Kaula Jnana Nirnaya (Calcutta Sanskrit Series)

II. The date of the Manuscripts.

Judging from the writing and other indications, we have seen that most of the manuscripts are posterior to the 12th century A.D. But the manuscript of the Kaulajñānanirṇaya belongs to an earlier period. According to the late Mahāmahopādhyāya H. P. Śāstrī (Nepal Catalogue II, p. xix)—“the manuscript is written in transitional Gupta character, a character in which the oldest dated manuscript in the Cambridge Catalogue is written. The date of the Cambridge manuscript is 859 A.D.” The present manuscript, therefore, according to him would belong to the middle of the 9th century A.D.

Bendall, in his Catalogue of the Cambridge Mss., was the first to study the palaeography of the Nepalese manuscripts on a scientific basis. His catalogue was published in 1883, but since that time no further advance has been made in the study of the palaeography of the Nepalese manuscripts. He appended to his catalogue a table of the test letters from the dated Nepalese manuscripts preserved in the Cambridge University Library. Two of the manuscripts treated by him belong to the 9th century A.D., and one of them contains the definite date of 859 A.D. These tables of Bendall have been the basis of all later observations concerning the writing of the Nepalese manuscripts. I have thoroughly compared the writing of the manuscript of the Kaulajñānanirṇaya with the tables of Bendall and, in my opinion, it cannot be relegated to the period assigned by H. P. Śāstrī.

a in the two Cambridge manuscripts has detached and open tops, whereas in the Kaula it has a closed top, as found in the Nepalese writing posterior to the 11th century A.D.

i does not have that triangular form composed of dots or small circles as in the two Cambridge manuscripts, but consists of two dots below with a wavy line above, as found in the Cambridge manuscript No. 866—dated 1008 A.D. (Cf. also Bühler's Indische Palaeographie, Tafel VI).

e has two varieties—one triangular and very common, but it does not bear the stamp of any particular age; and the