come) eee FFSAIOTA a AA SHR li TATCAT It aredlreieres Seated of &. a. qaerorenferor areata aa gi daaT | HPASATTTTT aft 3. WUSIRT, &, &, Faas ater att ga: afteaa fecha cence aR aad seTearalemaet: amarnareehat: oft ti. argent walea: sara | arereg: 1890] yt we 2/- [Reaarey: 1969Bos ossvug wana QouatfulG~126 THor Lit ondny agave: J wanred (perasr wrer Liste ly sir HG Cag. sh. vAyaiposru sravgfacttc SO) OorPauuroyjier pcreart ugigssiup py mrpoda gs wanted grost Bw Gar, Caruredramart, M.A, guise €FHGRSH Bays surhssuuce Oyen usty —— SGnF cones naora proaiuw Ararsse gai er Osorraseriu sha, Bo Bb. sapreb @orbr garserres Qeuohuieuce gH. #5 1890] 2820 (6. 2/- [&. 9, 1969PREFACE The T M S.S M Lubrary, Thanjavur has been rendering useful service for over twenty years in the preservation and propagation of ancient Indian culture by bringing out ‘from the dark unfathomed caves’ of its literary ocean, ‘many a gem of purest ray serene’ While the previous publications of the Library may be called gems in a metaphorical sense, here is a work literally on gems, the Ratna Pariksa. Two of the works which are got up together in this small volume were originally published in the year 1958 as serial articles in the T. M.S.S M Library Journal with text in Devanagari and a lucid translation into Tamil by Thiru K. S. Subrahmanya Sastri, who was a Sanskrit Pandit in the Library and has edited many works, especially on Mantra and Silpa Sastras, for the Library. The booklets were first released as off-prints from the Journal ; and now, they are placed before the public in book form. The book has been revised, enlarged and re-edited by Professor V. Gopala Iyengar, our Librarian, a leading scholar in Sanskrit, English and Tamil. The text has been improved in several cases with reference to the original manuscripts, the translations have been modified wherever necessary and extracts from some other manuscripts on the same subject and an informative introduction in English, have been added. Exhaustive tables of contents both in Sanskrit and