Concise Descriptive Catalogue of The Persian Manuscripts

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The present Catalogue contains a concise description of the Intgrr part of the Persian Manuscripts preserved in the library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, namely those belonging to the so- called Society's collection. The MSS, described, although not in a very good state of preservation, form one of the largest and most interesting collections in India.

Various unfavourable circumstances have prevented the Cata- logue from having been made as complete and exhaustive as I would have desired with regard to details of numerous rare works. mentioned in it, and from attaining that degree of perfection which the importance of the library would have warranted.

The circumstance which has most handicapped the work, and which was entirely beyond my control, was the shortness of time allotted for the compilation and the printing, which together have barely occupied two and a half years. This is unquestionably an ex- tremely short period considering the size of the collection, which contains 1501 volumes, or about 2500 separate items. It is, at the same time, a very difficult one to catalogue, because many volumes contain not one work, but numbers of minor, often fragmentary pamphlets. notes, etc., not rarely the productions of almost illiter- ate authors. This category of MSS. always requires special atten- tion and a great deal of time, often spent without any success in attempts at their proper identification, dating, and the gathering of references.

The time limit imposed inevitably compelled brevity in the descriptive notes, and precluded any possibility of extensive ori- ginal research. In addition, reference material, so vital to catalo- guing, was deplorably deficient in Calcutta.

In spite of these and other drawbacks, the principal aim of this Catalogue,-which is to convey an adequate idea of the contents of the collection in order to render it as a whole accessible to every student.-has, I hope. been sufficiently attained. Every item of the material, however concisely described, is specified and made traceable. An attempt has been made to give more detailed descriptions of all rare works which are of importance in their respective sections of Persian literature and which had not hitherto been described in other catalogues. I express my hope that scholars who have sufficient leisure will contribute studies and monographs on Manuscripts which they may find deserving of their interest, and which have not been described in detail in the present Catalogue.