History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c97.27

v7.c97.27

As regards the writing of the History of Dharmaśāstra my method was as follows: I wrote in my own hand a first draft, collected a hundred pages or so and then carefully read those pages. Sometimes I tore off several pages and prepared a new draft. I cannot type well, having had no time to cultivate the habit of using a typewriter. Then I got the matter typewritten by an excellent typist, Mr. G. R. Barve, who was my neighbour and who could decipher my bad writing tolerably well and paid him his usual charges. I sent to the Press only the handwritten original of the first volume It was from the 2nd volume onwards that I got one or two copies typewritten (two when there was danger of bombing Bombay in 1942) and sometime afterwards I read the typed copy myself and put in the diacritical marks. This was sent to the Press in Poona I examined three (rarely four) proofs of all forms myself, but the press had directions to send a copy of the third page proof to a good Sanskrit scholar in Poona who was to read it and make corrections (not in the matter but only as to diacritical marks, spelling, stops etc.) and to send the corrected proof to me and I incorporated his corrections (if accepted by me) in my own copy of the third proof, which was sent to the Press as the final proof. The Indexes to all the five volumes were prepared by me. The Indexes to volumes I-IV alone come to 289 pages The total printed pages of all works written and printed by me and of the numerous papers that I contributed to the Journal of the Bombay Asiatic Society, the Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Institute and to other Journals would come to at least twenty thousand pages. To the typewriters of vol. II to V, I paid about 2500 rupees out of my own pocket and about 600 rupees to the correctors of the page proofs (of volume II to V). I went to places that had collections of Sanskrit Mss such as Poona (very often), Baroda, Benares (several times), Madras (several times), Tanjore and Ujjain at my own expense for reading several mss and getting copies made of a few of them. In our country, there are no large libraries like those in Europe and U.S.A. So I had to spend money on securing micro-films of certain articles in foreign journals and copies of certain Mss. I have no accounts of the travelling charges but about making copies of some mss. and microfilms I can say that they came to about 200 rupees. The Press was in Poona and I was in Bombay and the proofs (along with the original copy at the time of the despatch of the first proof) had to be sent by post for about 35 years (sometimes one form, sometimes two and rarely three at a time). Besides, the original ms. had always to be sent in small packets (of from 50 to 100 handwritten or typed pages) by registered bookpost No accounts are kept of this but probably Rs. 400 would be a very modest estimate The honorarium paid (and to be paid) to me for all the five volumes is given in the table below