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84
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
NOTES AND QUERIES.
COUNTING-OUT RHYMES IN BURMA. I.
St-bông Dong eng, Dô-gô hmén! Wus-sén!
Ke-bong: pyé!
Made-of lines
Three houses, Intended for-us!
Off-you-go. Save-yourself; run!
II.
Dàn nổ! Dàn nyet! Dan-nyet kè!
Hmwè, yú! Laik pê-dò (ông)! Palm juice! Palm sugar!
PROF. ZACHARIA'S ANEKARTHASAMGRAHA.1
Prof. Zachariæ has been a well-known authority on Indian Lexicography, since the publication of his Beiträge zur indischen Lexicographie in 1883, and I am glad to welcome the important work, whose title heads this article, from his competent pen.
Prof. Bühler's life of Hemachandra has been before the public for some years, and it is hence unnecessary for me to do more than to remind my readers that the Anckárthasaṁgraha, or Dictionary of Homonyms, is one of his most important works. It is the chief of its class, occupying much the same position in reference to it, that the Amarakósha occupies among the ékárthakóshas, or Dictionaries of Synonyms. Put more popularly, an anékárthakósha is a dictionary of words of more than one meaning, while an skárthakosha is a dictionary, in which different words of the same meaning, synonyms, are grouped together. The work of Hêmachandra has been published more than once, but Prof. Zachariæ's is the first really scientific edition, with
a properly edited commentary. It is remarkably free from misprints. The commentary is the more valuable because its author, Mahendrasûri was a pupil of Hêmachandra, and composed it soon after his teacher's death in the last quarter of the 12th century.
Dr. Zacharia has not been able to print Mahêndra's commentary in its entirety, except for the
BOOK-NOTICES.
1 Sources of Sankrit Lexicography. Edited by order of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna. Volume I. The Anckarthasarhgraha of Hemachandra. With extracts
[MARCH, 1894.
Palm sugar lumps! Bend-over, take! Now follow!
These are used in a game played by boys all over Burma with some variations.
In Mandalay squares (or "houses") are marked off by lines, made in the dust or on the ground, in three separate places at some distance apart. The boys are then arranged in a row at some distance from the nearest equare and counted out by the first rhyme until two are left, when the last boy is counted out by the second rhyme. They all then make for the "houses," the last boy trying to catch one of the others before he gets into a "house."
In Rangoon the boys stand in a circle and are counted out indifferently by either rhyme, and the last boy has merely to try and catch one of the others.
R. C. TEMPLE.
first kanda of the text, but the pith has been preserved, and only those portions omitted which furnish information readily obtainable elsewhere. A special feature is the large number (some 7,000) of examples taken from classical authors illustrating the meanings of words given in the text. These examples have been retained by the editor, except such as have been quoted in Böhtlingk's dictionaries. The way in which they have been treated by the editor illustrates the care and thoroughness with which he has carried out his work. A large number of the examples have been traced to their sources and identified. This must have been a work of immense labour.
The work has been excellently printed in Bombay by the Education Society's Press, and the learned world owes a debt not only to the editor for a most useful work, but to the liberality of the Imperial Academy of Vienna, and of the Secretary of State for India, which made its publication possible.
P. S. Since the above was written, I have
received a pamphlet by the same author, entitled Epilegomena zu der Ausgabe des Anékárthasamgraha.' It consists principally of critical notes on the text, and on the examples given by Mahêndra in his commentary: and also contains a useful index of the authors quoted by him. I commend it warmly to students of the original work.
G. A. G.
from the Commentary of Mahendra. Edited by Th. Zachariæ. Vienna. Alfred Holder. Bombay: Education Society's Press. 1893. pp. xviii. and 132 and 206.
