He acknowledges the help of Henry Bower’s and W. Taylor’s works.⁵ Rev. S. Winfred - an excellent scholar and author of some Tamil works, C. Rajagopala Pillai, T.S. Condaswami Iyer and Pandits of the Presidency College (Madras) have all helped him.⁶

Murdoch realises that there are many omissions, inevitable no doubt and the title should have been “Contribution towards a Catalogue of Tamil Printed Books.”⁷

Reading between the lines, we understand the nagging difficulties which John Murdoch had in his pioneering efforts to catalogue Tamil Books, which process was until then unknown in the Tamil country. He is not boastful; instead he realises the draw backs― an admirable quality in a great scholar.

Murdoch has classified the Tamil books into ten different divisions and has listed printed books for each section individually and finally has totalled the entire lists of the printed books. It was upto-date.

The chief purpose as expressed by the author himself was to form a “judgement as to which books should by published” and to “aid in showing which books are most wanted in the Tamil language.”⁸

A perusal of his lists will show that religious books top the list and among them books on Christianity lead. The reasons for this are obvious. Evidently since the printing presses were still chiefly run by Missionaries or because of the existing “Press Act”, these books were present in greater numbers. This catalogue of Murdoch’s served another indirect purpose. It became an impetus for native (who realised that they lagged behind the Europeans in the number of printed books) to try to achieve more.

A commencing pre-requisite for such a catalogue is a “History of Literature.” To delve into the history of literature was not

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.