MADRAS JOURNAL 



Of 



LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 



No. 21. —October 1838. 



I. — Fourth Report of Progress made in the Examination of the Mac- 

 kenzie MSS., with an Abstract Account of the Works examined. — ■ 

 By the Rev. William Taylor, Member of the Madras Literary 

 Society y ^c. 



A:~TAMIL. 



Palm-leaf manuscripts. 



I — The Bhagavata-Purana. 



Two copies No 11. — Countermark 17, and No. 12, Countermark 18. 



The court of J anamejaya held at the royal town of Hastinapuri, near 

 the site of modem Delhi, appears to have been the resort of learned men; 

 and these, especially of the order of mystic sages, seem to have been 

 much encouraged and reverenced. The great epic poem of the Mahah- 

 harata (in Tamil styled the Baratham) was according to its own assertion 

 originally recited to him. The Bhagavatam also contains an implied 

 indication of having been written in his reign, though it is stated to have 

 been narrated to his father Paricshit, a short time before his death. Paria 

 shit was the son of Abimanya, who was the son of Arjuna, the hero of- 

 the Mahabharata, and fabled to be the offspring of Indra, the regent of 

 the visible heavens. The era of J anamejaya was at the beginning of 

 the Cali-tjugam', and probably was somewhat prior to the commencement 

 of the Christian era. It does not however follow, of necessity, that the 

 composition of the Bhagavatam was so early ; for though said to be recited' 

 to Paricshit, and recorded in the time of J anamejaya, that may possibly 

 be a fiction of the author, who very likely lived at a much later period. 



