Burmese Manuscripts, part 4: Catalogue Numbers 736-900.

• Author: Nyunt, Peter
• Position: Book Review

Compiled by ANNE PETERS, edited by HEINZ BECHERT. Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, vol. 23, 4. Stuttgart: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 2000. Pp. xxvii + 274. DM/FS 124.

This is the fourth volume of the catalogues of Burmese manuscripts in the German series of catalogues of Oriental manuscripts in German libraries (Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland). It contains descriptions of 105 Burmese codices housed in the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) in Munich. The first volume of this series was printed in 1979 and covered catalogue numbers 1-155; the second, printed in 1985, covered catalogue numbers 156-431; and the third was printed in 1996, covering catalogue numbers 432-735. Volume four follows the same guidelines as the previous volumes.

Starting with the first volume, it is obvious that much time, money, and effort has been put into the preparation of very high caliber catalogues. To date no other catalogues of Burmese manuscripts can match this work, as the many favorable and often detailed reviews of the earlier three volumes attest.

My first encounter with this collection was in 1986: the amount of information in the first and second volumes amazed me. Fifteen years have gone by, and two more volumes have...