The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-04-16
The India Office MSS.

1nP EUU MUL 6Uettt uitS bllC iOhONlIS'--
A correspondent well qualifed'to speak on the
subject has favored us with the following COM
munication in reference to the receutly-discoY-
cred MSS at the India Otlice:-
II cannot enlightcn you as to the contents of
the 'Beeiapoor MSS, found in the library at the
India Office, but if they are the MSS. formerly in
the Azar Mehal ut Beejapoor, the following are the
facts as TO the manner and time when the MSS.
came into the possession OF the East India Com
pany. The books are the remains of one of the
royal libraries which existed at Beejapoor in the
Dcccan, previous to its capture by Aurungzebe,
A. d. 1856. Though carloads of MSS. are said
to have been taken away by him, the library To
which these volumes belonged was not entirely
removed by the Emperor from Beejapoor, in con-
quence of its having been attached to
Mahomctan shrine, in which were
preserved two hairs of the Prophets
beard A short account of this curious shrine
will be found in Colonel Sykes excellent paper
on Beejapoor in the Transactions of the Literary
Society of Bombay, book now very rarely to
be met with and also in the magnificent volume
of photographs of Beejapoor, published by Mr..
Murray in 1866 at the expense of a native gen
tleman of Bombay. The building in which the
library was preserved will be found described
and depicted at pages 80 and 20 of the memoirs
prefXed to that volume by Captain Meadows
Taylor and Mr.. James Ferguson, and in plates
A to 50. In this shrine the books remained
much neglected, till they were examined about
1S4S by NJ. dOctrOa, a young scholar of Spanish
origin, travelling in Indiaby order OF King Louis
Philippe, to collect Sanscrit MSS. for the Royal
Library at Paris.
''Sir George Arthur. the then Governor of
Bombay, hearing of the condition of the Beeja-
poor library from NJ. dOctroa moved the Rajah
of Satara, in whose territory Beejapoor then was,
to take better care of the books; and something
was done, with this end in view, at the sugges-
ton of Colonel Evans, the then resident. But
when the territory, with all State property,
lapsed to the Government of India, the library
was still much neglected and exposed to depre-
lAti. pt,I tYai thn yynl thar In
state it was found by Captain (now ColoneD
Philip Hart, of the Engineers, who was employed
to repair some of the beautiful buildings which
were fast going to ruin, and, among others, that
in which the library deposited; and on his
report, Lord Falkland, then Governor of Bonn
bay, ordered the removal of all the books which
were at all perfect, and they were ultimately
sent to the library of the East India Company in
Leadenhall street, where they remained until its
transfer to the Crown
''The Beejapoor library must once have been
rich in books in many languages. Local tradi-
tion tells OF many beautiful works in Persian
richly Illuminated, which have, at different
times, been abstractcd from the library and
candestinely sold, and there are still many boxes
of fragments of books, Persian and Arabic,
which, from the beauty OF the penmanship and
the illumination, testify to the original value OF
the volumes to which they belonged. There are
likewise fragments of MSS. in Mahratta and
Sanscrit, in Canaresc, land other southern Ian
Suagcs, written on paper as well as ON palm
leaves, anu IL lcW vi bluCh-ltlItl EIlS
lish and Spanish books the English fragments
evidently belonged to a black-letter Bible of the
authorized version But, with the exception of
the Arabic volumes now in the library at the
India Office, there was nothing like perfect
volume in any language forthcoming in 1917,
and the existence of these Arabic volumes was
accounted for by the local officers solely on the
ground of their having been unreadablc by any
one on the spot, and consequently unstable.
The blame of these depredations was laid by the
Brahmin officers of the Mahratta State at the
door of the Mahometan mujawirs who had charge
of the shrine while the latter retorted by accu-
sing the Brahmin officers of the State; but of the
fact that very extensive depredations had been
permitted within few years previous to the terri
tory coming under British control, there can |
fear, be no doubt
Il may mention that, besides the preservation
of these MSS, we owe to Colonel Hart5 profess
sional skill and taste the beautiful architectural
drawings by Mr.. Cumming photographs from
which are to be found in Mr.. Murray's pubca-
tion above referred to- and also the extensive
repairs to the old buildings at Beejapoor which
he carried out about twenty years ago, and
which have done much to preserve the ruins
from utter decay. Until Colonel Hart took the
matter in hand, little or nothing effectual had
been done to preserve the buildings since the
repairs ordered by Captain Grant Duff, soon
after the conquest Of the Deccan by the British
in 1871"