Some ten yrs ago, my learned Professor Mahamahopadhyaya Pandita Sudhakara Dvivedi of the Sanskrit College, Benares, presented the Sanskrit reading public with his excellent edition of Varaha Mihira's admirable production on natural astrology-the Brihatsamhita with the Commentary of Bhattotpala.
The Adbhutasagara of Vallala Sena Deva (and his son Lakshmana sena who completed the work left unfinished by his father) treats of the same Subject, but is richer in matter, more systematic in its treatment, and its bearings are more suited to the needs of the modern times.
That my author had the suitability of his subject matter to the requirements of his times if not ours, particularly in view, will appear from his rejection of many particulars treated of at length in the Brihatsamhita, as useless; his enlarging upon other parts with quotations from Garga, Vasishtha, Parasara and others; and his introduction of new matter from Vasantaraja (on Sakuna Sastra), Susruta (on medical science ), Salihotra and Pilukacharya (on Veterinary), Vyasa and Valmiki.
My Professor in his Ganaka Tarangini mentions this interesting and wonderful production of Vallala Sena and regrets that he could not procure a complete copy of it. And well might he regret, for during the Mahomedan period this book seems to have been all but lost.
The Sanskrit College copy of it is only a confused mass of scattered leaves that has defied all attempts to arrange it into a connected whole.
After three years of laborious search, at the request of the Prabhakari Company, I came by seven incomplete MSS, some consisting of pages at the beginning, some, of those, at the end; and others, of different parts of the middle of the book.
I then set myself to the task of arranging the scattered parts into a complete whole, a task difficult in itself; and rendered doubly so by imperfect and incorrect readings; so that I at first thought of giving it to the press in parts that I could make out of the Confused mass. Two years of perseverence and hard labour have at last been rewarded with complete success. The parts have, as if by magic, arranged themselves into a connected whole-and here is the ADBHUTASAGARA at last.
