Amrita Collected Papers by A M Ghatage

SR No.: 006968
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: Kasturbhai Lalbhai Smarak Nidhi Ahmedabad
Total Pages: 530
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 10 MB

Page 410

Dictionary of Sanskrit on Historical Principles
that no historical dictionary can really be attempted by dealing with them separately. Much of the value of such a work is likely to be lost because the most fascinating and interesting part of the work is to bridge the gap which separates the post-Vedic literature form the Vedic, both in language and thought. It is easier to argue that a dictionary of this type should stop at the end of the classical period and this can certainly be done without losing the historical perspective. But there are good reasons against taking such a decision. More than the belles lettres which form only about 1/15th of Sanskrit literature, the works on various scientific and religious subjects form the bulk of the language and this literature has a greater cultural value for India today than the merely literary works. And there is far greater continuity in this technical literature from the classical period to the modern times, some branches of which like medicine, astronomy and law, continue to be living subjects of even practical use. Moreover some of the valuable contributors in sciences and subjects like Grammar, Law, Poetics, Kāvya and Nyāyaphilosophy belong to the post-classical period. As closing the work at the end. of either the 16th, 17th or 18th century makes no real difference in its scope, it is certainly advisable to cover as much period as possible and the end of the 18th century is a good closing point. It is obvious that selection of works from this later period has to be done with great care and with an eye on its pragmatic value.
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2. To cover the whole range of Sanskrit literature for a dictionary from the Veda to the end of the 18th century, one can roughly estimate the number of works which will have to be utilised for this purpose. It is difficult to say how many books are found in Sanskrit, as many of them are not published and the bulk of the literature is in the nature of commentarial works making it difficult to estimate their actual number. Five thousand may be a little liberal estimate. Out of these a well-chosen collection of 1500 books should suffice for any lexicographical attempt to capture almost all the vocables in the language. If anything remains left out it will be only compound expressions with no special meaning other than that of their components and as such of no real lexical value. Any way, with the freedom of using very long compounds which Sanskrit boasts of, particularly in its prose works, it is impossible to record all of them and some kind of limitation must be imposed on them before they are admitted as the lemmata of the dictionary. The number of books used by the existing dictionaries may give a correct picture of the scope and value of a collection of 1500 books for this purpose. BR. use 450 books. MONIER-WILLIAMS uses about 500, and APTE'S