70 Babn Kajendralal — Beport on Sanshrit 3188. [March, 



assign to their MSS. is a bamboo frame placed across the beams of their 

 huts, exposed constantly to the damp emanating from the daily-washed 

 mud floors of their rooms, and occasionally to leakage from ill-made and old 

 thatched roofs, while mice and other vermin have full and free access to 

 them at all times. The mice are particularly destructive, as they not only 

 gnaw cloth, boards and palm-leaves, but by their liquid discharges, rapidly 

 destroy the texture of arsenicised paper. The fact was first brought to my 

 notice by a mukhtear when I was a boy. He asked my permission to put 

 two sheets of fresh-looking, written, stamped paper for a night on the bot- 

 tom of a cage of white mice which were my pets. The permission was gran- 

 ted, and the next morning the papers were taken out, stained and decayed 

 very like old documents, which they were, I then learnt, intended to pass 

 for. I was also told and shown that by careful and repeated washing with a 

 mixture of the fluid discharge of mice with water, paper can be made to assume 

 the appearance of any age that may be desired : the effect produced is not 

 confined to the surface, but is perceptible even in the texture of the paper. 



Gopyists and Copying. — 16. Even as in mediseval Europe monks were 

 the principal copyists of ancient works, so were their congeners, the prin- 

 cipal preservers of Sanskrit literature ia. India during the last ten or fifteen 

 hundred years. Yatis, Sannyasis, Gossains, and their disciples congregated 

 in large Maths, devoted all their leisure hours, the former in composing and 

 the latter in copying, and the monasteries benefited largely by their labours. 

 In the Toles the pupils were, and still are, the principal copyists. In return 

 for the board, lodging and education they receive, free of all charge, from 

 their tutors, they copy all such works as their tutors require, and thus the 

 Toles are enriched. For the public, however, the principal copyists are the- 

 Kayasthas. Old and used-up men of this caste, when no longer fit to earn 

 their livelihood by active exertion, generally betake to copying ancient 

 works for householders and private gentlemen, and the bulk of the MSS. 

 now extant is due to their labours. Poor Brahmans also betake to this co- 

 cupation. Seated on their haunches, with the paper, or palm-leaf, resting 

 on their raised knees, which serve for a table, and the pen and ink procured 

 from materials everywhere available, they ply their vocation without making 

 any outlay, or subjecting themselves to any exertion which would be unsuited 

 to their habits and time of life. The remuneration they formerly derived 

 ranged from one rupee to two. rupees eight annas per thousand s'lokas of 

 thirty-two thousand letters, according to the quality of writing. The rates 

 have now been doubled, owing principally to the demand for copyists being 

 limited, and very few betaking to the profession. As a class, these copyists 

 are men of limited literary knowledge ; but generally speaking, they are 

 faithful to their duty, and reproduce the originals placed before them with 

 fair accuracy. 



