A History of Indian Literature v1.c7.s2.40

v1.c7.s2.40

However, if one desires to get an idea of the truly astonishing progress which the investigation of Indian literature has made in the comparatively short duration of its existence, then one should read A. Wilh. v. Schlegel's essay, written in the year 1819, "Ueber den gegenwärtigen Zustand der Indischen Philologie" (On the present condition of Indian philology), in which not many more than a dozen Sanskrit books are enumerated as having been made known through editions or translations. Next one should glance at Friedrich Adelung's book, which appeared in the year 1830 in St. Petersburg, "Versuch einer Literatur der Sanskrit-Sprache" (A Study on the literature of the Sanskrit language²) in which already the titles of over 350 Sanskrit books are mentioned. One should then compare with it Weber's "Indische Literaturgeschichte" which in the year 1852 (according to an approximate estimate), discusses close on 500 works of Indian literature. Then one should look at the "Catalogus Catalogorum" published by Theodor Aufrecht in the years 1891, 1896 and 1903, which contains an alphabetical list of all Sanskrit works and authors, based on the investigation of all the available catalogues of manuscripts. In this monumental work, at which Aufrecht worked for over forty years, all the catalogues of Sanskrit manuscripts of all the important libraries of India and Europe are incorporated, and the number of available Sanskrit books in this "Catalogus Catalogorum" runs into many thousands. Yet this catalogue does not include the whole of the Buddhist literature, and all the literary works which were written in other Indian languages and not in Sanskrit. And how many new works have been discovered since 1903!