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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JUNE, 1906.
BOOK-NOTICE. SANSKRIT-LESXBUCI. ZUR EINFÜABUNG IN DIE 5. The Kumdra-sambhava, Canto I., with ALTINDTBCK SPRACKE UND LITERATUR. VON BRUNO
English translation in verse by Griffith. LIEBICH. Leipzig, 1905. Pp.i-I., 1–651. 4°.
The last named has also extracts from the PROFEBBOR BRUNO LIEBICH's Sanskrit Reader is
Sanskrit commentary, in order to introduce the new both in form and method. It is intended for
student to this style of prose. beginners, to whom the Déva-rúng is absolutely
The whole concludes with a full vocabulary, strange, and yet it plunges at once into the
Sanskrit and German, in which each form of each middle of things, and, without any previous explanation beyond a brief account of the rules of
word as it occurs in the texta is carefully sundhi, introduces the student directly to the
registered. masterpieces of Sanskrit literature. To us, who I do not think that there can be any doubt groaned in our salad days over pages and pages
that if a person entirely ignorant of things Indian of paradigms - the driest of the dry - this is
took up this book and read it as Professor Liebich a sufficiently startling innovation, but I am not
tells him he wishes him to read it, he would at all sure that it is not a step, and a great step, acquire a very competent knowledge of Sanskrit in the right direction. It is a development of the
ir a comparatively short time, and with a Ollendorfilan system along a path strewn with minimum of that dry grinding away at flowers, and the method inculcated is certainly uninteresting formulas which is a stumbling-block one which I have found practicable and practical tu so many students of tbis noble language. in the case of several languages for which no After he has gone through those parts of the grammars or dictionaries are available.
Reader that interest him, and has a certain Of course the success of such a manner of
practical familiarity with the tongue as used in its teaching depends on the form in which it is best literature, it will be time for him to take up conveyed, and this brings us to a description of the study of grammar, which in his case will be the the contents of the work before us. After a
coping stone, not the foundation, of his efforts. couple of pages devoted to telling the reader how
The book has other uses. I am myself not to use the materials offered to him, we have ashamed to confess that I am often glad to read a short account of Sanskrit pronunciation and
in European tongue versions of masterpieces three pages in which the mysteries of external which I have previously studied in Sanskrit. sandhi are explained. This last is the only thing
Here we have a capital anthology of translations, that the learner has to make himself acquainted with the original text at hand for purposes of with before commencing to read bis Nala. He comparison. is, for instance, expected to be aware of the fact Again, while the book will introduce Sanskrit that nald in nalo náma is for nalas, because as to Europeans, it will equally well introduce becomes a before a sonant consonant, and so on German to Sanskrit Pandits. If even half-a-dozen for other external changes.
good Pandits are helped to acquire German by its Then come the 335 pages of text and translation, pages, it will have done excellent work. The upper half of each page has the text
GEORGE A. GRIERSON. in the Roman character, and the lower balf a translation, not a word-for-word, literal, Da. SÖRENSEN'S INDEX TO THE NAMRE IN THX translation, but a free version by some well
MAHİBRİBATA, Part II. known writer. The following are the contents A full notice of Part I. of this work, from the of this portion of the book :
pen of Dr. Fleet, appeared ante, Vol. XXXIV. 1. The Nala, with German translations in pp. 91 fr. Part II., containing the entries
prose and verse by Rückert and Ambusayin-Asura, has since been published. Kellner.
The most important article in this part is that 2. The Panchatantra, Book I., with German on Arjuns, which is practically a synopsis of
translation in prose and verse by the entire Epic. Fritze.
Dr. Fleet has given so full an account of 3. The Kathasaritadgara, Book I., with Dr. Sörensen's great work in his review of tho
English translation in prose by first part that it is unnecessary to say more in its Tawney.
praise on the present occasion, except that the 4. The Niti, Šringdra, and Kairdgya- second part maintains the high level of
datakas of Bhartfihari, with German scholarship and accuracy which distinguished its translations in prose and verse from predecor. various sources.
G. A. G.
