44 Address. [Feb. 



metres cannot be explained on the rhythmical theory, but must have 

 followed an entirely different line ; and that it cannot be fully known 

 \\ hat this line was until Ave acquire a more accurate knowledge of Indian 

 Music. Mr. C. B. Clarke's paper on the theory of Indian Music, origi- 

 nally published in the Calcutta Review, is doubtless familiar to many 

 members of this Society, and was, I believe, the fh*st attempt made to 

 treat the question scientifically. 



(4) A paper by A. Conrady in the Journal of the German Oriental 

 Society, containing the grammar and examples of the Newari language. 



(5) A paper in the same Journal by Prof. Th. Noldeke, on the 

 texts of the Book of the Ten Vazirs, especially on an old Persian version 

 of it. 



Search for Sanskrit MSS. — Professor Aufrecht's Oatalogus Cata- 

 logorum leads me to refer to the work that has recently been done in 

 the search for Sanskrit MSS., for which purpose a liberal grant has been 

 for some years made by the Government of India. I am indebted 

 to Pandit Hara Prasad Shastri for the following account of the work 

 of the last few years. 



The collection of Sanskrit MSS. and the publication of their cata- 

 logues by eminent men like Sir William Jones, Colonel Mackenzie, 

 Horace Hayman Wilson, Colebrooke and others, created an interest in 

 these MSS. in Europe from the time that Sanskrit first became known to 

 scholars about a hundred years ago. Every one in India who had a taste 

 for Sanskrit collected MSS., and gave or sold them to one or other of the 

 numerous libraries in Europe. But about 25 years ago it was found 

 that with the decadence of Native States, the encouragement given by 

 tin- Government of India to English education, and the consequent 

 loss of the influence which Brahmans exercised over the Hindu popula- 

 tion, Sanskrit learning was falling into neglect, tols began rapidly to 

 disappear, and collections of MSS. remained uncared for in the posses- 

 sion of men avIio could not appreciate their worth. A great pandit 

 dies; his son, an educated gentleman with no knowledge of Sanskrit, 

 takes some care of the MSS., but merely as a memento of his learned 

 tat her ; wraps them up carefully, dries them in the sun after the rainy 

 season, and preserves them in the best room in his family dwelling 

 boose. Bui Ins tastes are different, his children are educated under 

 widely different circumstances, and these consider the MSS. as mere 

 lumber, which occupy space where they could conveniently put a 

 ™d™ or a chair. Assoonas they come into possession, they relegate 

 the MSS. to the lumber room, the cook-x*oom or the cow-shed, where young 

 girls taught by the Zenana Mission use them as waste-paper; the 

 plauks being utilised to kindle fire for cooking. This state of things 



