Indische Handschriften. Teil 16: Die Sarada-Handschriften der Sammlung Janert der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

• Position: Book review

Indische Handschriften. Teil 16: Die Sarada-Handschriften der Sammlung Janert der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz. By GERHARD EHLERS. Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland. vol. 2.16. Stuttgart: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG. 2006. Pp. 183.

Next to Aufrecht. few names in Germany are as closely associated with the study of Indian manuscripts as that of Klaus Ludwig Janert (1922-94), whose An Annotated Bibliography of the Catalogues of Indian Manuscripts has, since its publication in 1965 as Supplementband no. 1 of the Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland (VOHD), been an indispensable tool in the hands of those searching for Indian manuscripts in libraries and collections all over the world. In the course of three decades, from 1962 till 1991, Janert also contributed several volumes to the second section (Indische Handschriften) of the VOHD: five volumes of descriptions of manuscripts (four of which with N. Narasimhan Poti) and two volumes of indices, and for four volumes he acted as the editor.

From 1995 (VOHD 2.12) onward Gerhard Ehlers took over the description of Indian manuscripts. In VOHD 2.15 he described Die Palmblatt-Handschriften der Sammlung Janert in der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz. The volume under review (VOHD 2.16), Ehlers's fourth, deals with the first live hundred of the circa nineteen hundred manuscripts from Kashmir, all but a few in Sarada script, acquired by Janert, which, together with his other manuscripts, were transferred to the Staalsbibliothek in Berlin in 1996.

Janert's collection is in many...