________________
OCTOBER, 1877.)
CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEA.
307
the literature immediately connected, and in which the statement in your last number that the theauthority for the single words,--that is to say, if sounds are heard not only from the southerly and they are taken from Pånini, from the vdrttikas, south-westerly directions, but also from the north, from the Bhdshya, from the Ganapatha, &c.,- corresponds with the statement I have met with, ought to be signalized by certain marks. For such that the sounds are heard even as far north as a task there are indeed still required some previous Dhâk. I never myself, however, heard them operations of wide extent, viz. besides an exact work. from any other directions than the south and ing through of the whole Bhashya generally, also south-west. especial inquiries on the ganas. According to I do not remember to have heard the sounds at Böhtlingk (Introd. p. xxxix.) the ganas of the any period of the year excepting at the beginning Kisild differ from those of the Calcutta edition of the rainy season. During the whole of the rainy to such a degree (and both the MSS. at his season a very large extent of the low-lying country disposal were, moreover, sometimes so incorrect) there is under water, and the people pass from that he preferred not to give the various readings village to village in boats over the flooded riceat all. Still undoubtedly just in this case such a fields,--the southern portion of the district being comparison and verification is very particularly the portion more especially inundated. Now, we desirable. I venture therefore to express here in have on record some most remarkable instances all humility the pious wish-l'appetit vient en of the sound-conducting power of large surfaces mangeant--that the two learned and highly-gifted of water; as, for example, the mysterious sounds professors of the Banaras College, to whom we of guns, and other noises, heard sometimes by -owe the present edition of the Bhashya, may men becalmed at sea when far away from the publish also the Klóikd, which takes its name from ordinary possibilities of hearing. their celebrated ancient city, if not on the model Now, what the Shabi-barát is to Muhammadans of the Calcutta edition of Panini, which of course the month Åshidha is to Hindus--the period when would be preferable, yet at least in the same way marriages are most frequent. This month is the as they have published the Bhashya. According first month of the rainy season, and the weddings to Colebrooke's testimony (Miscell. Essays, vol. II. are celebrated chiefly during the Krishnapaksha pp. 9, 40) the Rdsikd is "a perpetual commentary, half of the month. Not only in Eastern Benand explains in perspicuous language the meaning gal, but also in other parts of Hindustan, gunand application of each rule," adding examples, firing is quite common at Hindt weddings at this and quoting in their proper places the necessary season of the year. No mystery appears to exist emendations froin the Varttikas and the Bhdshya.
in connexion with the reports excepting in that He calls it, disertis verbis, the best of all extant part of India which is so generally submerged at commentaries on Pånini, a judgment in which this season. Böhtlingk also (p. liv.) concurs. An additional Query :-Is it not at least possible that the advantage is its relatively great age, as it may Barisal guns' may be simply the reports of guns eventually belong (Ind. Stud. V. 67) to the very fired on the occasion of weddings in distant parts, time when, according to the Rajatarangin, the conveyed to hearing by means of the vast expanse Mahabhdshya was re-introduced into Kasmir, after of water which floods the entire Sundarbans at being for a while vichinnam there (ib. V. 167)."* the period mentioned ? Berlin.
A. WEBER. Could not some of the enlightened Bangali
gentlemen, whose minds are unfettered by fables THE BARISÅL GUNS (ante, p. 914).
about the gigantic gates of Råvana's palace, help While at one time a resident of Barisal, I shared us in our endeavours to trace the phenomenon to the general curiosity on the subject of the singular some rational cause P gun-reports heard there, and frequently took Allahabad.
. J. D. BATE. Occasion to make inquiries of the natives concerning them. Though they professed ignorance as
HINDU SACRIFICE. to the cause of the more distant explosions, they . "Sacrifice is described as a ship, boat, or ark, invariably attributed the nearer ones to the firing pretty much in the same way as the Church' in of guns at native weddings, which they said was the baptismal service that they, being deliver. a custom of the district, and they could sometimes ed from Thy wrath, may be received into the ark supply the name of the person in whose honour of Christ's Church, and may so pass the waves of the firing in question was proceeding. There this troublesome world, that they may finally seems no reason to doubt that the same explanation come to the land of everlasting life,' &c. In Rigapplies to the more distant sounds also.
veda x. 113, 10, there is a mantra to this effect : # Ind. Stud. vol. XIII. (1873) pp. 819-880.
