नामकुअरसुदी सप्तमी॥ संपूर्णः----which would make the date of the MS. to be 1648 A. C., if the Vikrama era is to be understood to be the era intended. The MS., it is believed, comes from Guzerâth.
The next copy is N. This is a MS. belonging to a Shâstri of Nagpur, in the Central Provinces. I was not able to see it my- self, but my very obliging friend, Mr. Hari Mâdhava Pandit, was so kind as to undertake the arduous work of collating the MS. for me, and it was thus, I obtained the various readings which are mentioned in the foot-notes. The MS. bears no date on the face of it, but Mr. Pandit thinks that it may be about a hundred years old. Mr. Pandit also compared another MS, which belonged to the Library of the Râjâ of Nagpur. But after he had compared the first few pages, he found that MS, to be so hopelessly incorrect that he had to abandon the work of collation as a thing which could not lead to any useful result. Wherever any readings of both these MSS. are given, they are distinguished thus, the Shâstri's MS, is called N. S.; and the Râjâ's N, R., Mr. Pandit informs me that both these MSS. are believed to have been copied at Benares. The last MS. to be mentioned is the one described in the foot- notes as G. It is a MS. coming from the Province of Guzerâth and was lent to me by Râo Bahâdur Shankar Pândurang Pandit to whom it belongs. It is unfortunately incomplete, pages being wanting both at the beginning and at the end, and it is also very incorrectly written. It extends from Siddharthaka's speech सहर्पम् &c, in the first Act at P. 88 to Chânakya's speech in the last Act at p. 315,भद्र &c. The MS. is, however, pretty old-its age being between two and three hundred years. It will be perceived from the above description of the materials used for this edition, that those materials are drawn from nearly all the different Provinces of India. We have Bengal, Southern India, the Central Provinces, Guzeråth, Mahârâshtra, and Benares all represented in the collection of copies which have been consul- ted for this edition. Since the Text was sent to the Press, I have had a MS. lent to me by my friend, Mr. Kâshinâth Pândurang Parab, which seems to be traceable to Tryambakes'var, near Nâsık. It is a copy recently made. The date सीमाधाविमिते गतेव्दनिकरक्षज्यारुहस्थायिनो भैमीनायकवत्सरे शुचिदले मासे नभ्यस्यस्य च (?)is probably that of the original MS. from which this was copied. It has not been collated throughout for the purposes of the present edition, but on a comparison of a sufficient number of pages and passages, it appears to agree very nearly with our MS, P. And it is worthy of
