506 Analysis of the Mackenzie Manuscripts. [June, 



very valuable, as a contribution towards the history of the Tanjore 

 country during the whole of the 15th and 16th centuries, and as such 

 I strongly recommend its full translation. 



Professor Wilson has entered this manuscript in his Descriptive 

 Catalogue^ Vol. I. p. 310, Art. XIII. He mentions two copies, but I 

 have only met with one* and that one is complete. The notice of the 

 contents which is given in the catalogue, is entirely wrong ; and if it 

 do not proceed from a mistake in having classed together two different 

 works as two copies merely of the same work the error is otherwise un- 

 accountable. With the title of Tanjawur raja Cheritra, the notice 

 entirely relates to the viceroys or princes of Madura ; of which the 

 account given is correct, as far as it proceeds, and must necessarily 

 have been deduced from some other authority ; but it is entirely incor- 

 rect as any exhibition of the contents of this manuscript. I am however 

 too sensible of the difficulties attending these researches to consider the 

 error as any otherwise than unintentional, and if the native assistants of 

 Colonel Mackenzie gave to Professor Wilson so false a representa- 

 tion of the contents of this manuscript (being moreover Telugu brah- 

 mans by birth) they alone are inexcusable. I had made my own 

 abstract before seeking out the document in the catalogue, and com- 

 paring the two notices. 



4. — Tanjawur Charitra, for an account of 'Tanjore,) No. 121. 

 Countermark 316. 



The above is the English title on the cover, and a Telugu title on 

 the other cover is Tanjawur rajalu purvottaram, or an ancient record 

 of the kings of Tanjore. Both these titles are wrong. On a palm-leaf 

 inside, the book is entitled " an ornamented poetical acount of the four 

 gates of the fort of Tanjore" This title fully and accurately describes 

 the contents. It contains merely exaggerated descriptions of the fou r 

 gates ; with such inventions connected therewith, as are natural to the 

 imagination of a native poet. By consequence, whatever may be its 

 value as a poem, it is worthless in any historical point of view. There 

 is a very slight deficiency at the end of the first section — (on the first 

 gate) — apparently of a few stanzas : for the rest of the manuscript is 

 complete ; and, though old, yet it is in tolerably good preservation. At 

 the end there is a short poem appended, containing praises of Vishnu; 

 so much may suffice for this book. 



Note. — I do not find this manuscript entered in the Descriptive 

 Catalogue, as a distinct work ; and therefore conjecture, that it must have 

 * See the followiug article. 



