Bull. Ind. Inst. Hist. Med. Vol. XVIII. pp. 75-78

IMPORTANCE OF AND DIFFICULTIESIN THE STUDY OF MANUSCRIPTS

B. RAMA RAO*

ABSTRACT

A complete picture of scientific heritage of India requires a survey and study ofmanuscripts. There are several libraries of manuscripts in India but many areunexplored or even not preserved properly. The lists or catalogues prepared maynot be correct or may not give full information of the actual content of the manus-cript. Sometimes the subject or title or the author may be mistakenly listed. Cursorystudy or editing of manuscripts by persons who are not experts in concerned branchof learning may lead not only to incomplete and erroneous edition but to substitutionof correct words or letters by incorrect ones due to lack of expertise in that branch.Proper preservation of manuscripts and proper maintenance is also stressed.

Ancient Indian literature is mostlypreserved in the form of manuscripts.In South India the practice of preser-ving the knowledge by writing onpalm leaves continued even upto thebeginning of the last century. Fromthe medieval period onwards thetradition of oral transmission ofknowledge of sciences was supple-mented by written material. Thepractice of compilation or composingeven subtle and scientific ideas inverses, which were easy to beremembered was reduced and moreattention was given to the compila-tions and commentaries of already

existing classics or treatises bypreservation of the original materialin the form of script. The change inthe preservation and transmission ofknowledge may be due to thefrequent onslaughts of foreign inva-sions and rule which hampered thesystem of age old practice of trans-mission of knowledge in the form ofqurukut a system. Scholars starteddevoting to preserve the knowledgein manuscripts.

A complete picture of ancientscientific heritage of India can befully achieved only when a survey

.Ass!. Director i/c. Indian Institute of History of Medicine, Hyderabad-500 195.

76

and study of 0111 existing manuscriptsis taken up and completed. Sincethe last one to two centuries manyscholars and institutions devotedthemselves to the collection, preser-vation and study of the manuscripts.Inspite of such untiring effortsby devoted and brilliant scholars. itis unfortunate to note that innumera-ble manuscripts are left untouched orlost or destroyed or still lyingunattended to in some private,individual and public collections. Acomplete door to door survey of allvillages and towns may yield still veryvaluable and rare treatises in anybranch of knowledqe.

There are severaI libraries ofmanuscripts in India. Some are wellmaintained, catalogued and preservedwith due precautions. There aresome other manuscript libraries wherethere are no catalogues or even anylists of manuscripts-classified orunclassified. There are no preserva-tive measures to protect the manu-scripts from damage due to passageof time, pests, white ants etc. I hadthe experience of seeing some manu-scripts in deplorably decaying condi-tion even in Government collections.I could not open some manuscriptsas they were fused together and anyattempt to separate the leaves wouldtransform the leaves into powderform. I could only look at themanuscripts without openinq them.The Government or concerned officesshould rise to the rlccasion and see

Bulletin Ind. Inst. Hist. Med. Vol. XVIII

that the manuscripts are preserved atall costs.

There are lists, catalogues orprinted descriptive catalogues ofsome manuscript libraries. It maynot alwavs be proper for a researchscholar to depend on these lists,catalogues or notes supplied by thecurators or librarians. The scholarswho did the classification, catalo-guing or descriptions were not expertsin all or concerned branches andmany might have completed theprescribed work in a hurry, thoughthe scholars are generally expertsin the common branches of Sanskritlearning like VyakaralW, Nvava andSahitva. They were not experts inScientific subjects like Ayurveda.This is evident in the publication ofBhelasamhita based on a singlemanuscript in Telugu script andpublished by the University of Cal-cutta in 1928 by no less a greatscholar than Mahamahopadhyaya lateAnantakrishna Sastry.

The lists or descriptive cataloguesof manuscripts of libraries are notalways accurate. Sometimes abundle of manuscripts listed as onework may contain more than onework either complete or incomplete.Once I noted a work by a famoussage Bharadva]a mentioned inAyurvedic literature. Since workswritten by or attributed to Bharadv1i.jawere not seen previously. I gotinterested and went to study that

Study of Manuscripts-Rama Rao

palm leaf manuscript. When I madea detailed survey of the manu-script, I found to my surprise, leavesfrom another treatise by a scholarwhose name has not been known tothe Ayurvedic world till then.

Similarly some books may bedifferent from what is mentio ned inthe list or catalogue. I again gotinterested in a title" Satavldhvarnsi "in a manuscript library. I thought itmay be a compilation by a newauthor dealing with the treatment of100 diseases or by 100 prescriptions(yogas). When I examined themanuscript. I found it was a book ofcollection of prescriptions but I couldfind neither the name of the authornor the book. When I reexaminedcarefully there were at the end of ayoga, words 'iti .. tavidhvamsl'<=oneletter before 'ta' was missing. Thescholar thought that it might be 'sa'and gave the title as Satavidnvamsithinking that to be a colophon. whilethe word was only to indicate theend of that prescription. In fact itwas vatavidhvarnsi as is known fromthe lines of the prescription whichpreceded. The word 'Vatavidhvams i'were mistaken as 'Satavidhvamsi'and taken to be title of themanuscript.

While editing several books ofscientific nature much disservice hasalso been done to the works by thescholars, with all respects to theirscholarship and efforts and interest.

77In the early days of the organisationof the manuscript libraries, onlySanskrit scholars were given thework of the editing of even scientifictreatises and due to their non-acqua-intance with the 'paribhasa' severalmistakes occured. Bhelasamhita is avery valuable ancient classic of Ayur-veda and this has come down in afragmentary state to us in the form ofonly single palm leaf manuscript inThanjavur. This was first edited andpublished by no less a great scholarthan Mahamahopadyaya Ananta-krishna Sastry from University ofCalcutta. When the Central Councilfor Research in Ayurveda & Siddhatook up the work of a critical editionof Bhelasamhita. it was astonishinglyfound that the first edition was notpoperly edited due to the non Ayurve-die scholars editing it. Not only seve-ral missing words or letters were notsubstituted by proper substitutes buteven correct readings in the originalmanuscript were replaced by someother substitutes mistakenly due tolack of background of Avurvsdicknowledge.

Another important aspect is themaintenance of manuscript libraries.Unless devoted and competent scho-lars are posted there is always thepossibility of loosing or misplacing orclubbing together of manuscripts. Amanuscript misplaced is a manuscriptlost. Proper amenities are also requi-red to the workers. I would like toquote one example. I copied a ma-

78 Bulletin Ind. Inst. Hist. Me d. Vol. XVIII

nuscript from a Govt. Institution andit was published after a comparativestudy of other manuscripts and prin-ted versions. On the basis of thisprinted work one scholar interestedin the work wrote to the library for a

copy of the manuscript. But themanuscript was not traceable whenhe requesetd for it. The scholar hadto be satisfied with the copy with meonly.

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