In presenting this volume entitled An Alphabetical Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts Part 1. preserved in the collection of the Manuscripts section of the Orissa State Museum, I am to state that the necessity of compilation of this volume has been felt due to rapid rise in the number of Sanskrit Manuscripts during the last few years.
When the first volume of the Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts of Orissa in the collection of the Orissa State Museum Volume I, Smrti manuscripts was edited by Sri K. N. Mahapatra, the then Curator of the Orissa State Museum and published by the Museum in 1958, the total number of Smrti manuscripts was 257 only. But in this volume an Alphabetical list of the Smrti manuscripts numbering 1297 has been given. Similarly, in a Descriptive Catalogue of Purana (Sanskrit) manuscripts of Orissa dealt in Volume III by Sri K. N. Mahapatra and published in 1962 by the Orissa State Museum, the total number of m manuscripts noticed was 262, whereas the present volume contains an alphabetical list of 487 Purana manuscripts.
So also is the case with Tantra manuscripts. Only 186 manuscripts could be noticed by Sri M. P. Dash, Curator of the Orissa State Museum in the Volume V of the Descriptive Catalogue, published by the Orissa State Museum in 1965, whereas the present number of the Tantra manuscripts listed in this volume is 311. Thus this volume will give a clear picture about the rapid development of the. Manuscripts library of the Museum during the last fifteen years.
Vedic Manuscripts-
The number of the Vedic manuscripts collected by the Museum is not high as the orthodox people who possesses such manuscripts are unwilling to part with them, even though, most of them can not read a single line of such manuscripts, what to speak of understanding the text. But Orissa is the, only land in Eastern India, where Vedic ceremonies were being performed even up to beginning of the present century. Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasada Sastri in his report on the search of the Sanskrit manuscripts carried between 1901-1906 has admitted "In Bengal, Vedic manuscripts are absolutely rare, but not so in Orissa. There are people who still perform Vedic ceremonies and have kept up the Vedic traditions. I have already adverted to the discovery of Sayana's commentary on the Kanva Samhita."
In this connection M. M. Sastri has mentioned the names of great Pandits like Jalesvara Misra, Bhaskara Parivrajaka and Haladhara who wrote valuable commentaries on the Vedic works.
Late Pandit Durgamohana Bhattacharya, Professor of Vedic Language, Literature and Culture, Department of Post Graduate Training and Research, Sanskrit College, Calcutta was fortunate to get a complete manuscript of the Paippalada Sakha of the Atharva Veda from Jagannathpur in P. S of Pipili, Dist. Puri which was not available in any other part of India inspite of thorough search of the last few decades. The first Kanda of this unique vedic work has been published as Calcutta Sanskrit College Research series No. 26 in 1964. There are ten manuscripts, in our collection containing different Archas of the Paippalada Sakha of the Atharva Veda. There are three manuscripts containing the Sayana's Bhasya on the Kanva Samhita of which one is complete in twenty one chapters of second part of this Bhasya.
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