts (An Old and Rare Book)

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Foreword The original Government Collection of Sanskrit Manu- scripts deposited in the Deccan College during the 19th century was transferred to the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute when that Institute was founded in 1917. When the Deccan College was revive 1 in 1939 as a foundation for research and post-graduate study in Linguistics, Archaeology and Sociology, a new collection was started primarily through gifts received from different parties and to a certain extent by a search initiated by members of the staff, particularly Dr. R. G. Harshe, the first Registrar of the Institute. This collection now contains over 10,000 manuscripts covering different aspects of Sanskrit literature. A hand-list was prepared several years ago and steps had been taken to prepare descriptive catalogues when under a project approved by the Ministry of Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs, Government of India, catalogues of Indian manuscripts were to be prepared according to a set form approved by a special Committee appointed by the Ministry, and the Deccan College was among several institutions invited to seek the advantage of having their catalogues published under this scheme. The work of preparing the descriptive catalogues of these manuscripts has been undertaken by different members of the staff of the Deccan College and the present volume is published with the help of the grant-in-aid for publication of catalogues and manuscripts given by the then Ministry of Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi. It is expected that similar volumes will follow each other at short intervals and cover the entire range of the present collection of manuscripts.

Introduction The total number of manuscripts described in this Vedic section is 280. Most of the manuscripts described here belong to the Dikshit collection, only 33 being those which belong to the Deccan College Collection, 12 to the Data collection and 1 to the Kesari-Maratha collection. Among the various names of the owners, which occur in these manuscripts, we find mentioned Govind Dikshit (No. 64), and Lakshminarayan Dikshit (No. 190), and Gangadhar Datar (No. 245).

The subject-wise distribution of the manuscripts is as follows: Rgveda Samhita and Pada, 202 manuscripts; Taittiriya Samhita and Pada, 21 manuscripts: Aitareya Brahmana, 15 manuscripts; Taittiriya Brahmana, 1 manuscript; Ninha- uttara-tapanaya-Upanisad, 1 manuscript; Carapavyuha, 16 manu- scripts; Rgveda, 10 manuscripts; miscellaneous of the type of the commentaries or anukramanis, 14 manuscripts. It may be noted that in the manuscripts of the Taittiriya Sakha, the divisions of the text are called Astakas and not Kandas. Among the Rg- vidhana manuscripts, only two (Nos. 260, 261) agree with the published text of the work of that name. The rest (Nos. 262-267 and also perhaps 268-269) show quite a different text. Among these latter, No. 262 is called Urhad Rgvidhana and is ascribed to Baudhayana. The rest, which do not differ from this, are called simply Rgvidhana and are ascribed to Saunaka. It would be worthwhile to publish a critical edition of both the versions of the Rgvidhana.

**Contents and Sample Pages**