unedited texts meriting attention?

[GRUENENDAHL]

Timothy Lubin's suggestions, I think, should be supported by everyone.
Nevertheless, I for one would hesitate to name a particular text or 
manuscript. It is impossible to keep track of all the activities going 
on, and there is a risk that someone else is already working on the 
very item you suggest.

Therefore all I can contribute is a bit of unsolicited advice: One
way of finding a text worth your time and effort is to consult the
descriptive catalogues of the prominent manuscript collections in
India and elsewhere and to check that against the reference works
(history of literature etc.) of your particular field of interest
(Veda, grammar, epics or whatever it may be). That should give you a
first idea. Then talk to others. This is the point where a forum like
INDOLOGY comes in. Before you really get started try to find out
whether the library that holds the manuscript in question knows of
any other person working on it.

An example: In Haraprasa Sastri's catalogues of the Durbar Library 
(now the National Archives, Kathmandu) you can find any number of 
presumably unique manuscripts of outstanding importance from any 
field of literature. Sastri himself has sometimes pointed out their 
importance in his introduction. The Nepal-German Manuscript 
Preservation Project has microfilmed practically all these 
manuscripts. The microfilmed material is enough to keep several 
generations of scholars busy, and it is available with relative ease.


Reinhold Gruenendahl
Niedersaechsische Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek
37070 Goettingen
Germany
Phone: 0551/395283

GRUENEN at mail.sub.uni-goettingen.de