XVI 



Annual Report. f February. 1917. 



The Bureau of Information. 

 A number of queries from various parts of India were an- 

 swered during the year under review. The most important 



matters dealt with were these : — 



Sir Sankaran Nair, who has two chests full of ancestral MbS., 

 sent a specimen for decipherment, as he had been unable to 

 find anybody to read them. On a very close examination it 

 appeared to be in the now defunct vattelluttu character, to have 

 been composed in the Old Tamil language, and to have been 

 copied in the 15th or 16th century ad. The work is the Sixth 



Book of the Ramayana. 



Another important query came from the Calcutta Corpo- 

 ration, as to the best method of disposing of the ashes in the 

 cremation ground. All the MSS. on the subject of cremation 

 were read and a reply was sent. 



From a remote village came a question as to how to reconse- 

 crate a Phallic Emblem of Siva, made impure by human excreta. 

 The proper advice was given after consulting standard and 

 authoritative works. 



Many letters came from Alwar, the most important of them 

 relating to the connection of Gopichand of Bengal and his uncle 

 Bhathavi with Bhurthase's grave at Alwar. 



Sir Edward Gait sent a number of inscriptions, of which 



seven have been read. 



Some inscriptions came from the office of the Commissioner 

 of Rajshahi and a query from the Commissioner of Tirhut. 



Sanskrit Manuscript Search and Catalogue, 



The staff was engaged in preparing descriptions of MSS. and 

 in passing the specimen volume through the Press. All pur- 

 chase of MSS. has been stopped by order of the Council, in 

 order to facilitate the publication of the catalogue. 



The specimen volume of the Catalogue of MSS. in the 

 Government Collection is nearly ready. The number of MSS. 

 described came to 8.300, the year's work being the description 

 of 532 works. 



Manuscript 



During the year only one Persian MS., entitled Sikandar- 

 Xama, elegantly written and illustrated, was purchased on 

 behalf of the Government of India. As in 1915, the efforts ot . 

 the Officer -in-Charge of the ; arch were directed rather to as- 

 certaining the existence and whereabouts of rare and interesting 

 MSS. than to purchasing them, if in good keeping. Accordingly 

 Maulavi Hafiz Nazlr Ahmad has prepared notices of 461 rare and 

 important Arabic and Persian MSS. found in various libraries 

 in [ndia. Notices of 152 Arabic MSS., with an introductory 

 description of a number of Indian libraries, are already in type 

 and await publication in the Proceedings of the Society- 



