Notices of Sanskrit Manuscripts
by Rajendralala Mitra | 1871 | 921,688 words
These pages represent a detailed description of Sanskrit manuscripts housed in various libraries and collections around the world. Each notice typically includes the physical characteristics, provenance, script, and sometimes even summaries of the content of the Sanskrit manuscripts. The collection helps preserve and make accessible the vast herit...
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PREFACE. ix command of Raja Gopimohana by combining the Sutras of Mugdhabodha, Sarasvata and Kalapa. This would be the proper place to treat of two works on spelling; one, Nakaravada, No. 135, by Purusottama Deva and the other, Varnaprakaca, No. 328, by Kanrapura, the minister of Amaramanikya, Raja of Tipperah, at the request of Rajyadhara, the Raja's son. Smrti. There are no original Smrti works in this volume. The modern compilations described in it are mostly written by Bengalis from eleventh century downwards. These compilations may be broadly divided as ancient and modern, Raghunandana's huge work in twenty eight parts being the land-mark of the two. It is therefore necessary to fix the date of this great writer. Tradition makes him a contemporary of Caitanya, who died in 1533. The evidence of the genealogies tends to the same direction, but he quotes Haribhaktivilasa by Gopala Bhatta, a disciple of Caitanya, who survived that great reformer by many decades, and it is said that the Haribhaktivilasa was completed in 1562. Raghunandana's activity therefore may be said to range over the second and third quarters of the sixteenth century. Works written before him and quoted by him will be termed ancient, and those written after him, modern. These modern works are not of much worth. They are mostly either commentaries on various parts of Raghunandana's works, or, handbooks based on these parts. But the ancient works before Raghunandan are of great value. Danasagara, No. 165, by Vallalasena, the famous king of Bengal, has been described by others, but the MS. belonging to Babu Nagendranatha Vasu seems to be more complete and written in a more ancient hand; therefore I have taken pains to have it described again. From the preamble and the epilogue of this long work running over eleven thousand couplets on the subject of making gifts, we learn that Vallala was the son of Vijaya Sena, the brother of Hemanta Sena, that by his own merit he made himself the lord of Gauda; that though he crushed in the battle-field the king of Gauda 2