Kaula Jnana Nirnaya (Calcutta Sanskrit Series)

in the Cambridge Mss. 5 is represented by a letter which has no similarity with its forms as found in the Mss. of the 9th, 10th and 11th Centuries. But the shape of the first three numerals described before closely agrees with what we find in Cambridge Mss. Nos. 866 and 1684 dated 1008 A.D. and 1065 A.D. respectively.

These evidences conclusively show that the Ms. of the Kaulajñānanirṇaya Treatise on the Knowledge of the Kaula tradition cannot belong to the 9th century A.D. Its writing has greater and more striking similarity with that of the Cambridge Mss. 866 and 1684 described by Bendall. These two Mss. are dated 1008 and 1065 A.D. respectively. I am, therefore, inclined to believe that the Ms. of the Kaulajñānanirṇaya was written towards the middle of the 11th Century A.D. A table of the test letters of our Ms. is given below for facilitating their comparison with the Tables of Bendall:

A diagram depicts a horizontal strip composed of thirteen small fragments of handwritten script, showing individual characters from a Sanskrit manuscript for paleographic comparison.

A diagram depicts a horizontal strip composed of ten small fragments of handwritten script, showing characters and numerals (3, 4, 5, and 30) from a Sanskrit manuscript.