and Auxiliary Royal Asiatic Society. 



179 



At a Meeting of the Managing Committee of the Madras Literary Society 

 and Auxiliary of the Royal Asiatic Society, held on Saturday evening, 

 the 8th June, 1844. 



Read the following communication from the Secretary to Government 

 in reply to the application of the Society of the 23d September last. 



No. G, of 1844. 

 Our Governor in Council at Fort St. George. 

 I. We now reply to your letter in ittte de- 

 partment, dated the 12th October, No. 22, of 

 1843, para. 2, in which you have forwarded a 

 communication from the Madras Literary So- 

 ciety and Auxiliary of the Royal Asiatic Society 

 of London, suggesting the transmission to that 

 Presidency of a number of manuscripts in the 

 languages of Southern India, now in our Li- 

 brary, and believed to form the most valuable 

 part of the collection of the late Colonel Colin 

 Mackenzie, for the purpose' of having transla- 

 tions of the most interesting of them effected, under the supervision of 

 the Society, and published, either in their own Journal, or in that of the 

 Parent Society. 



2. The Society is in error in supposing that the manuscripts in ques- 

 tion, ever formed part of the Mackenzie collection. Such of the manu- 

 scripts, collected by Colonel Mackenzie, as were original statements, and 

 reports, were sent from Calcutta to Madras, many years ago; such manu- 

 scripts as belonged to the literature of the Deckhin were catalogued, and 

 described by Professor Wilson, with the assistance of the Natives on 

 Colonel Mackenzie's establishment, and are in our Library, but they are 

 not the books intended. The manuscripts, to which the application re- 

 fers, are those which were partly catalogued by Mr. C. P. Brown, of the 

 Madras Civil Service, when in England, as stated by him in the note, 

 accompanying the letter from the Secretary to the Literary Society of 

 Madras, and were collected chiefly by the late Dr. Leyden, whose Oriental 

 Manuscripts were purchased by the Company. They are written in the 

 languages and characters, current in the South of India, and have been 

 only imperfectly catalogued, many of them being ill written, in bad 

 condition, and not easily decyphered, even by European Scholars, ac- 

 quainted with the languages in Avhich they are composed. 



3. As also proficiency in the Tamil, Canarese, and Telugu languages, 

 is not common in this country; and manuscripts in those languages rarely 

 find readers, if there be any thing of value in the works, it will be di§= 



Public Department. 

 No. 435. 



Extract from the Mi- 

 nutes of Considtation, da- 

 ted 3d May, 1844. 



Ordered that a copy of 

 this dispatch be furnished 

 to the Committee of the 

 Madras Literary Society 

 and Auxiliary of the Roy- 

 al Asiatic Society in Lon- 

 don, with reference to their 

 Secretary's letter of the 23d 

 September, 1843. 



