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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1889.
the dangerous and delicate path of testing it by his transliteration of Sanskrit words. And in doing so he shows where Sanskrit compounds have been wrongly divided and so mistranslated,
e.g. H
afiqfII into
زپرحهان and سالني
and where parts of compounds have been mis- understood. ... Tarafa fy:. in which Albê. rani thought that 2: was the name of the 7th Rishi, come as he calls him. In this connection Dr. Sachau prints in this volume an "index of words of Indian origin" in 42 pp. double column, and he promises a comparison of Albêrani's Indian names with those in his Sanskrit sources. It need hardly be said that this comparison will be looked for with much interest.
Like all scholars from his time downwards Albê. rani was oppressed with the difficulty of transliterating Indian words into his own character, and like all scholars of all countries he adopted & system of special diacritical marks combined with a deferential acquiescence in existing custom in the case of well-known words. So his w ( ) and his , 4.. (CT) have formed a puzzle on their own account, as no doubt will our English "cooly" (46) and "boy" ( ) in the dim future. Dr. Sachau has treated this part of his subject with conspicuous skill, and he well explains the diffi. culty of getting at Alberoni's meaning in his transliterations. Thus, he evidently endeavoured to write in Arabic the sounds of the Indian words as he heard them, and since he took them down sometimes orally and sometimes from books, he at one time would transliterate from bad and variant pronunciations and at others from the written words. We then get two or more forms of the same word; e.g. umie and for CFU Then again, while purporting to transliterate he would be really rendering some vernacular form; e. g. 4! for 194. Sometimes he mixed up the vernacular with Sanskrit; e.g. when he says did = 60 years. Like many another scholar, too, Alberoni, after devising a system of diacritical marks, based in his case on those in Persian, did not stick to them; e.g. while adopting for p he would write for band for p, and so on. The diacritical markings in the MS. of M. Schefer are also rendered all the more uncertain from the fact that at the time it was written the modern system of marking Arabic was hardly yet in vogue. The old and the then new system of marking were
1 It is a pity that this Index loses much if not all of its value for Sanskrit students, to whom chiefly it is of interest, through being arranged coording to the order of the Arabic alphabet. All such Indexes ought to
both at times followed by the scribe in some cases, au in w and resulting in much ambiguity. Lastly, Alberoni, in quoting or adapting from old works as from Al-Erânshahrt on Buddhism, follows the old corrupt spelling, whereby we get for ! However, it is gratifying to find that Dr. Sachau can nevertheless confidently assert that "the consonantal skeletons of the words are very trustworthy and offer a sufficient basis for their reconstruction."
The value of Alberáni's work to the student of things Indian, can be seen by a mere reference to its contents. He opens with an acoount of Hindu religion and philosophy, including a disquisition on caste. He then proceeds to describe the literature of the Hindus, their science, metrology, and mathematics. The chapter on " Hindu sciences which prey upon the ignorance of the people should attract attention. Then we have a description of Hindu geography and cosmogony; and much astronomy and computation of time, the most valuable part of the work, which will be much appreciated by students of this Journal. And finally Hindu manners, customs, customary law, and astrology have a fair share of attention. There are chapters here in which the folklorist and anthropologist should alike revel. THE MSS. IN THX LIBRARY AT COLOMBO. Ceylon Administration Reports, 1887. Pt. IV., Miscellaneous, Colombo Museum, by Mr. F. H. M. CORBET, Librerian.
It is a comfort to find from the date of this Report that other people besides Indian officials are apt to be behind time in recording the practical work performed by them. However, there is much to interest us in the short report on Sinhalese M.SS. now before us, as the collection of these in the Colombo Museum Library, -- an institution which does not otherwise seem to be of any note,- is no doubt in a fair way of becoming very valuable. .
The old manuscripts, consisting of original texts of the Buddhist Canon, commentaries, histories, philological, poetical, scientific and medical works, are worth serious attention.
The Canonical Books, however, are themselves incomplete, but the commentaries are in a much better condition. Of histories there are fifty, and of philology and poetry there are 76. In science and medicine th:re is only a beginning of what no doubt will become a valuable collection later on.
It is satisfactory to note that the arrangement of the MSS. is systematic and practical. follow the order of the Roman alphabet. It is only Dictionaries that require to be arranged according to the alphabet of the language to which they belong.
