Indian Antiquary Vol 01

SR No.: 032493
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 430
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 22 MB

Page 271

AUGUST 2, 1872.]
WEBER ON THE RAMAYANA.
239
big-bulb, fine-bulb, although "root-lump" is not to be rejected.
Is it not perhaps possible, that halu, hâl, pâl, juice, milk, is the same word as the halâ, etc., water, vinous or spirituous liquor poison, under No. 1 ? and that a spirit of hatred (caste) against the Anâryas, combined with the fact that the milky or vinous juice of many trees, called hâl, is obnoxious and poisonous, has given it also a bad signification ? From pâl the Sanskrit pâlana, milk of a lately calved cow, is derived, but this is probably a recent formation. The aspirato does not appear at the beginning of the Tamil and Canarose words under No.1, and in the Tamil of the present day “milk” is pâl (Canarese hal, pål); l'ut the word without the h (p. ) may be the original one. It would, certainly, be strange if hal, pâl, the only word for "milk" in Dravidian, should not have entered into Sanskrit at an early age.
It is curious that initial l and P, as in Dravidian, so also in Sanskrit Tatsamas or Tadbhavas are used promiscuously. Thus Dravidian halli, palli, village-Sanskrit palli (which is not at all connected with puri); Dr. hallu, pallu, tooth-S. halu; Dr. halli, palli, house-lizard
S. halini ; Dr. horag hurage), porag (pu Rage), without-S. hiruk ; Dr. hud, hud, pud, puud, to join together-S. hud, hund, put;
Dr. hul, hul, pul, půl, to cover=S.hul ; Dr. hud, pud, hod, pod (bod, bad), to beat (powder)-S. put, (pud) etc.
Sometimes an aspirate is used in a Sanskrit Tadbhava where there is none in the original. Thus Sanskrit heramba, buffaloe-Dravidian erum e; Shrivera, many-branched root of the grass Andropogon muricatusDr.iru vēli, irveli (R.ir, to go into parts); s. lingu, AssafoetidaDr. hingu; (ingu may be a foreign word; if not, we have the Dravidian root ing, to dry ur, evaporate, decoct, which fully explains it). On the other hand Sanskrit agni, fire, has received the form haggi in Canarese.
We have ventured above to find al again in hol, pol (pul), to unite, join ; cf. al, ul and pol (pul), to sound; ôl, vôl, pôl, hól, to resemble, liken ; ali, oli, pâli, line; remember also that an initial u sometimes, and an initial o generally are written and pronounced as if there were a v at the beginning (ondu, oneyondu or vandu). If our supposition is right, a spiritus lenis must, here and there, have originally occurred where we have now a spiritus asper ; and thus the comparison of âla and hâlu, milk, would become the more justifiable. We could adduce further instances in favour of this supposition It is we think worth being well tested.
ON THE RAMAYANA. BY PROF. ALBRECHT WEBER, BERLIN. Translated from the German by the Rev. D. C. Boyd, M.A.
(Concluded from page 182.) If the preceding considerations have made it he should have heard the whole of the Ramasufficiently clear that there is nothing either in yana, in one day," decides in favour of at least the substance or in the form of the Ramayana the "remota antiquita del poema," (Introd. to distinctly inconsistent with the idea that it was Vol. I. p. xcvii-vii), inasmuch as king Dâmocomposed at a time when Greece had already dara lived about the beginning of the 14th cenexercised a considerable influence on India, that tury B. C.,-then, of course, nothing further on the contrary it is necessary to strike out of need be said ! But it is well-known that the the poem important passages which clearly Raja-Tarangini itself dates only from the beginindicate such an influence,-the external testi- ning of the twelfth century of our era (composmonies to the existence of the work, which we ed about 1125, see Lassen, Ind. Alt. I. 473; II. are able to produce from the rest of Indian 18); and we should certainly hesitate to ascribe literature, are in complete harmony with this such a "remota antiquita" to this epic, merely result. If, indeed, Gorresio is right in suppos- on the ground that in it the Ramayana is ing that the passage in the Raja-Tarangini I. brought into connection with the bewitchment of a 116, according to which king Damodara was king, who is presumed to have reigned 2,400 years condemned to wear the form of a serpent "until before the date of the poem ! And besides, the
• Which would be a work of some difficulty with regard to the numerous passages in which the planets are mentioned