1840.] 



Notice regarding MSS, in England. 



291 



gams makes each party avoid mentioning the authors respected by their 

 opponents. This renders a comparison of dates far from easy. The 

 Jaina chronologists mentioned in the former essay have perhaps record- 

 ed the true dates of the history : and the precise antiquity of the purun 

 is interesting to those who cultivate Telugu literature ; because the 

 peculiarities of the dialect give reason to believe it the most ancient 

 existing composition in the language. 



POSTSCRIPT. 



Those who wish well to the literature of India will hail with pleasure 

 a notification which appears in the Foreign Quarterly Review^ regarding 

 a society now founded in London " for the advancement of Oriental 

 Literature by the publication of the Original Texts'' With the Eakl 

 OF MuNSTER as President, and Professor Wilson as Vice President, 

 there is every prospect of its leading to results highly desirable. The 

 Devanagari texts may be best published in Bengal or in Europe : that 

 type being foreign to Southern India. But the Telugu, Canarese and 

 Tamil printing (including Sanscrit publications in those alphabets) to 

 be rapidly, cheaply, and correctly executed, should be ordered to be done 

 at Madras and other towns, where we find an abundance of presses well 

 supplied with the requisite types,- and where there is no want of skilful 

 compositors who are themselves natives. 



As noticed in a former page of this Journal* it is much to be re- 

 gretted that an ample collection of native literature, more than a thou- 

 sand volumes, in the Telugu, Tamil and Canarese characters, should be 

 removed from their proper sphere and lie useless in London ; part being 

 at the India House and part at the Roy al Asiatic Society's Library ; 

 while at Madras we often are at a loss for the aid they might afford. 

 In those museums I found some volumes (treated as mere curiosities) 

 which if transferred to Madras might do solid service to Indian history 

 and literature. Regarding remote times, the documents are not want- 

 ing : books of a date earlier than the Mahomedan invasion are easily 

 found. But the bigotry of the Mahomedans and the indifference of the 

 English rendered the survival of the more modern native literature 

 precarious, and several works of merit may now depend (as did the 

 writings of Ph^deus) on a single tnanuscript. Because during these 

 ages of neglect a volume however excellent, was but seldom transcrib- 



* Madras_Journal, No. 36, page 177, 



