Indian Antiquary Vol 04

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 71

FEBRUARY, 1875.]
THE TOLLS OF GOAIL HAT (vol. III. p. 342). The story of the Tolls of Goail Hât is also told about Junagadh, but there it is the wife who colJects them, calling herself Phuibâ.
C. E. G. C.
NOTICES OF BOOKS.
QUERY" LADA LIPPEE."
SIR, In a memoir of Dr. John Leyden, who accompanied the Mysore Survey at the beginning of the century as Surgeon and Naturalist, I lately met with the following passage:
'He particularly distinguished himself by translating some inscriptions in an obsolete dialect of
PANCHATANTRA (Bombay Sanskrit Series), Edited with. Notes, I. by F. Kielhorn, Ph. D., II.-V. by J. G. Bühler, PH.D.
NOTICES OF BOOKS.
About a quarter of a certury ago, the Asiatic Society of Bengal, under the patronage of the East India Company, took in hand the publishing of valuable Sanskrit works which had previously been accessible only to the few, and that often in an incomplete and inaccurate form. The thoroughness of the work was sufficiently guaranteed by the names of the scholars selected to carry it out, and we owe much to the labours of Ballantyne, Cowell, Hall, Röer, Rajendralâl Mitra, and others, the fruits of which are presented to us in the old series of the Bibliotheca Indica. Some books, however, are now out of print, and others-the Lalita Vistara for example-were never finished. Simultaneously with the retirement of the European editors from this country the series appears to have ceased. It was afterwards resumed, but not under the same auspices, or with the same happy results. It would be unfair to pass by unnoticed the very laudable efforts in the same direction made by the learned grammarian Professor Târânâtha Tarkavâchaspati and his worthy son, who have striven to bring the classics within the reach of the poorest. The number of works brought out of late years by these two scholars is amazing, but accuracy has, we regret to say, been often sacrificed in the desire to bring out a book rapidly. The editors of the Bombay Sanskrit Series are endeavouring, it would seem, to take up the thread where it was dropped by the former labourers in Bengal, and to give us thoroughly accurate and trustworthy texts, with the tion of concise notes in English. How far their efforts have been successful we propose to examine, confining ourselves on the present occasion to Nos. I. III. and IV. of the series, which comprise the Panchatantra. We would remark, however,
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the Tamul language, and in an ancient character called the Lada Lippee or Verraggia, which no European had ever been able to decypher, and which was hardly known even to the most learned Indians, but which he found out by comparing together several different alphabets."
Can you or any of your readers supply informa tion as to what the character referred to was, and where specimens of it are to be met with ?
LEWIS RICE.
Bangalore, 9th December 1874. Possibly the Vatteluttu (Ind. Ant. vol. I. p. 229; vol. III. p. 333) may be here meant.-ED.
that whilst the native professor and his son have fallen into the Scylla of undue haste, the scholars here have been drawn into the Charybdis of excessive slowness. Five years ago, when No. VI. of the series was published, we were informed that the Daéakumáracharita, Kádam iri, and Malati Madhava were in preparation, yet up to the present time Part I. of the first-mentioned is all that has appeared. Let us hope that the remainder are not about to share the fate of a valuable and voluminous work on Caste which was in the press in Bombay more than fifteen years ago, but has not yet been disgorged by that monster!
Very little need be said regarding the text of the Panchatantra which Drs. Kielhorn and Bühler have now secured for us. It is a thoroughly good one. Misprints have crept in here and there, chiefly in the latter part of the work, but perfect accuracy in Oriental printing seems at present unattainable. The notes, too, as a whole, are all that could be desired, and are truly multum in parvo. It were to be wished that those appended to the other volumes of the series had been drawn up on the same principle. A notable example of entirely opposite principles of annotating is furnished by the Bhartrihari published this year. Regarding some of the notes now before us we must, however, join issue with the learned editors, and we will begin with those in No. I. (Tantras iv. and v.) On page 4, the alligator, giving a description of the preparations made by his wife for the reception of the monkey, describes her as addi-forfor, which might be rendered" arrayed in pearls and rubies," or "having prepared pearls and rubies." Dr. Bühler, however, renders fra by "splendid," which seems wholly unauthorized. The same word occurs in Bala Bharata, i. 5, 81 लक्ष्मीरिव स्वयमराजत राजपुत्री कस्मैचन