Pali Manuscript Sale?

[Royce Wiles]

>On Sun, 26 Jul 1998, Lance Nelson wrote:
>
>> I've been approached by an elderly lady, a member of our local Indian
>> community.  She has an old Pali palm leaf manuscript that she'd like
>> to sell.  It's been in her family for ages.  Does anyone have any
>> suggestions as to how she might go about doing this?

It may be an idea to check that the palm leaf is in fact in "Pali".

If the MS is from Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand etc. then it is quite possible
that it is Pali and the script will be a definite clue, but if the MS is
from India it is not at all likely to be in Pali. I have heard Prakrit MSS
called "Pali" in India and this may be the case here.

Whatever the case I hope the MS is  investigated and if necessary the
findings published before it is "lost" to a private collection.