Indian Antiquary Vol 21

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

Page 7

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
A JOURNAL OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH.
VOLUME XXI.-1892.
THE INSCRIPTIONS OF PIYADASI. BY E. SENART, MEMBRE DE L'INSTITUT DE FRANCE Translated by G! A. Grierson, B.C.S., and revised by the Author,
(Continued from Vol. xx. page 266.)
CHAPTER IV. (continued). THE AUTHOR AND THE LANGUAGE OF THE INSCRIPTIONS.
PART II. - THE LANGUAGE. THE language of our inscriptions presents, especially as regards grammar, hardly any
I absolutely impenetrable obscurities. Much light is thrown upon it by a comparison with the analogous idioms with which literature has made us familiar. Nevertheless, the orthograpbical or dialectic peculiarities which distinguish the different versions, and the chronological position which our monuments occupy, lend to their study a philological importance, on which it is not necessary to insist.
I propose, in the first place, to sum up, in as condensed an inventory as possible, all the grammatical phenomena worthy of interest. In a second part I shall draw general conclusions from these phenomena. I sball endeavour to determine the true nature of the orthographical processes, to define the extent of the differences of dialect, and to group together those indications which are adapted to throw light on the state of linguistic development in the middle of the 3rd century B. C.
In spite of the continual progress with which attempts at their decipherment are rewarded, the condition of the monuments does not permit us to hope that the texts will ever be fixed with a rigorous certainty. Our facsimiles, moreover, are, at least for several versions, still regrettably insufficient.
It is, therefore, impossible to establish absolute accuracy in our statistics of the grammatical forms; and it must be understood that many of the facts which are about to be recorded, if they are rare and exceptional, are not free from doubt; but, fortunately, the characteristic phenomena reappear sufficiently often to entitle us to establish them on solid grounds, and what. remains in doubt is in no way likely to compromise our general deductions.