by Jérôme Petit
2017
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It is a great honor for me to write an article in a felicitation volume dedicated to Dr. Kanubhai V. Sheth. He opened his door to help me at the very beginning of my Jain studies. He brought me to different places in Gujarat that appeared to be very helpful in the course of my studies. I remember the profound respect and kind admiration with which he was welcomed at the L.D. Institute of Indology, and the patience with which he explained to me the history of these institutions. Ten years after, I can say that he is not for nothing in the path I choose to take in the Jain studies and the manuscriptology field. The sweetness of his home and the immensity of his knowledge are always present in my mind.
The South and South-East Asian collections constitute a significant part of the Manuscripts collections in the National Library of France. Of course the French, Latin and Greek collections are the most important in number and historicity, but Indian manuscripts have a good place in what we call the Oriental service of the Manuscripts department. The ‘Sanscrit’ collection counts 1878 call numbers, the ‘Indien’ collection 1064, the ‘Pali’ collection 885, the ‘Indochinois’ 1 513, the ‘Malayo-Polynesian’ counts 293 call numbers.
The ‘Sanscrit’ collection is constituted by manuscripts in Sanskrit or Prakrit languages written in different scripts: Bengali, Devanagari, Grantha, Telinga, Singhalese or Nagra2. The ‘Indien’ collection gathers together around 600 Tamil manuscripts that constitute – in the terms of ancient Tamil specialists – the most important collection of Tamil manuscripts in Europe; 70 Telugu and Kannada manuscripts; 47 Singhalese manuscripts; and around 300 manuscripts gathered under the general term of ‘Indien’, written in different North Indian languages, mostly Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Pendjabi, Gujarati and also in Prakrit.
For the ‘Sanscrit’ collection, the catalogue in use is the one done by Antoine Cabaton (1863-1942) at the beginning of the twentieth century.3 It gives short bibliographical records: call number, title, author, date, number of folios, dimensions, material description, ancient owner, and ancient call number. In 1941 and 1970, Jean Filliozat (1906-1982) prepared and published the detailed catalogue for the beginning of the collection and gave for the manuscripts 1 to 462 a full record with the transcription of the incipit, explicit, scribe remarks, ends of the chapters, etc. This a “modèle du genre” that has to be followed nowadays.4
The catalogue of Cabaton covers the manuscripts number 1 to 1102. The rest of the collection is shortly described, mostly by Jean Filliozat, on a handwritten supplement add to a copy of the published catalogue.5 The access of these particular records was of course very difficult and limited. But today all the records of the Sanscrit collection are now accessible online through the online catalogue of the Manuscripts department of the National Library of France, BnF Archives et manuscrits.6 This catalogue has been published online for the first time in 2007. The choice has been made to encode the records in the language XML-EAD in order to propose the different catalogues to a large audience and to be compatible with other databases in the world. The records give short bibliographical data, the existence of a microfilm, and a direct link through Gallica if the manuscript has been digitalized. Gallica is the digitalized library of the National Library of France.7 It counts few Indian manuscripts but a real effort is now in progress to digitalize more and more manuscripts with the perspective of a portal dedicated to the place of India in the French national collections.
For the collections in Modern Indian languages, the catalogue in use is also the one done by Antoine Cabaton.8 Short records are also given with the ancient call numbers in brackets. That is a real problem for researchers. Indeed, the ‘Indien’ letter gathers together the ancient ‘Tamil’ letter, ‘Telinga’ letter and then the ancient ‘Indien’ letter. That means that the ancient “Indien 201” is the actual “Indien 840”, which constitutes an additional step between the researcher and the librarian.9
The catalogues for the ‘Indien’ collections in use today are also the detailed and particular catalogues made by languages. They have been generally published in the second half of the twentieth century in the form of articles in the Bulletin de l’Ecole Française d’Extreme Orient (see on the Bibliography: Mukherjee’s catalogue for the Bengali manuscripts, Tulpule for the Marathi manuscripts of the Charles d’Ochoa collection) or in a book like Agha Iftikhar Husain for the Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi manuscripts, Linayaratne’s catalogue for the Singhalese manuscripts or Gérard Colas and Usha Colas-Chauhan’s catalogue for the Telugu manuscripts.
This last catalogue gives important details for the history of the Indian manuscripts collection, as well as the historical “epic” given by Jean Filliozat in the introduction of his detailed catalogue for the Sanscrit collections. It is on those works and by the consultation of the original catalogues and archives that I want to present a short history of the catalogues made at the National Library of France for the Indian manuscripts collections.
The very first list of Indian manuscripts had been written by the Jesuit father Jean-François Pons (1698-1753) who responded to a call made by Etienne Fourmont (1683-1745) at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The Abbey Jean-Paul Bignon (1662-1743), librarian of the King Louis the fifteen, asked Fourmont, who was seen as the essential figure of the orientalist at that time, to constitute a collection of Chinese and Indian books. Fourmont decided to take profit of the network of missionaries that stayed in this part of the world. He wrote letters to ask Jesuits fathers to send to the Royal Library manuscripts of important texts that could be representative of the literary production of China and India. That is how the heart of the Indian collection had been constituted.
Jean-François Pons, established in Chandernagore (Chandannagar), sent among 170 manuscripts from Bengal that formed the historical core of the collection. He sent also a list of the manuscripts that can be seen as the first catalogue of the collection. This list, done in January 1733, presents many bibliographical satisfactions. The manuscripts are classified in seven categories. We find 31 manuscripts classified as ‘Philological Books’ that are the tools for the learning of Sanskrit. Among these tools is the famous “Grammar of Father Pons” on which the first Indologists learned Sanskrit.10 We also find 22 ‘Mythological Poems’, a quite large category under which is classified the Abhijñanasakuntala of Kalidasa for example. The category ‘Pouranam’, with the Sanskrit term kept by Pons, contains 42 numbers. We find in it the Great Purana (Siva-, Vishu-, Bhagavata-, Brahmavaivarta-, Markandeya-, Matsya-, etc.) but also the 17 volumes of a Bengali recession of the Mahabharata. Then we find 8 manuscripts of important texts in the Astronomy/astrology field like the Siddhantamañjari. Nine texts are classified in a quite vague category of ‘Diverse Poetry’ in which we find for example a copy of the Amarusataka. Then we find 25 texts classified under the category ‘Books of Laws, Usages, and Practices of the Cult of Gods’ that form a solid set with the Manavadharmasastra (Laws of Manu) and some devotional or ritual texts. The case of the ‘Philosophical Books’ is certainly the more interesting. It seems that they particularly took the attention of Father Pons. He gave before the list in itself a brief introduction on the different philosophical schools that are to be found in India. Among these schools, the Nyaya is the more represented with 38 manuscripts. We can explain this peculiarity by the strong presence of the Navya-nyaya school in Bengal, especially in Navadvipa, with the great master Gangesa Upadhyaya and his illustrious pupil Raghunatha Siromani, both perfectly pointed by Father Pons.
To this first set of manuscripts, we have to add the 70 manuscripts sent from South India by the Fathers Etienne Le Gac (1671-1738) in Pondicherry, and Jean Calmette (1692-1740) in Mysore. Those manuscripts had been subject to sending lists but they were not classified as the Bengali manuscripts were. All the fields are still well represented: Veda, Purana, Logics, Poetics, Grammar, and Dictionaries of Tamil and Telugu languages which could be interesting in reading this ‘palm-leaves’ literature.
The records given by the Jesuit Fathers helped in the redaction of the general catalogue for the manuscripts kept in the Royal Library. This project was a strong wish of the Abbey Jean-Paul Bignon who wanted to follow the need of describing the collections at a time when the Scientists of the ‘Europe des Lumières’ were describing and organizing the species. In 1739 was published the first volume of the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae dedicated to the oriental collections. It is a master piece in the field of library science. Etienne Fourmont had translated the brief records given by the Jesuits Fathers into Latin and gave some other bibliographical elements such as the material, paper or palm-leaves. Fourmont adopted the classification system given by Father Pons. In trying to make a concordance between the Jesuit lists and the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae, it appears that the larger part of the catalogue, namely the ‘Books on Theology’ which contains 111 numbers on the 287 of the ‘Indian Codices’ described, gathers mostly all the manuscripts from South India, even the topics is far from ‘Thelogy’, as if the lack of classification had a direct impact on the cataloguing process. Despite these hesitations, very understandable due to the early date of publication, the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae is very solid. Some records contain elements on the nature of God, the great principles of Indian Philosophy, some famous stories of Hindu mythology, etc.
During the late eighteenth century, some French travelers brought Indian manuscripts to the Library. Anquetil-Duperron (1731-1805) made a deposit in 1772 of 180 Indian manuscripts in different languages, mostly in the Pahlavi, Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit languages. Jean Baptiste Joseph Gentil (1726-1799), who had a position of a diplomat at the court of the nawab of the Lucknow/Faizabad area, sent to the Library 130 manuscripts, mostly in Persian and Hindoustani, and 40 books in Sanskrit. Among them are several illustrated manuscripts that constitute among the most precious Indian manuscripts that are kept in the National Library of France. Another important figure among the French travelers is Augustin Aussant who served the French Company of East Indies as an interpreter in the 1780’s. This position allowed him to work with Bengali munshi and to get copies of Persian, Hindoustani and Bengali manuscripts. We can cite also Antoine Polier (1741-1795) whose collection had been examined in 1790 by Louis Langlès (1763-1824). Langlès was the chief librarian in charge of the oriental manuscripts at the Library and a key role in what the nineteenth century had made in the adventure of the catalogues.
All those manuscripts were not described in the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae. Some lists had been written at the arrival of the manuscripts but the need of the real catalogue arose. In 1807, Alexander Hamilton (1762-1824), after being enrolled in the East India Company, was obliged to stay in France after the break of the Traité d’Amiens which ensured the peace between France and England. He spent his time in describing the Sanskrit collection of the Imperial Library with the help of Langlès.11 The paradox is that the catalogue of Hamilton described less manuscripts than the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae published seventy years before. The reason is that Hamilton described only the Sanskrit manuscripts in Devanagari and Bengali scripts. He did not treat the manuscripts from South India, in Tamil, Grantha, or Telugu scripts.
In 1732, Father le Gac mailed to Paris two Vedas written in Telugu letters on palm leaves, and the copying of the remaining two was ongoing (p. 442).
-- Anquetil-Duperron's Search for the True Vedas, Excerpt from The Birth of Orientalism, by Urs App
Hamilton had time to see all the manuscripts that he wanted to describe, but he gave a detailed description only for the texts he was interested in, like Purana or poetry. We can read this information after the manuscript number 23: “For the others manuscripts, we did not adopt any classification”. He also gave up the fundamental notion of material support. It is impossible to know in reading this catalogue if the manuscripts are written on paper or on palm-leaves while we had this information in the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae. This catalogue is often seen as the first printed catalogue of Sanskrit manuscripts. It is indeed the first catalogue which is entirely dedicated to the Sanskrit manuscripts but we have seen how the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae, which is the very first printed catalogue for Indian manuscripts, is stronger from the point of view of the library science. One of the principal consequences of Hamilton catalogue is a new system of letters in the call numbers. In treating only the Sanskrit manuscripts on Devanagari and Bengali scripts, he obliged to classify the manuscripts by language and by script. This is the birth of the ‘Language-Script’ system like “Sanscrit Bengali”, “Sanscrit Devanagari”, “Sanscrit Grantha”, “Sanscrit Telinga”, etc. This system is the one adopted all along the nineteenth century.
The first half of the nineteenth century is particularly interesting because of the early age of Indian studies. The bibliographical records of Hamilton were translated into French by Langlès who added the information that he could find in the Asiatic Researches particularly. Langlès died in 1824. The administration of the library had to choose between Antoine Léonard Chézy (1773-1832) and Abel Rémusat (1788-1832) to succeed him in his function of chief librarian for the oriental manuscripts. There were both the first teachers for the Sanskrit and the Chinese respectively at the Collège de France, and they were both employed in the Royal library. Beside a list of the Sanskrit manuscripts brought by Polier, Chézy did not make strong efforts to describe the collections. He largely took advantage of his position at the library to ensure his power on oriental studies and to make translation of Sanskrit literary works. The administration chose Abel Rémusat, provoking Chézy’s resignation. Rémusat kept his function until his death in 1832. He was succeeded by Sylvestre de Sacy (1758-1838) until his death in 1838. Sacy engaged as deputy librarians Toussaint Reinaud (1795-1867) and Claude Fauriel (1772-1844). This period is also marked by the works of Auguste Loiseleur-Deslongchamps (1805-1840) who was engaged to give bibliographical records for the Turkish, Persian and Indian manuscripts.
In November 1833, François Guizot (1787-1874), one of the most influential Minister of Education of the century, asked librarians to give a catalogue of the manuscripts of all kinds that were in their care. It is in this climax that worked Claude Fauriel and Auguste Loiseleur-Deslonchamps. They gave bibliographical details for the manuscripts left aside by Alexander Hamilton or freshly arrived in the library. A particular attention was given to describe the manuscript and the text that it contains. Incipit and explicit are sometimes given in original script or in transcriptions, the material used is mentioned (paper or palm leaves), the date in samvat era, the name of the author, the subject, and some bibliographical information are also given when it was possible.12
In 1844, Salomon Munk (1803-1867) was employed in the oriental section of the Manuscripts department. He gave a catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts classified in western alphabetical order. Munk had knowledge in Hebrew but certainly not in Sanskrit. His catalogue is more a detailed index that reemployed Loiseleur-Deslongchamps and Fauriel data.
The second half of the century is also interesting. The Indian studies had really emerged as a scientific discipline. The collections were enriched by many personal collections gathered by scholars or diplomats. In France, Eugène Burnouf (1801-1852) made a strong link between the orientalist institutions like the Asiatic Society of Paris, the Collège de France where he was professor of Sanskrit studies, the Royal Library where he spent many hours, the Royal Press in which he was named inspector for the oriental typography. These links were instrumentals to enrich the collections. Munk’s catalogue and the catalogue for Sanskrit manuscripts classified by call numbers were both enriched with new data as new collections were acquired by the library.
This period is also marked by a real need for strong catalogues. Following the call of Guizot, Jules Taschereau (1801-1874) was named deputy administrator of the National Library in 1852 with the particular task to publish the catalogues of the national collections. At the same time, Léopold Delisle (1826-1910) was engaged in the Manuscripts Department and Toussaint Reinaud was named chief librarian for the oriental section. These three names gave a real impulse to get full descriptions of the Indian manuscripts. At that time, the collections were also enriched by many private collections of scholars like Charles d’Ochoa, Eugène Burnouf, Edouard Ariel, abbey Guérin, Frédéric Haas, and then Emile Senart.
The great and discreet architect for the building of strong catalogues for Indian manuscripts is certainly Léon Feer (1830-1902). He devoted all his life to oriental studies and all his laborious work to describe oriental collections, especially Sanskrit and Pali collections. He left a detailed catalogue of the Sanskrit manuscripts in Devanagari script of 700 folios, that means 1400 pages of his delicate handwriting. He gave incipit, explicit, ends of chapters, number of folios, dimensions for the 469 manuscripts concerned.13 He gave also the detailed catalogue of the 286 Sanskrit manuscripts in Bengali script.14
The South Indian manuscripts were at least taken into account. Léon Rodet (1832-1895), a historian for oriental mathematics, was engaged to give the catalogues of the Sanskrit manuscripts in Grantha script in 1872. He described the full collection of 41 manuscripts that were kept at that time. He began his catalogue by giving the alphabet of the Grantha script and the equivalent in devanagari for the clusters which are “difficult to analyse”. His records are shorts but they give useful information for the content. The title is given in original characters with a translation in a post-romantic French language: the Smrticandrika for example is translated as “le Clair de lune de la souvenance”, but then he got a grip on himself by giving the exact content of the manuscripts, “traité de droit coûtumier” in that case. In 1886, a huge collection of manuscripts form South India was given by a diplomat, Frédéric Haas (1843-1915). The catalogue of the Grantha manuscripts was continued by Léon Feer whose records had a more professional profile.15 They give the title, beginning and end of the text in original characters, numbers of folios, dimensions, and physical description. Léon Feer gave also the full catalogue for the Sanskrit manuscripts in Telugu script, Nandinagari script, Singhalese and Cambodian scripts. His knowledge and his ability in reading different scripts (beside Tibetan and all the scripts from South-East Asia used for the Pali manuscripts) are really impressive.
Another name for the South-Indian Manuscripts should not be forgotten. Julien Vinson (1843-1926) indeed gave the detailed catalogue for the Tamil manuscripts. At the end of the year 1867, Vinson corrected the printed proofs sent by the typographical printing workshop of the Imprimerie imperiale. We keep the third proofs corrected, ready to be printed, for the manuscripts Tamoul 1 to 204, but the booklet of 49 pages had never been published. Maybe Vinson wanted to add to this first part of the catalogue the other records that he had done. We keep indeed these records 205 to 496 in a handwritten form.16
We have to say that Julien Vinson and Léon Feer’s huge efforts were not well rewarded. The bibliographical records that they did remained mostly in a handwritten form and were never published in order to be accessible to the researchers. As we already mentioned, the National Library employed Antoine Cabaton in the very beginning of the twentieth century. Cabaton was a young scholar from the Ecole Française d’Extrême Orient. He was engaged in order to give quickly the complete catalogues of the Indian and South-East Asian collections. He took all the material given by his predecessors and simplified the shelf-mark system with the problem of the concordance that it poses nowadays.
Many great scholars worked hard to give us catalogues that are still in use today, and, in the case of Jean Filliozat, to provide us with a detailed history of the Indian collections. The future allows us to dream to some other realizations, in the field of digitalization through Gallica and detailed catalogues for the entire collection on the online catalogue “BnF Archives et manuscrits”. Different projects are in progress. The Jain manuscripts catalogue that Prof. Nalini Balbir presents in that volume is one of them.
APPENDIX
Time line
1729-1735 Sending from the “Mission du Carnate” (South India & Bengal)
1739 Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae. Tomus primus. Pars prima complectens codices manuscriptos orientales (E. Fourmont)
1762 Deposit by Anquetil-Duperron
1777 Sending from Faizabad by Gentil
1785 Manuscripts collected by Aussant in Bengal
1790 Langlès examines the Polier collection
1805 Death of Anquetil-Duperron. His scientific papers are given to Sylvestre de Sacy who made a deposit at the Imperial Library
1807 Catalogue des manuscrits samskrits de la bibliothèque impériale : avec des notices du contenu de la plupart des ouvrages (A. Hamilton, L. Langlès)
1833 Buying of Ducler and Reydellet collections
1840 Transmission to the Royal Library of the Hodgson collection
1847 Charles d’Ochoa collects manuscripts in North-West India
1854 Buying from Eugène Burnouf’s widow
1861 Buying of J. F. M. Guérin collection
1866 Deposit of Ariel collection
1868 Catalogue des manuscrits tamouls (1-204), corrected proof-sheet remained unpublished (J. Vinson).
1870 Buying of Grimblot collection
1877 Gift by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres of the Rajendralal Mitra collection
1861-1898 Buying of various collections, among which is the Garcin de Tassy collection
1886 Buying of Haas collection
1886 Deposit of the scientific papers of Eugène Burnouf
1898 The AIBL deposits the manuscripts from Kashmir collected by Alfred Foucher
1898 Emile Senart gives the Mark Aurel Stein collection
1899 Papiers d’Eugène Burnouf conservés à la Bibliothèque Nationale (L. Feer)
1907 Catalogue sommaire des manuscrits sanscrits et p¹lis. Fascicule 1 : Manuscrits sanscrits (A. Cabaton)
1908 Catalogue sommaire des manuscrits sanscrits et p¹lis. Fascicule 2 : Manuscrits p¹lis (A. Cabaton)
1912 Catalogue sommaire des manuscrits indiens, indo-chinois & malayo-polynésiens (A. Cabaton)
1925 Deposit of the Emile Senart collection
1932 Buying of the Palmyr Cordier collection
1934 État des manuscrits sanscrits, bengalis et tibétains de la collection Palmyr Cordier (J. Filliozat)
1936 État des manuscrits de la collection Émile Senart (J. Filliozat)
1941 Catalogue du fonds sanscrit. Fascicule I, nos 1 à 165 (J. Filliozat)
1970 Catalogue du fonds sanscrit. Fascicule II. Nos 166 à 452 (J. Filliozat)
1983 Catalogue des manuscrits singhalais (J. Liyanaratne)
1983 Catalogue du fonds Bengali (P. Mukherjee)
1986 A descriptive catalogue of the marathi manuscripts in the Charles d’Ochoa collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale Paris (S. G. Tulpule)
1995 Manuscrits telugu : catalogue raisonné (G. Colas, U. Colas- Chauhan)
2016 Various buyings
Forthcoming Catalogue of the Jain Manuscripts of the National Library of France (N. Balbir, J. Petit)
Handwritten Catalogues
• List of the manuscripts brought by Anquetil-Duperron (NAF 5433, f. 21)
• List of Oriental mss. (NAF 5440)
o Oriental mss. bought from Anquetil-Duperron (f. 13)
o Oriental mss. bought from Brueys (f. 18)
o Mss. sent from Faizabad by Gentil (f. 21)
o List of the mss. brought by Polier (f. 28)
o Catalogue of the Sanskrit mss. in Telinga script (f. 28v)
• Ancient catalogues of the Royal Library (NAF 5441)
o Records on some Sanskrit mss. by Claude Fauriel (f. 6)
o Records on some Sanskrit mss. (f. 40)
o Records on some Sanskrit mss. in Bengali script by Loiseleur- Deslongchamps (f. 58)
o List of the mss. in Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit and Hindustani from Polier (f. 291, 293)
o List of 47 mss. in Arabic, Persian, Hindustani and Bengali from Aussant (f. 295)
o List of the Tamil mss. from Ducler (f. 309)
o List of the books in Tamil sent by the French Company (f. 327)
o Catalogue of the Indian mss. (f. 328)
• List of the mss. sent by the Jesuit Fathers, 1729-1735 (NAF 5442), edited by Henri Omont, Missions archeìologiques franc’aises en Orient aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siécles, Paris, 1902.
• Catalogue of the Tamil mss. by Velanguani Arokium from Pondichéry, 1845 (NAF 5443)
• Records on Singhalese, Tamil, Pali mss. (Tolfrey collection) by Claude Fauriel (NAF 5444)
• Records on European mss. on India by C. Fauriel (NAF 5445)
• List of the mss. brought by Gentil (NAF 8878)
• Catalogue of the M. A. Stein collection of Kashmiri mss. given by E. Senart (Sanscrit 1044)
• Records by A. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps for the catalogue of Sanskrit mss. (Sanscrit 1045)
• Catalogue of the Sanskrit mss. by S. Munk, alphabetical order (Sanscrit 1772-1)
• Catalogue of the Sanskrit mss. (Sanscrit 1772-2)
• Catalogue of the Sanskrit-Devanagari mss. by Léon Feer (Sanscrit 1773)
• Catalogue of the Sanskrit-Bengali mss. by L. Feer (Sanscrit 1774)
• Catalogue of the Sanskrit-Grantha mss. by Léon Rodet and L. Feer (Sanscrit 1775)
• Catalogue of the Sanskrit-Telinga mss. by L Feer (Sanscrit 1776)
• Catalogue of the Sanskrit mss. in Nagra, Singhalese and Cambodian scripts by L. Feer (Sanscrit 1777)
• Catalogue of the Tamil mss. by Julien Vinson, no 1-132 (Indien 1061)
• Catalogue of the Tamil mss. by Julien Vinson, no 133-204 (Indien 1062)
• Catalogue of Tamil and Telugu mss. by J. Vinson and L. Feer (Indien 577, 578)
Published catalogues
• Étienne Fourmont, Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae. Tomus primus. Pars prima complectens codices manuscriptos orientales, Paris, 1739.
• A. Hamilton, L. Langlès, Catalogue des manuscrits samskrits de la bibliothèque impériale : avec des notices du contenu de la plupart des ouvrages, Paris, 1807.
• Antoine Cabaton, Catalogue sommaire des manuscrits sanscrits et p¹lis, fasc. 1 : Sanscrit 1-1102, Paris, 1907.
• Antoine Cabaton, Catalogue sommaire des manuscrits sanscrits et p¹lis, fasc. 2 : Pali 1-719, Papiers Burnouf 1-124, Papiers Feer 1-21, Paris, 1908.
• Antoine Cabaton, Catalogue sommaire des manuscrits indiens, indochinois & malayo-polynésiens, Paris, 1912.
• Jean Filliozat, « Liste des manuscrits de la collection Palmyr Cordier », Paris, 1934.
• Jean Filliozat, «Etat sommaire des manuscrits de la collection Cordier», Paris, 1936.
• Jean Filliozat, Catalogue du Fonds Sanscrit, fasc. 1 : Sanscrit 1-165, Paris, 1941.
• Agha Iftikhar Husain, A catalogue of Manuscripts in Paris : Urdu, Pundjabi and Sindhi, Karachi, 1967.
• Jean Filliozat, Catalogue du Fonds Sanscrit, fasc. 2 : Sanscrit 166-452, Paris, 1970.
• Jinadasa Liyanaratne, Catalogue des manuscrits singhalais, Paris, 1983.
• Prithwindra Mukherjee, “Catalogue du fonds Bengali.” Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient, vol. 72 (1983): 13–48.
• S. G. Tulpule, “A Descriptive Catalogue of the Marathi Manuscripts in the Charles d’Ochoa Collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale Paris.” Bulletin de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient, vol. 75, no. 1 (1986) : 105-23.
• Gérard Colas, Usha Colas-Chauhan, Manuscrits telugu : catalogue raisonné, Paris, 1995.
On-line catalogues and guides
• BnF – Archives et manuscrits [http://bnf.archivesetmanuscrits.fr]
• BnF – Catalogue général [http://catalogue.bnf.fr/]
• Gallica, Digitalized Library [http://gallica.bnf.fr/]
• Annie Berthier, Manuscrits, xylographes, estampages/ : les collections orientales du département des Manuscrits/ : guide, Paris, BnF, 2000 [online on Gallica]
• Guide du lecteur du département des Manuscrit s [http:// bnf.libguides.com/manuscrits]
Footnotes
1. The letter ‘Indochinois’ in the shelf-mark gathers together collections from Myanmar, Cambodia, Champa, Laos, and Thailand: the letter of the collection remained after the decolonization process...
2. Nagra script is also called Nandinagari: it is the Nigari from the Dekkan aera.
3. Antoine Cabaton, Catalogue sommaire des manuscrits sanscrits et p¹lis, Paris, E. Leroux, 1907-1908.
4. Jean Filliozat, Catalogue du fonds sanscrit. Fascicule I, nos 1 à 165, Paris, A. Maisonneuve, 1941 ; Fascicule II. Nos 166 à 452, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, 1970.
5. Catalogue sommaire des manuscrits sanscrits avec supplément manuscrit, call number « 8-IMPR OR-719 ». Online [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/ btv1b10536321f].
6. http://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr
7. http://gallica.bnf.fr
8. Antoine Cabaton, Catalogue sommaire des manuscrits indiens, indo-chinois & malayo-polynésiens, Paris, E. Leroux, 1912.
9. The records of the ‘Indien’ collection will be accessible online in a near future, that will hopefully solve this problem.
10. Call number « Sanscrit 551 », online [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/ tv1b105326379
11. Alexander Hamilton, Catalogue des manuscrits samskrits [sic] de la Bibliothèque impériale, Paris, 1807. See also Rosane Rocher, Alexander Hamilton, 1762-1824; a chapter in the early history of Sanskrit philology, American Oriental Society, 1968.
12. All these information were reemployed in later catalogues. A copy of Hamilton’s catalogue (call number ‘Sanscrit 1782’) presents blank pages bound with the printed book precisely to add those new elements. The hand could not be identified, but this is certainly one of a librarian employed for the catalogues operations.
13. Call number ‘Sanscrit 1773’.
14. Call number ‘Sanscrit 1774’.
15. Call number ‘Sanscrit 1775’.
16. Call number ‘Indien 577’.