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 231

JULY, 1873.]
gali Grammar of Sama Churn Sircar. For the purpose imputed by my critic I should have chosen a word like bagher, which, no doubt, may have actually been once bághakero. But it should not have needed explanation to see that after kera had once been curtailed to er and established as a genitive post-position, it would be added also to Sanskritic and foreign nouns in a, the genitive of which can, of course, only ideally be said to have once had the supposed Prakrit form.-Dr. Pischel further says that I might as well say santana kerake or kerakena or kerakassa, etc. So I might; indeed so I do. But unfortunately he has overlooked two considerations-first, that it would be too tedious to decline a noun through all cases whenever you quote it, and that hence it has been always customary to quote an adj. noun in the nom. case sing. masc.; secondly, that all Bangâli adjectives have dropped all case, number, and gender terminations; and that therefore, in whatever case keraka be quoted, it would equally assume the 3hape er in Bangali.
CORRESPONDENCE, &c.
Again, my critic is very severe on me for saying that keraka only occurs about 14 times in the Mrichchhakatika. Now suppose my statement be incorrect, to err is but human; and even my critic is not above it: he says that "keraka in the more modern dialects is always changed to kelaka:" but the Hindi has kerd, etc. In regard to the particular point of how often keraka occurs, my critic has overlooked the fact that I quoted from another edition of the Mrichchhakatiká (viz. Calc. 1829) than he. The two editions evidently differ considerably. His edition, no doubt, is the better one. According to my Calc. edn. the word keraka occurs about 10 times, not as a genitive postposition or pleonastically, but as a dative post-position (like Sanskrit kertte). All these instances I excluded as irrelevant to my purpose. Thus of Dr. Pischel's 38 there remain only about 28. Of these, I own, some escaped me, and I am indebted to Dr. Pischel for pointing them out. On the other hand, I intentionally expressed myself guardedly, "about fourteen." Moreover, I wonder it did not occur to my critic that the more examples of keraka as a genitive post-position can be shown to exist, the more it makes for my theory. For this peculiar use of keraka must have been very common and marked in the colloquial, to have been so frequently introduced into the drama. As regards the two instances from the Sakuntala, the first is a false one; for kelaka is there used to express the dative; and the second is a doubtful reading (according to M. Williams). The instance from Hála, likewise, is a false one. Those from the Malavika, Mudrarakshasa, and Malatt are true ones; but the two first plays I could not examine.
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As to the word pakelaka, having only the Calc. edition to consult, I was obliged to trust to it. If the reading is erroncous, the error is not mine. But to say that the error invalidates my deductions as to the meaning of keraka is absurd. The meaning of keraka (own, peculiar to, or as Lassen says, pertinens ad, and as Dr. Pischel himself, belonging to) is beyond dispute, whether my suggestion as to how it came by that meaning be true or not.
Again, my critic says that there is not the slightest reason for my supposition that the use of the word keraka is slang. Yet, with singular consistency, a little further on he himself says "there is nothing extraordinary in the pleonastic use of keraka; people of lower condition like a fuller and more individual sort of speech, and to emphasise their own dear selves." I think it will be generally admitted that this amply justifies my supposition; and it is merely what I said myself in other words in the essay. My critic seems to imagine that all Brahmans must be educated or respectable men, and that policemen may never affect to talk high language. At any rate, a general phenomenon cannot be invalidated by one or two contrary cases which admit of being explained in many
ways.
As regards the base-form kerika, it is contained in the regular feminine kerikd; but it seems to occur occasionally also in the other genders: e. g. Mrichchh. 122, 15, mana kelikáim in the acc. plur. neuter (as quoted by Dr. Pischel; Calc. edn. has kelakdim). It is mentioned by Lassen (Inst. Prak. pp. 422, 423), who seems to mistrust the form, but, I think, unjustly; for other words of the same form occur; e. g. soṭṭhiam (= svastikam for svastakam); the regular ettio (= iyantika, not iyatika, for iyantaka), beside ettao (Sak. p. 61, ed. M. Williams); see also Dr. J. Muir, Sansk. Texts, vol. II. p. 122; Weber, Bhagavati, p. 438. These forms are generally explained by an affix ika, but such instances seem to point rather to the conclusion that the form in ika is a corruption of that in aka.
As regards the identification of keraka with Sansk. krita, it is an old traditional one of the Pandits. Dr. Pischel says that Prof. Lassen has proved beyond all doubt "that this interpretation cannot be accepted," and that his identification of it with the Sansk, kárya "has been adopted by Prof. Weber as in accordance with the laws of the Prakrit language." Now in his Inst. Prak. p. 118, Prof. Lassen, after having stated the usual interpretation, gives two reasons (which I shall notice presently) which he thinks stand in its way and concludes by saying "hence I am inclined to