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MAY 3, 1872.]
NOMINAL BASES IN SANSKRIT.
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Bar is in the Agra district; Sona, famous before the Christian era. Thus the only possible for its hot sulphur springs, is in Gurgânw; while hypothesis is that some Pandit, struck by the the Sûras en kâ gânw' is supposed to be Bate- marvellous circumstances of our Lord's infancy, sar, a place of some note on the Jamuna below as related in the Gospel, transferred them to his Agra, the scene of a very large horse-fair held own indigenous mythology, and on account of the on the full moon of Kartik. But the lines above similarity of name, selected Krishṇa as their hero. quoted cannot be of any great antiquity, seeing It may be added that the Harivansa, which posthat they contain the Persian word hadd; the sibly is as old as any of the Vaishnava Puranas, exact locality of an ideal centre need not be very was certainly written by a stranger to the country closely criticized ; and certainly all the places of of Braj; and not only so, but it further shews legendary reputation fall well within the limits of distinct traces of a southern origin, as in its dethe modern parikrama.
scription of the exclusively Dakhini festival, the Attempts have been made to establish a con- Punjal; and it is only in the south of India that nection between the earlier chapters of St. Ma- a Brahman would be likely to meet with Christian thew's Gospel and the legends of Krishna as com- traditions. But after all that can be urged, the memorated by the ceremonies of the Ban-játra. coincidences though curious are too slight, in
There is an obvious similarity of sound between the the absence of any historical proof, to establish names Krishna and Christ; Herod's massacre a connection between the two narratives. Proof the innocents may be compared with the bably they would never have attracted attention massacre of the children of Mathura by Kansa; had it not been for the similarity of name; and the flight into Egypt, with the flight to Gokul ; it is thoroughly established by literary criticism as Christ had a fore-runner of supernatural birth that the two names had each an independent in the person of St. John Baptist, so had Krishna origin. Thus the speculation may be dismissed in Balarama; and as the infant Saviour was as idle and unfounded. To many persons it will cradled in a manger and first worshipped by appear profane to institute a comparison between shepherds, though descended from the royal the inspired oracles of Christianity and the house of Judah, so Kțişhņa, though a near kins- Hindu scriptures. But if we fairly consider the man of the reigning, prince, was brought up Indian legend, and allow for a slight element of among cattle and first manifested his divinity the grotesque and that tendency to exaggerate to herdsmen." The inference drawn from these which is inalienable from Oriental imagination, coincidences is corroborated by an ecclesiastical we shall find it not incongruous with the tradition that the Gospel which St. Thomas the primary idea of a beneficent divinity, manifested Apostle brought with him to India was that of in the flesh in order to relieve the world from St. Matthew, and that when his relics were dis- oppression and restore the practice of true recovered, a copy of it was found to have been ligion. As to those wayward caprices of the buried with him. It is, on the other hand, ab- child-god, for which no adequate explanation can solutely certain that the name of Kţişhņa, how be offered, the Brahman may regard them as the ever late the full development of the cycle of sport of máyá : in western phraseology--apierlegends, was celebrated throughout India long tia ludens omni tempore, ludens in orbe terrarum.
ON THE TREATMENT OF OXYTONE NOMINAL BASES IN SANSKRIT
AND ITS DERIVATIVES. BY JOHN BEAMES, B.C.S., M.R.A.S., MAGISTRATE OF BALASOR. The following remarks are intended to direct &c., divides itself into two separate sets of bases attention to a hitherto neglected point in the in the medieval and modern Aryan languages, formation of nominal bases. It has been observ- and investigators seem to have been puzzled by ed that the-a base in Sanskrit, as in nara, putra, this fact. Dr. Trumpp, writing on Sindhi, in the
* Hindu pictures of the infant Krishna in the arms of his foster-mother Jas'oda, with a glory encircling the heads both of mother and child and a background of Oriental scenery, are indistinguishable, except in name, from representations of Christ and the Madonna.
# It is quoted by Bírini (born 970, died 1088 A.D.) as e standard authority even in his time.
I Conf. Trench, Hulsean Lectures, 1846, Lect. III., sth ed. 1859, pp. 203-4, &c.-Ed.
