Indian Antiquary Vol 16

SR No.: 032508
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 408
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 337

OCTOBER, 1887.)
MISCELLANEA.
313
intelligent foreigners. If Mr. Blumhardt's illus. In conclusion, returning to my first point, that trations of this leave room for doubt, I would take this volume is part of a series, I beg leave to as further examples two distinguisbed Bengalis, a record my emphatic testimony, after several years leading novelist and a leading Sanskritist.-BâbQ of work in this and other collections of Oriental Bankimachandra Chattopadhyâya, and Professor books, that cataloguing under personal names of Mahêsachandra (Vandyopådhyâya) Nya yaratna, - authors is the only system that will work for the and ask whether any of their numerous friends whole of India. and admirers in Calcutta of to-day would "easily"
Yours faithfully, or naturally "recall" them by appellations such as BRITISH MUSEUM: CECIL BENDALL " Mr. B. C. Chatterjee" or "Prof. M. C. Banerjee." Department of Printed Books.
MISCELLANEA. PROGRESS OF EUROPEAN SCHOLARSHIP pronounced parab, darab, and karam. It is quite No. 7.
a commonplace of Kaithi writing that these Journal Asiatique, Vol. VIII. No. 1, July-August compound letters with r are merely convenient 1886.-M. Senart's paper on the insoription of stenographic signs, and in no way represent the Piyadasi has been noticed at p. 112 above; but as pronunciation. A similar example in modern
it is of more than ordinary interest, a rather full Kaithi, is the word pargand, which is always written • analysis of its contents is given. In it M. Senart pragand, (TT or abbreviated :) though never proceeds to examine the following points :
80 pronounced. M. Senart further argues that a 1. If the monuments reveal dialectic differences, character in the Khalsi inscription which is usually what they are, and how they are to be understood. considered as representing the palatal 6, is only
2. If, beside the dialectic differences, there do another way of writing the dental s. It is a not also exist others, founded upon differences curious coincidence that in the Kaithi there is only of orthographical systems.
one sibilant, (u), which, however, is always 3. If it is possible to form conclusions from
pronounced as a dental. (). There is no palatal the philological and palaeographical data fur. sibilant or sh sound in the Bihårt language to nished by our texte, as to the contemporaneous which Kaithi is adapted. condition of the religious or learned language- Regarding dialectic differences, M. Senart is at Vedic or classical Sanskrit ?
issue with the ordinarily accepted theory. It is M. Senart takes the second point first, and
assumed (he says) that each of the versions of the shows that a great many of the instances of
edicts represents faithfully the dialect of the apparent dialectio difference, are really due to country in which it has been engraved. He believes various ways of representing the same sound, that this is a mistake, and that deductions resting the alphabets not being used in a strictly phonetic on this foundation have nothing to support them. manner. To one who has studied the Kaith priori, it would be surprising it one single character of Bihar with some attention, some of dialect had reigned, without a rival, and without the orthographical points mentioned present shades of difference, over the whole of North and startling points of resemblance to similar ones North-Western India. And this general ground of in that character. Thus M. Senart states that
scepticism is fortified by particular reasons. If the in certain of the inscriptions there are no signs one-dialect theory were true, it would be found for and . In Kaithi, there is no initial or
that at the time of Asoka, whether at Dhauli and medial i, and no 4. The initial character serves
Jaugada, or at Räpnåth and Allahabad, one dialect for i and serves for i and L and for u
was in use everywhere, in which nominative and 1. Again in the Kapur-di-Giri inscrip
masculines of a bases ended in d; which changed tion the words dharma, dariana, pårva, &c., rinto l; which may, in short, be called, for the are written dhrama, drabana, priva, &c. This
sake of brevity, the Magadht of Asoka. Now the is quite common to the present day in Kaitht.
inscription of Khandagiri, quite close to those I have before me a Kaith MS. of the last of Dhauli and Jangada, of which the date has century, and within a page or two, I find not perhaps been fixed with certainty, but which chrana, dhrama, nraka, prama, for charana, is surely not more than a century later than dharma, naraka, parama, all of which were the monu.nents of Piyadasi, and which appears certainly pronounced charan, dharam, narak, to emanate from a local sovereign, has ita nomi. param. There are even frequent forms like natives in 0, its locatives in , retains original, rpůva ( ) rdav (o), rkam (14), representing and, in a word, presents none of the characteristic the Sanskrit púrva, dravya, karma, and certainly' traits of that dialect : by consequence, we are