Yet another Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa?

I did not have the time to follow up this one, but perhaps there are some of you out there who are interested. Today I picked up by chance D. K. Kanjilal & K. Kanjilal, Sanskrit and Allied Manuscripts in Europe (Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar, Calcutta), apparently a recent acquisition of the Bodleian. The book is a long list of pretty confused notes about various manuscript libraries the authors had the chance to visit in the U.K. and the continent (and there is no index... and there are many typos... but let's forget about all that, it seems like a very useful book).

The author reports a list of Nepalese mss. at the Chester Betty [sic!] Library in Dublin. It's mostly Pañcarakṣās and dhāraṇīs, but one item - he says - is a Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa. Although he says that the ms. is 'very old', he also gives the 17th century as an estimated date. Does anyone happen to know more about this? It sounds like a false lead to me, but you can never know for certain.

In the window of a sweet shop

The rather pompous National Mission for Manuscripts is like a sweet shop which will never open, but will distribute leaflets about how great their candies and pastries are. Furthermore, they will have a small sample in the window you can drool at. Then the only thing you can do is walk away in frustration after seeing the perennial 'opening soon' sign. The owner will never pick up the phone and if he does he will be full of promises. In fact, he will pretend that the store is open, and you're some kind of idiot for failing to notice this fact.


I don't know if anyone had noticed this before (if so, I sincerely apologize), but this particular piece here is a sample of that huge and rather delicious cake which is the Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa. A gut feeling tells me that this is none other but the Trivandrum manuscript, or at least the right half of three of its folios (the first corresponds to a portion in chapter 36). I sincerely hope that the thing is still joined with its left half which was perhaps left out here for effect. The sad truth is, however, that in Cochin I saw astrological manuscripts sawn in half (or third) so that tourist sahab looking for nice coffee table item could carry it out easier, and for the antique dealer to make double/triple profit.