C.M. Whish

C.M. Whish was a collector of palm-leaf manuscripts in Sanskrit and other languages. After his premature death in 1833 at the age of thirty-eight years, Whish's brother, J.L. Whish, who was also employed in the service of East India Company deposited these manuscripts in the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland in July 1836. A catalogue of these manuscripts list 195 items. Though the manuscripts collected by Whish are not distinguished by great age, there are many rare and valuable ones among them. Perhaps the most important of all are the Mahabharata manuscripts which represent a distinct recension of the great epic. These manuscripts were related a wide range of subjects: vedic literature, ancient epic poetry, classical Sanskrit Literature, and technical and scientific literature.