Report. xv ii 



may briefly remind the Council that the result of the last ten years' 

 means and opportunities amounts to the publication of the 4th Volume 

 and the Index of the Mahabharat, — the Shuraya-ul-Islam, — the 

 Istillihat Sufeyah, — and the Tawarikh i Nadiri, — (each consisting of 

 one volume) ; unless indeed in addition to these we claim the very 

 questionable merit of having patronized from the Oriental Fund, sundry 

 other works undertaken on private speculation. 



The Society at the beginning of the present year, feeling very sensi- 

 bly its past neglect, adopted stringent measures to prevent the future 

 misapplication of this Fund ; and in compliance with the understood 

 wishes of the Court of Directors, resolved to commence. immediately 

 the publication of the Vedas. This important work was accordingly 

 entrusted to the management of Dr. Roer, with every prospect of its 

 being conducted in a manner creditable alike to himself and to the 

 Society, under whose auspices he laboured. But scarcely had some 

 little progress been made, when the views of the Society were frustrated 

 by the recent resolution of the Hon'ble Court to publish these venera- 

 ble works in England under the superintendence of Professor "Wilson and 

 Dr. Max. Muller ! So that at the end of a year since the Society bestir- 

 red itself to redeem its lost time, and after many months of unwearied 

 exertion on the part of Dr. Roer, our gratuitous, but able and willing 

 labourer in the field assigned him, we find ourselves no further advanced 

 than before, and more than ever liable to the withdrawal of the grant so 

 long continued under circumstances but little calculated to elicit the 

 approbation of the munificent donors. 



Under these circumstances, and especially at the present season, when 

 our arrangements are about to undergo revision at the annual meeting, 

 I beg leave, with great deference, to lay before the Council a plan for 

 the publication of Oriental works in future, which after much consider- 

 ation, and much discussion with parties well qualified to form an opi- 

 nion, I am inclined to think will prove the best means of accomplishing 

 the objects for which the Grant was originally bestowed. My proposition 

 is briefly this : That the Government grant, instead of being allowed to 

 lie any time idle and accumulate, should be expended monthly, in the 

 regular publication of a fasciculus, or livraison, consisting of the whole 

 or a portion of some Oriental Work, printed uniformly with the Journal, 

 to which indeed it would form a most appropriate supplement or com- 



