Page:The Origin of the Bengali Script.djvu/12

viii type-written manuscript twice and has corrected many of the proofs. My thanks are due to Sj. Hemchandra Gosvāmī, Extra Assistant Commissioner, Gauhati, Assam, for pointing out the modern Bengali inscription recording the dedication of the image of Āmrātakeśvara at Kāmākhyā near Gauhati in Assam. To my friend Pandit Vasanta Rañjana Rāya Vidvadvallabha Kavirañjana, the Custodian of the manuscript collection of the Baṅgīya Sāhitya Pariṣad, I owe a deep debt of gratitude. Mr. Rāya has enabled me to complete the history of the development of the Bengali Script by collecting transitional and final forms from the manuscript of Caṇḍīdāsa's Kṛṣṇa Kīrttana, discovered by him in Bankura, a task which I could never have succeeded in completing without his aid. I am indebted to the Council of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Executive Committee of the Baṅgīya Sāhitya Pariṣad for permission to photograph and reproduce certain pages of a manuscript of the Bodhicharyāvatāra of Śāntideva, written in 1492 V. E., and of the Kṛṣṇa-Kīrttana of Caṇḍīdāsa.