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 225

JULY, 1873.]
REVIEWS.
205
We miss, however, the beautiful plates of the lat- derived from madhu (p. 66); Siv-rat' is the same ter, omitted apparently at the suggestion of as 'Sacrant' (Sankrant) and means.father night'; Colonel Keatinge, as being "very inaccurate", -a tho fious religiosa 'presents a perfect resemblance character which, as applied to the views, is in most to the poplar of Germany and Italy, a species of cases, unfortunately, only too correct; still it is which is the aspen' (p. 73); Larike of Ptolemy was somewhat awkward when the reader comes to Kathiâvâd, and took its name from the Silar tribe page 8 and roads,-"To render this more distinct, (p. 104); and so on,-- endless inaccuracies rendering 1 present a profile of the tract described from Tod most untrustworthy as a guide. And even in Abu to Kotra," &c., and to find that this section what came under his own eye he sometimes sacriof the country has been candemned to omission fices truth to effect : thus, describing an old with the artistic pictures. At p. 224, the author temple at Komalmer (vol. I. p. 577) he says,says he "exhibits the abode of the fair of Ceylon"- "The extreme want of decoration best attests its meaning the palace of Padmanf,-but it is not to antiquity, entitling us to attribute it to that period be seen; and again at p. 576 we read of "tho Jain when Sampriti Raja, of the family of Chandratemple before the reader, and a sketch of the fortress gupta, was paramount sovereign over all these [of Komalmer) itself, both finished on the spot," regions (200 years B.c.)... The proportions and and yet neither of them is before the reader. And forms of the columns are especially distinct from so in other cases. This of course is one of the other temples, being slight and tapering inthe results of the want of editing: another is the stend of massive, the general characteristic of Hindu uncorrected errata. The author himself had architecture; whue the projecting cornices, which pointed out a few of those in volume I. bat even of would absolutely deform shafts less slight, are them only one has been corrected; and on page peculiarly indicative of the Takshac architect... 25, where, by a misprint of or' for 'on,' the ori- | It is curious to contemplate the possibility, nay ginal had “Maheswar, or the Nerbudda river," the probability, that the Jain temple now before the reprint has "Mahêswas, or the Nerbudda the reader may have been designed by Grecian river," while at p. 51 we have "perpetua larchon," artists, or that the taste of the artists among the exactly as in the quarto.
Rajputs may have been modelled after the GreBut no writer is more in need of careful éditing cian." Yet after all this and much more confithan Tod: his book is as readable as his opinions dent assertion, no competent critic looking at the are often rash and fanciful. His facts-where he piate " before the reader" in the first edition, confines himself to facts--are interesting and im- would be disposed to relegate the temple to an portant, and are fortunately so numerous as to earlier age than about A.D. 1500; and indeed it give his work a high value in spite of his very bears this inscription upon it, which shows moreillegitimate and misleading etymologies, on which over that it nover was a Jaina temple, - he frequently hangs whole theories of ethnology.
1 HEPT TH:11 : His imagination is never at a loss : from a few names having each a syllable or so alike, ho can माहाराजाधिराज राणि श्री संग्राम क्षेत्रजेठी reconstruct whole chapters of lost history.
बाविरावा हलउलाप इलादेवि श्री मदे शि In Chapter II. he cites (p. 28) the Agni Purana for the genealogies of the Surya and Indu (moon) मुठचा संवत् १५१ वर्षे पोसवदि ११ माघा races,'--but they are not found there. A little further on, he makes the Påndavas the sons of
|| || TË HTTII Vyasu by Pandea (p. 29); he would make his showing clenrly enough that the temple was
Barusar the son of Chandragupto" tho samo as scarcely more than three centuries old when he the 'Abisares' of the Greek writers (p. 38); Raja- saw it, dating only from the reign of Rani Sangriba is the modern Rajmahal' (p. 39); "Dush- grâm, A.D. 1514. Yet with all its errors and dekhanta,' as be names Dushyanta, is the father of fects, Tod's work is one of sterling value, and well Sakuntala, married to Bharat' (p. 40); Tanjore he worthy of careful study: and whilst some will makes the probable capita of the Regio Pandiona' regret the want of references in this new edition of Ptolemy; Un-des, the country of the Shawl to later and more trustworthy writers, and the gort or Tibet, he makes An-des, in order to identify correction of errors, or, perhaps, that the wheat it with Anga-desa (p. 41); Valmika (15 he calls has not to some extent been separated from the Valmiki) and Vyasu 'were cotemporaries' (p. 42); chaff by the judicious omission of the greater porMarco Polo was at Kashgar in the sixth century' tion of the merely fanciful speculations of the (p. 56); the Jaxartes is the same as the Jihoon autbor,--all interested in it will feel grateful to the (p. 57); madhu means a bee' in Sanskrit, and the publishers for bringing so convenient and careful name of the drink extracted from the Mahuê tree is a reprint within their reach.