1875.] Babu Kajendralal— Report on Sanskrit MSS. 69 



Jupiter's cycles. The name of the place where the copy is made and that 

 of the party for whom it is made are also occasionally given, hut never the 

 name of the reigning sovereign. A protestation sometimes occurs at the end, 

 saying that the copyist has faithfully followed his text and is not responsible 

 for errors. 



Size Sfc. of palm-leaf MSS. — 14. Palm-leaf MSS. are from the nature 

 of the material narrower and longer, and they are never ruled or folded, the 

 veins of the leaf serving the purpose of ruling. A square space is usually 

 left blank in the middle of the page, and in the centre of it a round hole is 

 punched for a string to pass through, for the purpose of tying the codex in 

 a bundle. Very long MSS. have two such spaces and holes. The Tantras 

 enjoin that the holes should always be punched, never cut with a knife, or 

 produced by burning. The reason for this rule is obvious, as cutting or 

 burning produces a hole with jagged sides which are very apt to catch the 

 string and cause a split in the leaf. A clean-punched hole allows the string 

 to slide freely, and produces no injury. In Bengal some very old 

 paper codices have the square blank space in the middle, but none has any 

 hole bored in it. In the North Western Provinces the blank space does 

 not occur, and both in Bengal and the North West the leaves are piled in a 

 bundle between two boards, and then tied round in a piece of coarse cloth. 

 Where the codices are small, with a view to economy, several of them are 

 usually tied in one bundle, and this causes much trouble in finding out any 

 particular work when needed. For boards the spatha of the betel-nut tree, 

 which yields a thick, coreaceous, pliant substance, is often substituted in 

 the eastern districts, and they are found to be very useful, as they are not 

 liable to wai-p, crack, or be attacked by insects. 



Mode of preserving MSS. — 15. In the houses of rich men a dry ma- 

 sonry room is generally assigned to MSS. where a sufficient number of 

 shelves or chests are provided for the storage of the codices. But care is 

 not always taken to open the bundles every now and then, and to expose 

 them to the sun for a few hours. In pukka monasteries, the same mode of 

 preservation is also adopted, and there being always some monk or other 

 who can read, and who takes a delight in reading, the bundles are more 

 frequently opened, aired and dried. The Jains are very particular in 

 this respect, and in their monasteries great care is usually taken of their 

 literary treasures. The case is, however, very different as regards the 

 Toles of Bengal. The men who own them are, with rare exceptions, very 

 poor ; they live in low, damp, thatched huts of the meanest description ; 

 they have no means of buying proper cabinets for their manuscripts ; and 

 their time is so occupied by their professorial duties, and frequent perigrin- 

 ations to distant places for earning the means of their livelihood, that 

 they cannot often look after their books. The receptacle they usually 



