1875.] Babu Rajendralal — Report on Sanskrit MSS. 71 



Authenticity of MSS. — 1 7. They rarely attempt to correct the errors 

 and mistakes of the originals, and to exonerate themselves from all charge of 

 tampering the originals, they not un often put a verse at the end of their 

 works, saying, "As he has seen, so has he copied, and the copyist should 

 not be blamed for mistakes." Clerical errors they are certainly liable to, 

 and do commit, but such errors are not numerous. One serious mistake 

 they, however, sometimes commit, — it is that of copying in the body of the 

 text, notes and parallel or remarkable passages which often occur on the 

 margins of old and frequently-read codices, and these consequently appear 

 as parts of the texts in their works, and subsequent copying from their 

 codices perpetuates the interpolation. This is, however, done through igno- 

 rance, and not through any wicked motive. Of fabrications and forgeries, 

 the Mahatmyas and local legends afford ready instances ; but they are due 

 to Pandits, and not to copyists. Corrections made by Pandits when reading 

 are necessarily perpetuated by copyists, and to them is principally due the 

 numerous varce lectiones which are to be met with in Sanskrit writings. 

 This evil has been of late greatly multiplied by incompetent editors, who 

 print texts from solitary MSS., and replace doubtful readings and fill up 

 lacunae by imaginary emendations. With a few praiseworthy exceptions, 

 the publications of the Bengali and Benares presses belong to this class, and 

 they are much less trustworthy than even corrupt MSS. The plasticity of 

 the Sanskrit language admits of even obviously incorrect readings being ex- 

 plained somehow, and the authenticity of the originals is thereby irretriev- 

 ably ruined. The errors of MSS. may be corrected by collation, for though 

 there are many faulty MSS. I have every reason to doubt that there are 

 many falsified texts, but the fabrications in printed books issued by thou- 

 sands cannot be readily detected and exposed. 



With so many causes at work to injure the authenticity of ancient 

 Sanskrit works, and at a time when European Orientalists are so busily em- 

 ployed in tracing interpolations and corruptions which have already taken 

 place, it would be futile to attempt in a report like this, an enquiry at 

 length how far the charge may be sustained ; but this much may be said that 

 the MSS. now extant do not show any sign of dishonest fabrications ; codices 

 from three to four hundred years old, existing in different pai'ts of India, 

 in Bengal, Madras, Bombay and Kas'mir, are so closely similar in their 

 readings, that they produce no suspicion in the mind of their having been 

 tampered with. What happened before that time, it is not necessary for 

 me to guess ; suffice it to say, in the language of Isaac Taylor, that " the 

 habitudes of Eastern nations undergo so little change in the lapse of ages 

 that, probably, these descriptions of things as they are now, would differ 

 little from a similarly graphic account of the same operations, dated a thou- 

 sand years back. Where the arts of life remain in their rude state, all those 

 operations which depend upon them, continue nearly the same." 



