[South Indian Sanskrit MS 198, Sanskrit MS 14] Madhyamabhāga

Madhyamabhāga

Language – Sanskrit

Date – [1800?]
Palm leaf; 6 lines on a folio; ff.169-170 blank; wooden covers. Manuscript consists of the Madhyamabhāga of the Hemakūṭakhaṇḍa of the Bhāradvājasaṃhitā of the Ādimahā-Purāṇa. For another copy of this work, see Ind. Off. No.3698, pp.1387b-, with which the text seems to agree closely. F. W. Thomas, in the Winternitz catalogue entry, notes that the colophons are in almost literal agreement, though there are many differences between the texts. For further details, including where the Adhyāyas end and names of chapters in the Hariścandropākhyāna, see Winternitz catalogue entry. Text ends: tataḥ paraṃ tanubhṛta sidhido braṃhmanirbharaḥ | mahato mālyavacchṛṃgās te pataṃty ūḍhaśīkaraḥ. mu (= 20-21 of the India Office MS., ashy. XXVII. F. W. Thomas notes that for Ṣaṇmukha (see Ind. Off. ashy. 9) this MS. seems always to read Manmukha, which he suggests may be due to the similarity of akṣaras ma and ṣa in the Telugu script. On the last 2 folios is written ‘śrī Virūpākṣa śrī’ [x 2] ‘śrī Rāmāya namaḥ’ ‘śrī [x 3] śakadāḍaya namaḥ’ and a few other scrawls. At the beginning of ashy. XXXIX, after a blank half folio, there is a fresh beginning with the words ‘śrī Virūpākṣāya namaḥ’. South Indian Sanskrit / Sanskrit Manuscript Collection. See ’A catalogue of South Indian Sanskrit manuscripts (especially those of the Whish Collection) belonging to the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland’ by M. Winternitz, with an appendix by F. W. Thomas (London: RAS, 1902) p.267-269. Go to http://tinyurl.com/j3tkdwj for a digital copy of this catalogue. Provenance unknown. Text in Sanskrit; Telugu script; Thomas notes that it is “fairly well written, but often difficult to read and showing many corrections. The leaves are numbered as far as 130, though even here with troublesome erasures and corrections. As far as f.56 the writing is in three columns; at that point commences a rather larger hand, traversing the full width of the leaves.