Indian Epigraphy c10.s7.8

c10.s7.8

As regards libraries of individual scholars, it is interesting to note that, in the early years of the 7th century, Bāṇa in his Harṣacarita mentions his pustaka-vācaka or ‘the reader of books’ and describes the latter’s manipulation of a manuscript of the Vāyu Purāṇa.² There were numerous collections of manuscripts pertaining to individual scholars or families of scholars in all parts of the country. One of the biggest such libraries of the medieval age was the collection of manuscripts made by Kavīndrācārya Sarasvatī (16th-17th century) at Banaras. A manuscript of Vāmana's *Kāvyālaṅkāra* in Kavīndrācārya's collection bears the seal of Prince Salīm (the earlier name of the Mughal emperor Jahāngīr, 1605-27 A. D.). Some of the works mentioned in the old catalogue of manuscripts in Kavīndrācārya's library are not available now.¹