________________
MAY, 1895.)
MISCELLANEA.
139
(1) Mr. Bhownaggree, the Delegate of the Although in Sansksit, the whole was written in Maharaja of Bhavnagar, presented three commu. Chinese characters, and besides its intrinsic value, nications - one by Mr. J. N. Unvala on Zoroastri. it gives us information of the greatest practical anism, one by Mr. J. J. Kania, on The Philoso importance as to the system adopted by the phical Schools of India, and one by Shekh Chinese in transliterating Indian words into their Muhammad Isfahani on Sufism. He presented to character. The lecturer illustrated this by apply. the Congress a handsome volume of Sanskrit and ing the results obtained by him to some doubtful Prakrit inscriptions existing in the Bhav- names of peoples mentioned by Hiuen Tsiang.
· State published at the expense of the 5. Section I bis. (Aryan Linguistics). - Few Mahârâja, and concluded by reading & work by papers in this section were of interest to Indian Mr. S. D. Bharucha on The Persian Desatir.
students. (1) Dr. Bühler made an important communication Most interest was excited by Prof. J. Schmidt's regarding the well-known Asoka inscriptions
paper on the vocalic T, l, m, to, the existence of India. The historical and linguistio value of
of which in the original Indo-Germanic language these ancient monumente cannot be overstated. hae han asserted hv
has been asserted by the new school of com. Nevertheless, they are lying exposed to the parative philologists, headed by Prof. Brugweather, and within recent years have suffered
mann. Professor Schmidt, representing the considerable injuries both from that source and
older and more conservative school, strongly from iconoclasts or relic hunting tourists. They
combated the existence of these vowels. His are also inconveniently situated, some in the.
arguments are too technical to reproduce here, extreme North-West, others in Orissa, others in
but they were listened to with great attention, Maisur, others in Gujarât, others in Central India,
and the reading of his paper and the ensuing and others again in Nepal. Even when approach
discussion took up the whole of one sitting, the ed, some of them are so placed that they cannot
latter being continued on the following day. be read without using scaffolding. I was enabled to report to the Congress that, to remedy this
Professor Leumann read a short paper on the state of affairs, the Trustees of the Indian Museum
exchanges of forms such as khid and khdd in the had offered, if funds were made available, to take
same root in the Vedic language, in connexion facsimile casts of all these inscriptions, and to
with the presence or absence of a prefix, and with form an Asöka gallery in their building, where
accentuation. these casts could be collected and made accessible Professor Wackernagel read a paper on the to students. Messrs. Bühler, Weber, Burgess, place of Sanskrit in modern philology. He Senart, Bhownaggree, and Lord Reay, all spoke combated the opinions of those who would dimi. warmly in support of this proposal, and the follow- nish the linguistic importance of that language. ing resolution, which was subsequently adopted He pointed out the special importance of the by the Congress as a whole, was passed by accla- knowledge which we possess of the different mation -
periods in the history of the language, from the "Que l'administration du Musée Indien de Vedic times down to the Sanskrit of the RenaisCalcutta sera remerciée, au nom du Congrès, des
sance. Moreover, some peculiarities of Sanskrit efforts qu'elle fait pour la préparation de moulages
syntax could be used to explain certain obscure des inscriptions d'Asoka ; et que le Gouvernement
| phenomena in allied languages. He finally de. de l'Inde et les Gouvernments qui en dépendent
fended the accuracy of the Hinda grammarians seront priés, au nom du Congrès, d'adopter les against the assaults which have been made mesures de préservation et de reproduction de ces against them of late years. monuments, proposées par la dite administration.” At the first meeting of this section Signor
Count de Gubernatis presented some Ascoli lamented the deaths of Profs. Whitney interesting notes on the influence of the Indian and Schweizer-Sidler, and in this he was followed tradition on the representation of Hell in the by M. Bréal and Prof. Weber. poetry of Dante, and on the frescos in the Campo 6. Section II. (Semitic, non-Musalman Santo at Pisa.
languages). -As might be expected, nothing of (k) Professor Sylvain Lévi, one of the most interest to Indian scholars took place in this rising of the younger school of Sanskrit scholars section. Considerable interest was excited by the in Paris, and who is one of the few who knows at presentation by Doctor Bullinger of a copy of the once Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese, gave a most new edition of the Hebrew Bible, just cominteresting account of a Sanskrit poem by Harsha pleted by Dr. Ginsburg. Mrs. Lewis gave an Charita of Kaśmir, discovered by him in a account of two Palestinian Syriac Lectionaries Chinese version of the Buddhist Tripitaka. and of a Syriac manuscript of the gospels, disco.
