to be a pretty common phenomenon in these southern MSS., and in the two I have used there seems to have been some confusion also between क and श. The MS. bears no date.
The next MS. consulted is the one marked R. It was kindly sent to me from the India Office Library through Dr. F. Kielhorn by Dr. R. Rost, when he heard that I was preparing this edition for the Bombay Sanskrit Series. The same remarks apply to this MS. as to the last one here described. There is also, apparently, some confusion in this MS. in the last scene, where the speeches are in some disorder. As a general rule, these southern MSS. are always worthy of careful attention, and the MSS. I have used for this edition belong to the same group as the copy from which the commentator took his text. I cannot say how old R and M are.
The next MS. is one marked K. It comes from the collection of MSS. belonging to the Government of Bombay and deposited in Elphinstone College. This MS., however, is only a copy recently made for Government, and contains the text only down to the end of the first Act. The rest of the MS. contains a copy merely of the commentary of Dhuņđhirâja.
So much for the group of MSS. on which the text adopted in this edition is mainly based. The next group contains one printed copy, B., namely, the edition of this play published at Calcutta with a commentary, by Professor Târânâth Tarkavâchaspati. That edition has been assumed to be a fair representative of the Bengal text of our play. It contains now and then some various readings, but in sundry places the text of the play as there given, is very unsatisfactory. Two other editions have been printed at Calcutta, one was published many years ago without either various readings or exegetical notes, and another with some various readings and the commentary of Dhundhirâja. This last, however, was never completed, as far as I have been able to ascertain, and the portion printed goes down to a little beyond the middle of the second Act. I have not deemed it necessary to compare the readings of those editions with the text here adopted, save to a very small extent indeed.
The next copy in this group is the one marked E. It belongs to the collection of MSS. deposited in the Library of Deccan College, Poona. It is a very indifferently written MS. It contains numerous mistakes, as may be seen even on an examination of the readings from it, which are contained in our foot-notes. It is bound up in one volume with a MS. of the Uttararâmacharita.On the last page of the Mudrārakshasa we read संवत १७०४ समये (?)
