90 



jRepori on the Mackenzie Manuscripts. 



3. iViVa Venpa, a moral poem, No. 177 — Countermark 192. 



The Vevpais a stanza of peculiar, and elegant, structure. Out of one 

 hundred of such stanzas, this manuscript contains seventy oae. 

 The following is a brief indication as to subject. Those who are 

 great are to be cultivated, and honoured; by doing which advanta- 

 ges are acquired : the ignoble or the mean, are not to be attend- 

 ed to, as nothing can be obtained from them, but trifles, or degradation. 

 Illnstration ; if any one look into the den of a lion he M'ill get the ivory 

 tusks of elephants ; but if he search the den of a jackal, he will only 

 find an ass's skin, orsheep^s bones. Things even change their charac- 

 ter according" to usage ; as an osier-bamboo may be wound into the 

 structure of a kingly coronet ; or, if left to grow old, may become a rope 

 dancer's, or mountebank's pole. 



Note. — The book appears a little old, and is slightly injured by in- 

 sects ; though not at present seriously. 



It is entered in Des. Catal. vol. i. p. 231 art. 61. 



4. Niti Venpa (no distinguishing mark or number). 



This is another copy of the above work, on very ordinary palm-leavegy 

 without covers, or other similar mark of belonging to the collection. 

 It has a deficiency of fourteen stanzas, and by its assistance the chasm 

 in the other ropy may be partially, though not wholly, filled up. To 

 edit the work satisfactorily a third copy would be required. 



Nydna sampantar Purdnam, or legend of Sampantar, No 44— Coun- 

 termark 88. 



This production seems to have formed part of a larger book. The 

 leaves are numbered from 150 to 256, and a single leaf, a fragment, 

 of another subject, follows. The book contains 1253 stanzas, on the 

 life and actions of Sampantar^ the famous champion of the Saivas against 

 the Bauddhas at Madura, in the time of king Kuna Pandiyan, after- 

 wards named Sundara Pandiyan, The story has appeared in my ab- 

 stract of the Madura puranam; and also in various preceding papers of 

 these reports. It is needless therefore to enter on it again. 



The manuscript is old ; touched, to a trifling degree by insects, and 

 otherwise injured rather more seriously by the breaking of a few leaves^ 

 hy reason of decay- 



NoTja.— It is entered in Des. Catal. vol. i. p. 203. art, 19. 



