xiv PREFACE.
during my first visit to Kasmir to form the plan of a critical edition of the Raja. tarahgini. My first endeavour wes to secure the use of the codex archetypus of all extant menuecripts of the Chronicle, of which Professor Bihler had not been allowed more than a glimpse and which subsequently to his visit had been divided between the threo heirs of the former owner. In this I succeeded during my second visit in 1889, notwithstanding the additional obstacles created by the above division, I was then able to ascertain that the codex had boon written by a well- known Keémiriaen scholar, Pandit Rajanaka Ratnakantha, probably about the third quarter of the seventeenth century, and that it contains besides a wealth of various readings and corrections from several old hands, a great number of important glosses. The features which make that codex so valuable for critical and exegetical purposes, have been fully set forth both in the proface of my edition and in the résumé contained in Chapter III. of the Introduction to tho prosent work ¢
A series of antiquarian tours in Kasmir for which I utilized my summer vacations during the years following my first visit, allowed me to acquaint myself on the spot with the topography, archaeological remains, local customs, and other vealia of the country. They also furnished opportunities for the ucquisition of manuscripts of those products of Kasmirian Sanskrit literature, which like the Nilamata, the Mahatmyas of the numerous sacred sites, the poetical compositions of Kalhana’s period, have carefully to be consulted by the interpreter of the Chronicle. With the assistance of the materials thus collected and on the basis of the codex archetypus I was able to prepare my edition of the Sanskrit text of the Rijataran- gini, which together with the complete dpparatus criticus was published in 1892 under the patronage of the Kashmir Darbar.”
In the preface of this Edition I had promiscd,—os soon as tho sconty leisure I could spate from teaching snd office duties would permit,—to give in o xecond volume exegetical notes on the text together with o running commentary on those points of Kalhana’s narrative which are of interest for the history, archeology, aud topography of Kasmir. It wes impossible for me to toko up this task in enrnest until the arrangement already above alluded to had sccured to mo tho loisure of two summer seasons in Kasmir.
Already previously I had convinced myself that the only way of testing my comprehension of Kalhans’s text was for me to write down a close translation of it. T soon found that such a continuous rendering provided for aimplor moans of explaining and justifying my interprotation of tho text then elaborato oxogctical
Vol. I. Sanskrit Toxt with Critical Notos. " Kalhaya's Rajateraiy or Chronicle of | Bombsy: Educati the Kings of Kashmir. Bh ey A Stein, pp med: 296, folio. baie i
