The text of the Drama of Malavikâgnimitra was first printed at Bonn in 1840, edited by the late Otto Frederik Tullberg. That edition, however, of the Swedish scholar was, unfortunately, far from being correct. Many a passage in it is corrupt and confused; Some verses are given as prose, and speeches of different characters are put into the mouth of one and the same speaker.
Then followed, in 1856, a German translation by Professor Weber. This translation was not based entirely on the unfortunately faulty edition of Dr.Tullberg; but the learned Professor, as might have been expected,took care to examine for himself into the MSS., and proposed many an emendation of the text in his notes to his translation.
But the original Sanskrit Drama, as far as I am aware, is as yet nowhere printed in a correct edition,based, as every edition of a Sanskrit work ought to be,on the collation of several trustworthy MSS. collected from different parts of India. To supply this desideratum is the principal object I have had in view in preparing the present edition.
