ABSTRACT
Before the formation of the Department of Oriental Manuscripts in 1867 these were, with some exceptions, among the least organised of the Library’s collections, the catalogues being few for want of experts on the Staff. In 1848 the Oriental MSS. numbered some 3,550, and some were covered only by a general classed inventory. Cureton was occupied till his retirement in 1850 on the Syriac and Arabic. A library covering such a range of languages could only be dealt with by being broken up into those languages, and in spite of occasional polyglot scholars such as Dr. Barnett, required more experts than the regular Staff could provide. Thus we find that as early as 1849 Dr. Duncan Forbes had been brought in to catalogue Persian MSS.; and in later generations the catalogue of Sanskrit MSS. was produced by Professor Bendall, those of various North Indian vernaculars by Dr. J. F. Blumhardt, of Sinhalese by Don Wickremasinghe of Oxford, of Armenian by Dr. F. C. Conybeare, and so forth.
