Indian Antiquary Vol 02

SR No.: 032494
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 428
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 135

CORRESPONDENCE, &c.
APRIL, 1873.]
Thus we see very often "nija" used, where it might as well be omitted; for instance Urvast (ed. Bollensen) 68, 111, 126, and Urv. 31: niasarire, and Mudrár. 94, 8: aham piam gehar gamissam the word "nija" is used quite in the place of the pronoun "mama." The participle "gada" is frequently employed instead of a case, e.g. Urv. 21, 13:-uvvasigadam ukkantham vinodedu bhavam; or Sdk. 78, 15: taggadena ahilasena. Not a whit different from the use of keraka is that of sandha, e. g. Urv. 21, 8:-kasanamanisilavaṭṭasanâho adimuttaladamandavo; conf. 84k. 123, 5; Málav. 5, 9; and so of many other adjective nouns. Prof. Hoernle gives an example of how he thinks the genitive in the Bangali language has originated. He maintains that the genitive of santana was originally santána kerako. We must stop here. I have shown above that all the cases of keraka occur, and that it is always inflected. It is utterly impossible therefore to adopt a form santána kerako, Prof. Hoernle might as well say santána kerake or kerakam or kerakassa, &c. This only depends on the preceding or following substantive and the sense of the whole passage. We have no right whatever to insist upon any special case or a noninflected form. For the same reason, all the other derivations as santánakera, santánaera, &c. are mere phantoms. The word keraka is far too modern to undergo so vast and rapid a change as to be curtailed to simple "er". The singular participle kulu, in Mrichchh. 31, 16, mentioned by Prof. Hoernle, is not a participle but the regular imperative. The termination ra is certainly peculiar to the Prakrit language. Prof. Weber (Hála, p. 68) quotes a good many real Prâkrit adjective nouns in ira, to which we may add "uvvellira" (Urv. 75). This might have contributed to such a curtailing as this, but Prof. Hoernle ought not to have overlooked the fact that in the more modern dialects keraka is always changed into kelaka.
As for the other languages I do not intend to go into details here. But to show that Prof. Hoernle's deductions are not more probable, I point out the Gujarati postpositions. He derives them from a form kunno or kinno, which he supposes to have been a later or more vulgar form of the participle krita. Now we know from Vararuchi, XII. 15, that kunai is a poetical form, and not applicable in prose passages: it occurs often in the poems of the Saptasatî, but never in the dramas, except in verse: conf. Ratnávali, p. 19, 1; Nagánanda, 29, 5; Mudrdr. 39, 11; conf.Prataparudriya(Madras, 1868), p. 120, 11; Piñgala, v. 3. Nowhere is a participle kunno or kinno found, and if it were it would not be modern and vulgar, but ancient and highly Indian Antiquary, Vol. I. p. 247.
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poetical. I cannot therefore indulge with Prof. Hoernle in the hope that he has succeeded in proving beyond doubt that the participle krita is, in one form or other, the original of the genitive postpositions; on the contrary, I believe that his theory cannot be sustained.
London, February 1873.
Dr. R. PISCHEL.
BHAVABHUTI'S QUOTATION FROM THE RAMAYANA.
To the Editor of the Indian Antiquary. SIR,-In his essay on the Ramayana, Prof. Weber gives the verses quoted by Bhavabhâti in his Uttara Rama-Charita from the last chapter of the Balakanda of the Ramayana, and points out the corresponding verses in Schlegel's and the Bombay and Serampore editions, which resemble Bhavabhati's only in substance. In Gorresio he says, there is nothing corresponding to them. But about the end of the chapter immediately previous to the one to which Prof. Weber refers us, there are these same verses in Gorresio, identical in all respects with those quoted by Bhavabhuti except apparently in two small words which are eva (in the last line of the first verse) and tu (in the last line of the second verse) in Bhavabhûti, and abhi and hi in Gorresio. But the difference in the case of the first word at least is rather a difference between Gorresio and the Calc. edn. of the. Uttara-Râma-Charita, and not between Gorresio and Bhavabhuti, for in an old MS. of the play existing in the Elphinstone College Library I find abhi instead of eva.
But while Gorresio's edition agrees almost thoroughout with Bhavabhuti in this point, there is a material difference in another. Bhavabhuti quotes the verses as from the last chapter of the Bâla-Charita, but in Gorresio they occur in the last but two, while in Schlegel and the Bombay edition the corresponding verses, though considerably differing in language, occur in the last. On comparing the several editions, one finds that Bharata's departure to the country of his maternal uncle, which is despatched in five verses in the other editions, in Gorresio is expanded into almost a chapter, of which it forms the first 44 verses. The remaining four verses of this chapter occur in the other editions after the five verses about Bharata. The last chapter, again, in Gorresio, which describes Bharata's doings in the country of his uncle, and his sending a messenger to his father, is wanting in Schlegel and the Bombay edition. And since these additional chapters contain no new incident except the sending of the
+ Gorresio's Ramayana, Vol. I. p. 298.