February, 1910.] Annual Report. 



\xv 



for Government. 



ured 



The majority of manuscripts belong to the families of two 

 well-known Pandits and MS. collectors of Benares. (I) Hari- 

 krsna Vyasa was a Sarasvata Brahmana of the highest distinc 

 tion in the Punjab. He came early in his life to Benares, accom- 

 panying his aged mother, who wanted to lay her bones in the 

 Holy City. His business was to recite Puranas and the Veda nta. 

 He had numerous Sannyasis among his pupils. He was an in- 

 defatigable collector of MSS., and several distinguished Pandits 

 of Benares used to borrow MSS. from his collection. He became 

 a recognised Pandit of his time and died at the ripe age of 

 90 in the year 1894 A.D., leaving a collection of about 3,000 

 MSS. and much house property to his sons, HrslkeSa and 

 Vidyadhara. Vidyadhara sold a part of his share of the 

 paternal collection to the Sanskrit College, Benares, and a part 

 to German and English MS. collectors. HrslkeSa died in .May, 

 1909, and his share has been secured for the Government of 

 India. Pandita Harikrsna Vyasa copied manuscripts himself 

 and employed scribes to copy them. He got some manuscripts 

 from the Caitanya Matha. Many he got from Dhundupani 

 Bhatta, who lived near Kala-Bhairava, and who collected all 

 the manuscripts of twenty different Pandits. But the majority 

 of his manuscripts came from Mannu Bhuiija (a seller of fried 

 grain) who used to advance provisions to indigent students 

 and Pandits on the security of their MSS.; and the forfeiture 

 of these manuscripts enabled him to make a large collection, 

 which he sold to Harikrsna. Harikrsna wrote several tracts in 

 Sanskrit and was never slow in expressing his opinion on the 

 current religious and social topics of the day. 



(II) Laksmfnarayana Kavi was a Bhat Brahmana from 



the Punjab. He was a pupil of Pandita Thakura Datta. He 

 was at Benares for 58 years. He was a poet, and wrote 

 Sanskrit verses with considerable fluency. He died in 1909, 

 aged 80. His business was to recite Saptasati at the temple 

 of Annapurna. He also was a noted Pandita of his time, i id 



a large number of manuscripts from various sources. 

 The copy of the Mahabharata in his collection belonged 

 originally to Sadananda Vyasa, who was the chief expounder 

 of the Puranas at the Vyasa-Pitha at Valujika-Fanls in the city 

 of Benares." During the last quarter of the 18th and the first 

 quarter of the 19th century, Sadananda Vyasa was a very 

 popular expounder of the Puranas, and he acquired much 

 wealth in his profession. He had no son, and Laksmlnaravana 

 Kavi got his manuscripts from his widowed daughter. Many 

 of Sadananda's Sanskrit works are to be found in the Benares 

 Sanskrit College Library. Laksmlnarayana had a widowed 



daughter-in-law, who sold his collection of Sanskrit Manuscripts 

 to the Government of India. 



collected 



