Catalogue of the Tod Collection of Indian Manuscripts in the Possession of the Royal Asiatic Society

Extract

During his eventful career in India, lasting from 1799 to 1823, Colonel James Tod collected a large number of manuscripts in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Hindi, and Gujarati. Of these the most valuable were the many historical writings— regular narratives in both prose and verse, panegyrical compositions, pedigrees, and other miscellanea—from which he derived most of the information embodied in his great work, the Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan. Most of them are in Hindi; a very few are in Sanskrit. Another group, which is not much less important, consists of metrical tales in old Hindi and Gujarati dialects, chiefly illustrative of Jain doctrine, together with some prose stories. There are also other Jain writings, viz. a few scriptures in Prakrit, commentaries upon them in Sanskrit and vernaculars, hagiological poems in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and vernaculars, and various doctrinal works. Finally there are many works representing various phases of Indian culture, e.g. Sanskrit classics and books on grammar, lexicography, astronomy, and astrology, vernacular writings on divination and farriery, etc. These manuscripts passed into the possession of the Royal Asiatic Society as a legacy from Colonel Tod, who for several years acted as the Society's librarian, and form the basis of the collection described in the following Catalogue.