[INDOLOGY] RORI, Jodhpur

[Jean-Michel Delire]

Many thanks to Jason, John, Tim, Tyler, Dominik and Andrey for their valuable help about RORI, Jodhpur.
Actually, the RORI doesn't follow strictly its own written rules, happily. Some sort of janitor lady (usually staying in the hall or watching series in the computer room) asked for a PhD number or something, but a letter from my University was finally sufficient. It is true that many Mss. have been digitalized, but, if not, you are not allowed to use your own camera. There was a problem with a CD bearing one of the Mss. I asked for. They found the original and just took photographs of the Ms. again for me. Unhappily, two of the Mss. I wanted to see were not digitalized and under the responsibility of a lady who was on medical leave, and apparently nobody else would take the risk to replace her. This is quite common in Indian Mss. libraries. Some years ago, in Varanasi, the librarian was missing, and the day after, the key was missing. Usually somebody is missing (the person in charge of Xeroxing in Baroda, the person in charge of the Sanskrit Mss. in Hyderabad) but he/she can often be replaced (by going to a private Xerox shop in Baroda, by the person in charge of Arabic Mss. in Hyderabad) when you insist. Hindi is a must at the RORI (happily, I was there with a friend to help me) for most of the staff does not (want to ?) understand English. Even the nodal officer, Mrs Vastumati Sharma, who is very nice and the first person to meet in order to facilitate the following steps, had some problems to talk with me directly. I didn't have the opportunity to meet Dr Kamal-ji.

Regards,

Jean Michel Delire