1896.] Dr. R. Rost — Obituary notice of 51 



The India Office Library practically owes its existence in its pre- 

 sent form to Reinliold Rost, and even after his somewhat enforced 

 retirement in 1893, he continued to do much useful woik in an unoffi- 

 cial capacity for the institution in which the real interest of his life 

 was centred. " Above all things " says the Athenxiom " the India 

 Office Library became under him, as the Asiatic Society was before, 

 the natural and regular resort of all students of the East, old and 

 young who might be visiting London ; and they could not come away 

 without feeling that they had profited by his profound knowledge, 

 ready counsel, and genial sympathy." 



Dr. Rost wrote little under his own name. His first publication 

 was an Essay on the Hindu Sources of Burmese law (1850), and he 

 also compiled a catalogue of the palm-leaf MSS. in the Imperial Library 

 at St. Petersburg, 1852). He however was the hidden source of much 

 that has issued from other men inspired by his learning and encourage- 

 ment, he was also the editor of H. H. Wilson's selected works, of Brian 

 Hodgson's Collected Papers, and of four volumes of Miscellanies 

 relating to Indo-China. 



In conjunction with M. Nicholas Triibner, whose valued friend 

 he was, a series of "Simplified Grammars " was planned and edited by 

 Dr. Rost 



Public recognition of his vast attainments came in the form of 

 honorary degrees from vaiious universities, Edinburgh conferring upon 

 him the LL.D., while Oxford made liim an M.A. Honoris Causa, a 

 distinction attainable by very few. Prussia, Russia and Sweden gave 

 him decorations and in 1888 he was appointed a Companion of the Most 

 Eminent Order of the Indian Empire. He married in 1863, and leaves 

 a son who is a sculptor of eminence. The bust of Mr. Tawney now 

 standing in the vestibule of the Senate House of the Calcutta Univer- 

 sity is ample testimony for all here to the skill of Reiuhold Rost's son 

 who executed it ; none who have seen it, and knew the original, can fail 

 to be struck with the fidelity of the portrait in marble. Dr. Rost was 

 elected to the Honorary Membership of this our Society in March 1894, 

 and by his death we feel that our Society has lost one of the most 

 distinguished of those men whom it has been its pride to enrol among 

 its Members in acknowledgment of their life-devotion to the sacred 

 cause of scientific advancement, and in testimony of the value placed 

 by this Society ujion the results of their life's work. 



The Philological Secretary also read the following report, dated 29th 

 November, 1895, submitted by Dr. G. A. Grierson to the Government of 

 Bengal, General Department, on his investigation at Bodh-Gaya. 



