1849.] 



and Auxiliary Royal Asiatic Society. 



377 



To 



The Secretary of the Literary Society, 



SlE, 



The Honorable Court of Directors having been pleased to sanction a 

 temporary allowance not exceeding 250 Rupees per mensem for the ex- 

 amination of the Native MSS. now in the custody of the Society, as 

 communicated to us in the Extract from the Minutes of Consultation of 

 Government of the 5th February last, I think it desirable that the Com- 

 mittee should be made acquainted with what has been done since the 

 date of our last report to Government under date 5th June, 1846. 



In the 11th para, of that document the Sub-Committee promised a 

 further report upon the same subject in which they proposed to attempt 

 a more accurate classification of the works according to their subjects ; 

 being, in fact, the first step towards the preparation of a catalogue raisonne. 



This object has been steadily, though slowly, prosecuted ever since, 

 principally under my superintendence with the limited means at my 

 disposal, consisting of the unemployed moonshees on the Establishment 

 of the College, one of whom is specially attached to me as a Member of 

 the College Board, and occasional aid rendered by the Canarese trans- 

 lator's Establishment, whenever it could be made available for the pur- 

 pose. 



By these means 1103 MSS. have been examined and their contents 

 abstracted, being not quite half the number of those which required to 

 be subjected to such scrutiny, as per accompanying tabular statement. 

 Of the remainder the greater part of the Sanscrit volumes of the Mac- 

 kenzie collection have already been catalogued by Dr. Wilson, and those 

 in the vernacular dialects by the Eev. Mr. Taylor. It now remains for 

 the Committee to determine how these various materials are to be 

 amalgamated into one complete work, showing the character and con- 

 tents of the whole collection, in such a way as to render the books easy 

 of reference, and available for the purposes of literary research. 



The plan proposed by the Sub-Committee was to procure the services 

 of a young officer who had given his attention to the study of the ver- 

 nacular dialects, and showed otherwise an aptitude and taste for such 

 studies. Two young men were then available who seemed well qualifi- 

 ed for the purpose, Lieutenant Frye of the 22d M. N. I. and Lieu- 

 tenant C. D. Grant of the M. IN". L, but both of these, it is feared, are 

 beyond our reach. Unless we can obtain the services of such a qualifi- 

 ed Superintendent, I would propose that the examination of the MSS. 

 should be prosecuted as at present, without incurring much additional 

 expense, until the whole have been abstracted. We could then take 

 into consideration the best means of putting the whole into shape, which 

 is rather a work of arraDgemcnfc and order, than one requiring high lite- 



