The Sanskrit Subhasita-s encompassing both the wise sayings of metrical composition and the entertaining verses of poetic fascination reveal the qualities of head and heart proudly possessed by the elite of India's splendid past. Almost every standard Sanskrit work contains the Subhasita-s in substantial numbers. making the Sanskrit literature a rich repository of such genre of literature. From the very early period onward, scholarly efforts are being made to prepare the anthologies of these Subhasita-s popularly known as Subhasita-zamgraha-s. The anonymous Kavindra-vacana-samuccaya, Vallabhadeva's Subhasitavali, Bhagadatta Jalhana's Sukti-muktavali, Sridbaradasa's Sadukti-karnämsta, Vidyakara's Subhasita- ratna-koşa and Suryakalingaraja's Sukti-ratna-hara are some of the important ancient Subhasita-samgraha-s, and amongst the modern ones, Narayana Rama Acharya's Subhasita-ratna-bhandagara and Otto Böhtlingk's Indische Spruche with German translation deserve special mention. Worthwhile in their own way as all the previously prepared Subhasita-samgraha-s, particularly those cited above, were, there still remained a desideratum to have a comprehensive Subhasita- samgraha in consolidated form, which might include in its purview all the Subhasita-verses recorded in the earlier anthologies as also the new ones collected from the extant standard Sanskrit texts and all other possible sources. With a view to fulfilling this long-felt need, in the early sixties Dr. Ludwik Sternbach conceived the idea of preparing an extensive collection of the Subhasita-s, which, like his Canakya-niti-sakha-sampradayah (Canakya-niti-text-tradition), was given the title by Acharya Dr. Vishva Bandhu, the Founder-Director of the V. V. R. Institute, as Maha-Subhasita-Sangraha. Thus the present project saw the light of the day.
It was 1976. The All-India Oriental Conference was meeting at Dharwar. I was presiding over its Classical Sanskrit Section. The second volume of the Mahasubhasitasangraha had just come out. I referred to it in my Presidential Address and spoke of the entire project as 'monumental",
Much water has flowed down the Yamuna since then. A good twenty-three years have sped by. The Mahatubhasitasangraha has come up to six volumes. The seventh one, which I have the pleasure to introduce herewith, is all set to appear in print shortly.
The Mahasubhasitasangraha project is the second big project after the famed Vedic Word-Concordance project undertaken by the Vishveshvaranand Vedic Research Institute, Hoshiarpur. Expected to run into twenty volumes, it has been making steady progress, thanks to the singleminded dedication of its editor Prof. S. Bhaskaran Nair. He has been editing its Sanskrit text with necessary corrections and additions, providing text-comparative data, suggesting emendations in cases of doubtful readings, supplying notes on various matters including metres and compiling indices. He has also been translating a huge majority of the subhasitas into English, a task daunting enough in view of their laconic nature and the diffused construction at times.
While the scholarly community would expect the project to gather a little more of speed, it has also to come to terms and appreciate the constraints under which it is operating. When one single individual is to carry the major responsibility of supplementing, editing, translating, index-making and seeing the work through the Press, the progress cannot but be slow. It is a monument of wonder that so many volumes of the monumental Mahasubhasitasangraha could at all make their appearance. Scholarly community owes to Prof. S. Bhaskaran Nair its profuse thanks.
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