Panini : his place in Sanskrit literature : an investigation ... - Cristo Raul

^ MANAVA-KALPA-Sl/TRA.
A discovery of this ritual work, which had thus remained
latent under a wrong designation, would at all times have
been welcome to those engaged in the study of Yaidik litera-
ture ; it gained in interest from the facts that a doubt had
been raised, I do not know on what grounds, whether a copy
of it had survived, and that a commentary of Kumarila on
these Sutras, had, so far as my knowledge goes, never yet
been spoken of in any European or Sanskrit book.
It was but natural, nnder these circumstances, that I should
think of making the knowledge I had obtained generally
available, by editing this manuscript ; but, to my utter dis-
appointment, I soon perceived, after having examined it in
detail, that it belonged to that class of written books, the
contents of which may be partially made out and partially
guessed, but which are so hopelessly incorrect that a seeming
restoration of their text Avould require a greater amouiit of
conjecture than could bo permitted to an editor, or might be
consistent with the respect due to the author of the work itself.
When, therefore, another copy of the Manava-Ealpa-Sutras
with the Commentary of Kumarila was not to be procured, and
A^'hen I began to surmise that the volume in the possession of
the East India House was a unique copy of this rare work, I
resolved, with the consent of Professor Wilson, to have a fac-
simile of it lithographed and printed. This resolution was
strengthened by the consideration that even a correct text of
these Sutras would be serviceable only to the few scholars
who are familiar with this branch of the oldest Sanski'it literature,
and that they would be able, by the aid they might get from
other existing Sutras on the Yaidik ritual, and the Mimansa
works, to turn to account even this incorrect manuscript, in
spite of the many doubts it leaves. It was strengthened, too,
by the conviction I entertain, that unique manuscripts, or those
which are rarely met with,— every existing copy of which
consequently possesses a literary value much exceeding that of
ordinary manuscripts,—aught to be saved from possible casualties
by mechanical contrivances, the most practical of which, as