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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JANUARY 5, 1872.
Mr. Gover's "Folk-songs of Sonthern India" | Indian Antiquary, we hope to find the means of is not only an instructive book, it is probably publishing them for decipherment and transwithout exception, the most interesting work lation by those among our correspondents best relating to India and the social character of its skilled in such studies. people, that has appeared for years; and it shows Then there are the subjects of Mythology and what a patient worker may effect.
Religions with their sects, rites and ceremonies; Then the History, Chronology and Genealo- Literature and Bibliography ; Philology and gies of the many provinces, races, and royal Grammar; Astronomy ; Medicine ; Geology and families are all but exhaustless subjects. On tlie Natural History,—which will all supply themes costumes ancient and modern; on implements interesting to the scholar, the man of science, the of domestic use, husbandry, and war; on Sports politician, the educationist, the missionary, tho and Pastimas; and on the Arts and Handicrafts, general reader and the tourist. of India, volumes might be filled. The Ethnology We are gratified to find that so ready a resof the various tribes and the connections of their ponse has been made by so many eminent scholanguages, &c., may well occupy many enquir- lars in India to our request for aid, and we have ers. Topography and Geography-ancient and to thank many others for voluntarily offering modern,- are only beginning to attract attention, very valuable contributions to our pages. We and are susceptible of very extensive elucidation. invite all our readers to aid us with their pens; Our Indian Governments have at length taken up there is no country where fresh information of the compilation of Provincial Gazetteers; but the most varied sort lies so near to every one's such works can at first be only approximately com- hand as in India ; and whoever tries to write, we plete, and the compilers—however talented and feel sure, will find the field widen and deepen energetic-cannot be expected to obtain the 1 in interest the oftener he makes the attempt to best possible information, in more than a ma- put it into form for the interest and instruction jority of cases. Here, again, our contributors of others. may be of public service, by supplying our pages Finally, by inducing subscribers to join our with articles on points of local geography and ranks, and thereby obtaining for us the pecuhistory.
niary means of which, as yet, we necessarily stand Numismatology is another branch for which in need, our readers and first supporters will much remains to be done. There are coinages- enable us to accomplish the services at which Sah, Gapta, Baktrian, Hindu, and Mughal, of we aim; and no pains will be spared on our part various ages and dynasties, that will amply re- in endeavouring to stimulate that literary spirit ward patient study, and respecting which we ex- and power which very many of those who have pect to be aided with researches and coins to figure, first welcomed our proposals are known to pos
Inscriptions abound in some districts more sess, and which not a few are ready to exert for than in others, and if fac-similes are sent to the the instruction of all who will join us.
ON THE PRESENT POSITION OF OLD HINDI IN ORIENTAL PHILOLOGY.
BY JOHN BEAMES, B.C.S., M.R.A.S., &c. BALASORE. ORIENTAL scholars in Europe, as a rule, devote of my recent visit to England, I found that the their time and attention exclusively to Sanskrit British Museum contained none, the Bodleian and its off-shoots, Pali and the Prakrits. With had one bad manuscript of Chand, (which was the exception of the veteran Professor, M. Garcin entered in the catalogue as a Sanskrit poem !) de Tansy, I know of none who have considered and the library of the Royal Asistic Society had the Indian vernaculars of the mediævnl and not more than half-a-dozen works of this class. modern periods worthy of their study, and even I found only three or four imperfect copies of that eminent scholar's labours have been chiefly some of the latest and most common of these directed to Urdu, and other quite modern poets in the Indin Office library, and I believe branches of the Hindi group of dinlects. Manu- continental collections are entirely destitute of scripts of works by Hindi writers from the twelfth them, though I had no time during my short to the sixteenth century are very rare, and those stay in Paris to verify the fact. that exist are seldom complete. On the occasion A wide field is then awaiting attention. Its
