384 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal [Nov., 1914. 



ing to the strict principles of modern philology. And he 

 should reside in the very country, whereof the bardic and 

 historical literature is to be searched into and published, so that 

 he may be able to make himself acquainted with local condi- 

 tions and utilize all the helps that can be derived from local 

 scholars and manuscript collections. He should have two assist- 

 ants : a Marwari Pandit and a Carana, the former to help him 

 in the reading of prose chronicles, in the study of modern 

 Marwari and general matters, and the latter to help in the read- 

 ing of bardic poems and the interpretation of Diiigala. Since 

 the assistance of the Carana will not be required continuously, 

 the editor should manage things so as to have him on assist- 

 ance-duty on certain days, say about fifteen days in a month, 

 and free during the remaining days when he could be sent on 

 tour to make a search for the manuscripts with the Caranas 

 in the villages. He would thus work both in the editing and in 

 the searching department, but in the latter his sphere of work 

 would include only the Caranas, his fellow- brothers, who 

 could never be successfully approached except by a Carana 

 himself. For similar reasons the task of approaching the 

 Bhatas and all other kinds of bards and possessors of manu- 

 scripts, should be imposed on a Bhata or other inferior bard, 

 and since he will have to carry on the exploration village by 

 village and be permanently on touring duty, this man must be 

 considered as the chief travelling agent in the search. He should 

 also be entrusted with the search for inscriptions, copper-plates 

 and any kind of antiquarian remains that may be of help to 

 history, — a task which he can easily carry out contemporaneously 

 with the search for manuscripts. The results of the search as 

 carried on by these two travelling agents 5 the Bhata and the 

 Carana, cannot be expected, of course, to be anything definitive, 

 but only preliminary to a more careful investigation to be made 

 by the editor into the materials thus brought to his knowledge- 

 In the case of rich and important collections, he would go to 

 see them himself, in the case of small ones he would try to 

 obtain a loan. The first object of the search will be the 

 publication of a Descriptive Catalogue, in which all manuscript 

 materials are collected and classified, and the purchase of as 

 many manuscripts — in no case very many — as can be secured. 

 The discoveries of antiquarian records should be made public 

 in the Bulletin , as suggested above. One more employee 

 will be necessary for the searching department, namely a 

 copyist. Manuscripts of great philological value or unique 

 manuscripts, which cannot be secured and might get lost in 

 the course of time, should be copied to preserve them from 

 possible destruction. The copyist need not be a scholar, on 

 the contrary must not be a scholar, as a scholar generally makes 

 the worst copyist, but should be well acquainted with old 

 manuscripts and be directly trained by the editor to work on 



