Seminar On Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar: Present Times (Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar O Bartaman Kal) : On The Occasion of The Birth Anniversary of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar On 26th September 2001

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The Sarvadarsanasangraha is a work by Madhavacharya, the well-known scholiast of the Vedas. It contains short notices of all the systems of Indian Philosophy, and as such is very valuable. It is natural to suppose that every Indian Sanskrit scholar would have possessed a copy of a treatise of so much importance. But it is somewhat singular that manuscripts of the work are very rare, and that the great majority of the learned of this country are probably not even aware of its existence. If not printed now, the Sarvadarsanasangraha would, in all probability, share the common fate of many other valuable relics of Sanskrit learning Asiatic Society of Bengal to edit the work for them if they would undertake to print it. My offer was kindly accepted, and the work, under their auspices, is printed and published.

When I first undertook to edit the work, I was under the impression that the task would be an easy one. There were two manuscripts in Calcutta, one in the Library of the Sanskrit college, and the other in that of the Asiatic Society. On first reading the book I thought that the former manuscript was sufficiently correct. But scrutinizing it with the care necessary for publication, I collected it with the copy in the Society's Library and found that without the aid of more manuscripts, the readings in several passages in which the two manuscripts differ, could not be reconciled. No other manuscripts were however procurable in Bengal; but by good fortune I procured three manuscripts from Benares. These were of essential service to me, and it was only after carefully collating them with the texts in Calcutta that I have been able to edit the work.

I feel it my duty here to express my great obligations to Mr. Edward Hall, late of the Benares Collage, through whose kind executions the Benares manuscript were received. Without his timely aid it would have been impossible for me to execute the task I had undertaken with the necessary requisite. My obligations are also due to Professors Jaynarayana Tarkapanchanana and Taranatha Tarkavachaspati of the Sanskrit College for the material assistance that they afforded to me in the undertaking.