Thor bu - Curiosia Indo-Tibetica

Textual and visual odds and ends from India, Tibet, and around.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Kolozsvár/Cluj, Budapest, Oxford, ibi ubi

Monday, December 18, 2006

More bad news...

After the fall of Cambridge and Berlin, some more bad news for Sanskritists, and especially those studying the Kālacakra. I asked a dear friend and colleague, Ms. Bihani Sharkar (Wolfson College) to go to the Asiatic Society in Calcutta in hope of getting a digital / microfilm / microfiche / anything(!) copy of a magnificient manuscript, the G10766 of the Vimalaprabhā. Most of you will know this very early and practically unique manuscript (in the sense that it is the only one to contain the commentary to the fifth paṭala) from the Sarnath edition where it is marked with the siglum Ca. While taking the ms. out, the curators noticed that it was broken in the middle (!) and it is in such a bad condition that it can't be issued to anyone now. I am unaware of any high-quality scans, maybe one could try in Sarnath for a microfilm? It is perhaps not a bad guess to say that restoration is out of the question for a while, as the Society seems to be in pretty bad financial shape.