A fruitful if tiring day in South Mumbai.
First a visit to the Heras Institute at St Xavier's College. Indica has rejected my article on the Panjim Central Library MS of the Khristapurana, saying it is far too sketchy for their readership, which is not as specialized as I had imagined it to be. I also took the chance to search for some articles of De Smet's, chiefly from Indian Antiquary, 3rd series. However, it turned out that Heras does not have the volumes I needed.
Then a visit to the University of Bombay Periodicals Library. This turned out to be very fruitful, and I came away with at least 4 items of De Smet's: two from Indian Antiquary (3rd series), one from the Journal of the University of Poona, and one from the Journal of the American Oriental Society.
Since I had time on my hands, I also visited Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, off Chowpatty, in search of The Voice of Ahinsa. This was disappointing: they did not have it. They referred me to the nearby Jain Vidyalaya, but I was not able to find it, also because I was hoping to get back in good time to the University Library to pick up my photocopies, which I did, and that part went painlessly.
Update, 14 August 2013: I finally found a trace of The Voice of Ahinsa on the net. However, the De Smet articles I am searching for are not uploaded. This morning one of the editors of the website wrote back, saying that copies of the periodical are very rare, but that he would check with some libraries in Berlin and get back to me. Here is his email:
First a visit to the Heras Institute at St Xavier's College. Indica has rejected my article on the Panjim Central Library MS of the Khristapurana, saying it is far too sketchy for their readership, which is not as specialized as I had imagined it to be. I also took the chance to search for some articles of De Smet's, chiefly from Indian Antiquary, 3rd series. However, it turned out that Heras does not have the volumes I needed.
Then a visit to the University of Bombay Periodicals Library. This turned out to be very fruitful, and I came away with at least 4 items of De Smet's: two from Indian Antiquary (3rd series), one from the Journal of the University of Poona, and one from the Journal of the American Oriental Society.
Since I had time on my hands, I also visited Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, off Chowpatty, in search of The Voice of Ahinsa. This was disappointing: they did not have it. They referred me to the nearby Jain Vidyalaya, but I was not able to find it, also because I was hoping to get back in good time to the University Library to pick up my photocopies, which I did, and that part went painlessly.
Update, 14 August 2013: I finally found a trace of The Voice of Ahinsa on the net. However, the De Smet articles I am searching for are not uploaded. This morning one of the editors of the website wrote back, saying that copies of the periodical are very rare, but that he would check with some libraries in Berlin and get back to me. Here is his email:
Hello Ivo,
your e-mail was forwarded to me by the editors of Jaina website
HereNow4U.net, because I reissued the mentioned essays from 'The Voice of
Ahinsa' on their website.
'The Voice of Ahinsa' is a hard to find publication. In my own collection
I have several issues from the 1930's to 1940's - but unfortunately not
the numbers you are searching. But as far as I know there are some volumes
of 'The Voice of Ahinsa' are preserved in the library of Freie
Universitaet Berlin or in Berlin State Library. I will advise one of my
assistants to check this and send you further details soon.
Best wishes
Patrick
(Patrick Krueger, pkrueger@zedat.fu-berlin.de)
