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SKETCHES OF MATHURA.
OCT. 4, 1872.]
Grammar appeared, it is technically used to designate the South Indian family of languages.
The last few words mention the Parasika Yavana, Romaka and Barbara languages. The first three, it is almost unnecessary to remark, are Persian, Greek, and Roman (Latin); what language is intended by Barbara is not easy to say. The Greek word Baßapos is here not to be thought of; it may perhaps be intended for Bod-pa, Tibetan, or for Burmese, which (if I recollect rightly) is called properly Mrama. At all events, in addition to the proofs furnished by the Astronomical treatises, this list of languages will show that the Brahmans knew much more of foreigners than is commonly supposed, or they indeed have ever been willing to admit.
There is another reason for believing that Southern India was brahmanized but comparatively recently, and this is taken from the Nibandhas or law-digests. In most of these we find a chapter termed Des anirṇaya, and in the Smritichandrikâ which belongs to
SKETCHES OF MATHURA. BY F. S. GROWSE, M.A., OXON, B.C.S. IV.-BARSANA AND NANDGANW.
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about the 10th century A.D. this is pretty full. The country of the Brahmans, as is well known, originally comprised but a small part of the vast peninsula now known by the name of India, (conf. Mânava-Dh. S. ii, 17 and ffg.), and at the time the Digests were compiled the lawyers had to determine how far the laws of Áryâvarta and Brahmâvarta held good in other countries. In the end they are obliged to admit that people must follow the customs that prevail where they live; the question had evidently arisen very recently. I do not mean to deny for a moment that a few Sanskrit names are found some centuries ea rlier in South India, such as are preserved to us by classical writers, but they occur only in the fertile deltas or important seaports of the South, and were probably introduced by Buddhist missionaries. Indeed the process is so slow that the brahmanization of wild tribes in Central and South India is going on to this day, and is yet far from complete.
Mangalore, 11th August 1872.
BARSANA, according to modern Hindu belief the home of Krishna's favourite mistress Rádhá, is a town which enjoyed a brief period of great prosperity about the middle of last century. It is built at the foot and on the slope of a ridge, originally dedicated to the god Brahma, which rises abruptly from the plain, near the Bharatpur border of the Chhátá Pargana, to a height of some 200 feet at its extreme point, and runs in a south-westerly direction for about a quarter of a mile. Its summit is crowned by a series of temples in honour of Láṛli Jí, a local title of Rádhá, meaning 'the beloved.' These were all erected at intervals within the last 200 years and now form a connected mass of building with a lofty wall enclosing the court in which they stand, each of the successive shrines was on a somewhat grander scale than its predecessor, and was for a time honoured with the presence of the divinity. But even the last and largest, in which she is now enthroned, is an edifice of no special pretension; though seated, as it is, on the very brow of the rock, and seen in conjunction with the earlier buildings, it forms an im
(posing feature in the landscape to the spectator from the plain below. A iong flight of stonesteps, broken about half way by a temple in honour of Rádhá's grandfather, Mahibhán, leads down from the summit to the foot of the hill, where is another temple-court, containing a lifesize image of the mythical Brikha-bhán robed in appropriate costume and supported on the one side by his daughter Rádhá, and on the other by Sridáma, a Pauránik character, here for the nonce represented as her brother.
The town consists almost entirely of magnificient mansions all in ruins, and lofty but crumbling walls now enclosing vast, desolate, dusty areas, which once were busy courts and markets, or secluded pleasure grounds. All date from the time of Rúp Rám, a Katára Bráhman, who having acquired great reputation as a pandit in the earlier part of last century, became Purohit to Bharatpur, Sindhia, and Holkar, and was enriched by those princes with the most lavish donations, the whole of which he appears to have expended on the embellishment of Barsána and the other sacred places within the limits of Braj, his native
* Though Fick (Indogerm. Wörterb.) 2nd edn. considers that the Sanskrit word is borrowed from the Greek,
