Indian Antiquary Vol 21

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 62

54
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[FEBRUARY, 1892.
into which he has fallen in consequence of hold. ing that theory, and then state our grounds for holding that the work is merely a hand-book of Sanskrit Grammar.
First, then, - in his Analysis Mr. Dhruva says, " Vocative not given." This remark, as has been already hinted above, proceeds from an assumption that this is a Gujarati Grammar, and the fact that Gujarati Grammars regard the Vocative as a separate case.
In his . Analysis' Mr. Dhruva says: "(9) Kridanta forms like a, carta,
it. Pa, &c." Looking at the corresponding chapter in the book we find that this refers to the forms i, a tar, artaz, used incidentally to explain the Sanskrit participial and other forms ending in तुम्, तृ, and शट. But even supposing for a moment that this work is a grammar of the vernacular of the period, Mr. Dhruva should have given the forms , TTEIT, A (the forms of the vernacular of the period), and not
car, chitat (the forms of modern Guja. râtî). He has in this instance been run away with by his patriotic hobby, so far as to uncon. sciously represent modern Gujarati forms as treated of in the text.
Finally, Mr. Dhruva is forced to resort to a rather amusing shift in order to support bis totter. ing theory, whenever at erery turn it meets with some shock or other. The work gives + and other non-Prakrit vowels; this, Mr. Dhruva explains away, as a “Sanskritism." There are tbree numbers given (Prakrit has only two, liaving no dual); this Mr. Dhruva says, is a San. skritisin. The case terminationsgiven are Sanskrit and not Prakrit; this again, says Mr. Dhruva, is a Sanskritiem. The rules of Sandhi (which are unknown to Prakrit) are again a Sanskritism, a Scording to Mr. Dhruva Sandsas giving forms confined to Sanskrit Gramniar, the mention of Atmanêpada forms of verbs (as Prakrit has only Parasmai pada forms even in the Passive Voice), the Sanskrit terminations for roots, - all these are " Sanskritisms." For Mr. Dhrusa must maintain his theory at any cost. Where, then, we ask, is the Prakritism of the work to be found ? Is it in the incidentally used Praksit terminations which Mr. Dhruva parades in all the importance of a bold black capital type? Mr. Dhruva is in the amusing position of a man who, looking at a peacock, would persistently swear it was a dog, and asked, whence the deep blue colour, whence the thick mass of rainbow-coloured feathers, whence the crest, the wings, the beak ?, would reply "Oh! that much only is a peculiarity of the
peacock"! The fact of the matter is that Mr. Dhruva has started on a wrong line from the out. set, with also a wrong foundation, and is therefore compelled to put up a prop here and a prop there to support the tottering superstructure.
I shall now proceed to indicate the grounds on which I base my contention that the work is a hand-book of Sanskrit Grammer and not of Gujarati Grammar.
To begin, the very Mangaldcharana (the open. ing verse) shews the purport of the work :
अहं प्रणम्य मुग्धानां बोधहेतीविधीयते ।
प्रायःप्राकृत उक्तीनां किंचिदाम्नायसंग्रहः ।। "After bowing to the Arbat, I proceed to make, for the instruction of beginners, a collection of some of the rules of grammar, mostly in the Prakriti. e, using for the greater part the Prakrit language in the treatment of my subject)." The author uses the word 94: (mostly), because in the latter part of the text be has occasionally treated the whole subject in Sanskrit and not in Prakrit.
K arkrai is a +3anitai(9), and hence it cannot mean "a collection of Prakrit Uktis."
K is connected with fy and not with mig. Even if the locative form is allowed, by a strain, to represent the genitive sense, it would conflict with the word , which will not tben give a satisfactory meaning. The author must, therefore, be taken, even from this passage, to propose a collection of rules of Sanskrit Grammar, treated through the medium of Prakrit.
The facts that the work gives letters like , &c., peculiar to Sanskrit only, the dual number, Sanskritcase-terminations, Sanskrit Prátipadikas, the rules of Sandhi and Samusa peculiar to Sanskrit, and Atmanepada forms, clearly indicates that the book treats of Sanskrit Grammar and not of Praksit Grammar. It is very easy, but not safe, to explain all these facts away by calling them "Sansksitisms." But it involves on the face of it a circumlocutory and inverted way of arguing. It has never struck Mr. Dhruva as peculiar, that so large a fund of peculiarities of Sanskrit Grammar should have crept into a Gujarati Grammar with propriety, and without jarring on the sense of proportion. The author, probably holding that the title of Vyakarana can be claimed only by an exhaustive work treated in Sanskrit, gave his work a far more modest name.
Mr. Dhruva may possibly have been misled by the facts that the whole treatment in the large portion of the work is carried on in Prikrit, that the Sansksit terminations are first preceded by the mention of Prakrit terminations, and that Sanskrit instances are preceded by the citation