Indian Antiquary Vol 04

SR No.: 032496
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 410
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 343

OCTOBER, 1875.]
BOOK NOTICES.
319
appear to be the palace of Jodhpur, and further the best in the Report), it may be presumed that that Mr. Lumsdaine thinks that the famous this classification is used under orders from Swayamvara took place there! The passage is so superior authority. It is scarcely necessary to spirited and interesting that we give it at length, say here that there is not an indigenous Buddhist although it is hard to see what connection either in the Presidency. the place or subject has with the census of the To conclude: the orthography of the Report Bombay Presidency, except through the person of varies from the pure Jonesian of Dr. Wilson to the its compiler.
ugly but still systematic Gilchristian of Mr. Steele, "Such tales" (viz. as the story of the Swayam- with every possible form of intermediate bastard vara) "find spell-bound listeners, and it has so and barbarous kakography. This fault reaches chanced that I have read them. The castle of its acme on the map, which has besides, on its the Rahtor is no longer threatened; and it has own geographical account, the merit of patting been my good fortune to look down from its grim Thåná on the mainland, and the source of the old towers, and by torchlight, upon & scene U1&s river under the Malsej Ghật, with other which as a scene was simply perfect. The occasion new discoveries of the same sort "too numerous is an annual festival in honour of Mâta Devi, to mention." whose wrath is to be so appeased, that the
THE PRINCIPLES OF COMPARATIVE PRILOLOGY. By A. scourge of small-pox may be stayed for the com
H. SAYCE, Fellow and Tator of Queen's College, Oxford. ing year. Groups of girls dressed in every colour (London: Trübner and Co., 1874) pp. 381. and every shade of colour pass up to the palace Mr. Sayce is a zealous philologist who has to receive the usual propitiatory offering and already done excellent service, especially in the take it to the shrine of the goddess. There the investigation of the Assyrian branch of Semitic. most beautiful amongst them is chosen, and a He is well entitled to an attentive hearing on the lighted taper is given to her, and placing it in subject of Comparative Philology. an earthen vessel she is to carry it to the king. If He characterizes his own work as "devoid of it roaches him alight it is a good omen, but if it be the graces of style,"" rough-hewn," and "bristling quenched it is a presage of evil-quod Deus with uncouth words," and, so far as the matter of avertat! The ceremony is of the simplest, but it is concerned, as being "critical" rather than it is all that is left to them of pomp and power. "constructive." The procession of the girls is itself the very poetry | We certainly cannot praise the style. Mr. Sayce of colour, and with it come stately elephants in is full of thought and knowledge; but he seems housings ablaze with gold and silver embroidery. just to have tilted the water jar on one side and From end to end the route is illuminated; the allowed the stream to rush as best it might. terraced roofs are crowded; each coin of vantage And Mr. Sayce is nothing if not critical. Ho is occupied; and the street has a background of has very strong convictions, and is ever bold in torchlit matchlocks and men, wildly effective, and expressing them. No matter who crosses his between them is borne the sacred light.
path, Tros Tyriusve, the comer is greeted with a "And then come the very flower of Rajpat chival- war-whoop and a blow. We are glad that we are ry, splendidly dressed, superbly mounted; rich criticizing Mr. Sayce, instead of being criticized armour and jewelled plumes, inlaid shields, the by him. We shall deal more mercifully by him burnished axe, the glittering mace, the pennoned than he would by us. lance; and everywhere the play of sword-blades. Bat, in fact, our work is exposition much rather The picture is perfect, and carries one back to than criticism. Mr. Sayce holds that one far. the Crusades, but it tells us that agos before the reaching error on the part of philologists has Crusades such arms were wielded by the an- been the assumption that the Aryan family of cestors of the men who now carry them."
language affords a complete solution of the proWe have the Buddhists', of course, 190,620 blems of the science of language. We cannot of them, in whom the public of Bombay will be admit that philologists have overlooked the surprised to recognize the familiar Marvadi, with Semitic tongues; but the tendency which Mr. numbers eked out by certain Gujarati Jainas, and Sayoe thus states, and considerably overstates, a few Southern Jainas who are cultivators or does, to some extent, exist. He would give as an small traders in the Dekhan and South Maratha instance of such perilously rapid generalization Country. As there is a good account of them at the canon that the roots of all languages are p. 83 (indeed the whole chapter on Religions is monosyllabic. This canon, he states, is set aside
Does not Mr. Sayoe, however, rather exaggerate the evil? We find in Prof. Whitney's Life and Growth of Language the following usertion regarding the large family
of Malayo-Polynesian dialecta:-" The roots are prevailingly dissyllabic" (p. 243).