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NOVEMBER, 1874.]
work of very great importance for the study of the popular dialects, has recently been published at Bombay. This publication, though it cau scarcely satisfy the requirements of European students, will be of material assistance for a critical edition, which, it may be expected, will ere long be attempted by some competent scholar. In his able Dissertatio inauguralis de Grammaticis Prácriticis, Dr. Pischel has made known the results of his study of those grammatical works on Prakrit of which MSS. exist in the English libraries.
ORIENTAL RESEARCH IN 1872-73.
Of the Setubandha, a Prakrit epic, probably composed not later than the sixth century of our era, Dr. P. Goldschmidt has lately brought out a specimen, containing the two first chapters, with a German translation, Sanskrit comment, critical notes, and an index of words.
A manuscript copy of the Agama, or sacred writings of the Jaina sect, together with their commentaries, lately added to the Berlin Library by the assistance of Dr. Bühler of Bombay, is the first complete set which has reached Europe, and will materially aid inquiry into the Prakrit dialects and the religious history of India.
Páli and Buddhism.-In a very important, though certainly startling, paper recently published by Professor H. Kern, of Leiden, an abstract of which has been contributed by Dr. J. Muir to the Indian Antiquary of March 1874 (ante, p. 77), the date of Buddha's death has again been discussed with much warmth. After endeavouring to show that the chronology of the Southern Buddhists, as contained in the Mahdvamsa, is utterly untrustworthy, Dr. Kern suggests as the most probable date for that era the year 330 B.C., viz. some 100 (110) years before Aśoka's accession, that being the interval between the two events given in the Aśokávadána.
The same subject has also been dealt with by Mr. Rhys Davids, who, whilst also rejecting the Mahavamsa chronology based on the lists of Magadha and Ceylon kings, pointed out the interesting fact that in the available MSS. of the older Dipavamsa this chronology is not found, but another, based on the succession of Theras or Buddhist Patriarchs, which, in his opinion, would tend to fix the death of Buddha at about 150 years before Aśokâ's coronation, or circa 400 B.C. Dr. Kern's paper also enters largely into the question of the philological relation between the language of Asokâ's inscriptions and that of the Buddhist scriptures. These discussions clearly show what great service might be rendered by the speedy publication of the ancient historical works in Pâli and Elu, described in a postscript to Mr. Davids's paper in the Number of our
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Journal just published, as well as of the Sanskrit books of the Northern Buddhists bearing on these questions.
Modern Vernaculars.-The philology of the vernaculars of Northern India will derive great benefit from two scholarly productions, viz. Dr. E. Trumpp's Grammar of the Sindhi Language, published at the expense of the Indian Government, and the first volume of Mr. J. Beames's Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India. The latter publication, which contains the phonetics of these languages, is to be completed by two more volumes, of which one will deal with the noun and pronoun, the other with the verb and particles. In the Bibliotheca Indica Mr. Beames has also brought out the first number of the Prithiraja Rásau of the ancient Hindi poet Chând Bardai.
The field of philological and ephemeral Hindustâni literature has been, as usual, ably reviewed by Professor Garcin de Tassy in his Revues Annuelles sur la Langue et la Littérature Hindoustanies.
Zend and Pahlavt.-Two essays, entitled Avestastudien, published by a promising young scholar, Dr. H. Hübschmann, contain some valuable additions to Zend philology. In the first of these are given the Pahlavi text and German translations of the Servsht Yasht and a chapter of the Gathde, and metrical translations of their Zend originals, with notes showing how the two versions differ from each other. The second paper contains several contributions to Zend lexicography, consisting of new explanations of words of doubtful meaning.
Pahlart students are indebted to the liberality of the Bombay Government for a critical edition of the Arda Virdf Námah, published in the original Pahlavi and the Roman characters by Professor M. Hang and Dr. E. W. West. The work, hitherto but imperfectly known from Pope's English translation (1815), from modern Persian and Gujarati versions, contains an account of the journey of a Pârsi priest to heaven and hell. The text had been originally prepared by Destur Hoshangji Jamaspji Asa, but was afterwards thoroughly revised by the editors from ancient MSS. existing in Europe. To this they have added an English translation, and both the text and translations of two minor Pahlavi treatises, viz. the Gosht-i Fryano and the Hadokht-Nask.
Persian. The fourth and concluding volume of M. Zotenberg's French translation of Tabari's Chronicle, published at the expense of our Oriental Translation Fund, will be ready for publication within a few months.
Arabic.--The edition of Istakhri's Liber Clima
