Catalogue of the Chandra Shum Shere Collection in the Bodleian Library: Part IV: Veda. by K. Parameswara Aithal

The Chandra Shum Shere Collection, which arrived in Oxford from Varanasi over a century ago, is one of the largest Indian manuscript libraries in the world outside the Subcontinent. Part IV of this descriptive catalogue adds much to our knowledge of the collection as a whole and gives details of nearly 900 manuscripts in the field of Vedic literature, a fine and varied corpus of Sanskrit primary texts and commentaries. There are some indications that the original owner of this collection was a ritualist with interests both in sacrificial practice and in traditional Vedic scholarship. This element of the collection brings the published catalogue records near to the half-way point, and other subject volumes are present in preparation. Catalogue entries give full information of the coverage of the nature and extent of the texts, materials, scripts, scribes, dates and places of writing, and former owners of the manuscripts.

Parameswara Aithal, Profesttor Emeritus, University of Heidelberg

K. Parameswara Aithal is a Professor Emeritus of Sanskrit at the University of Heidelberg. He is the compiler of an earlier volume (Stotras) in the present catalogue series.

Jonathan Katz is a Fellow of St Anne’s College and Public Orator in the University of Oxford. For many years he was in charge of the Indian collections in the Bodleian Library and then a consultant to the Department of Oriental Books and Manuscripts. He has been a teacher of Latin, Greek and Sanskrit languages and literature in London and Oxford and has held visiting posts at Princeton University. In 2014 he was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.