Indian Antiquary Vol 41

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 11

JANUARY, 1912.)
DAKSHINI PANDITS AT BENARES
The next and the last chapter deals with ksit or primary suffixes. Thus, the termination ah (ahan stated in the sútra by the author) is added to roots to form nouns denoting agent. Thus :-Per. kunandah = Sk. karta (doer), Per. Sinvandah = Sk, śrota (one who hears), and so on. So also we have, adam-khor (adamrá mekhorad = one who eats men, i.e., a demon), halal-khor (lit. one who eats what is lawfully obtained), hardm-khor (lit. one who earns his livelihood by unlawful means), and so on. The chapter and the treatise are closed with the remark, yathadarśanam pratyay-dgama-ddesa-parna-vildra-ndsa-viparyaya-vibhashavidhayah sani? sunkhyd) sabd dvyaya-karaka-samdsa-taddhit-akhydta-kritsu yuthdkdmann kalpaniyah, which means that suffixes, augments, substitutes, and other changes are to be understood everywhere, as they are met with in the language.
DAKSHINI PANDITS AT BENARES. BY MAHAMAHOPADHYAYA HARAPRASAD SHASTRI, M. A., C.I.E., CALCUTTA. BENARES is in Northern India, yet the Pandits of the South have the greatest influence there, and this influence they are not only exerting at the present moment but have exerted for centuries past. Benares is the home of Kanaujiya and Sarbariya Brahmaņs but their influence in the city and its environs does not count for much in matters relating to religion and culture. This appears to be rather strange and the riddle quite worth solution.
If anyone examines the manuscripts available at Benares, -and these count by thousands and tens of thousands -he will be struck not only by the enormous quantity of modern Sanskrit literature but also by the fact that most of this was written at Benares, and by Pandits from the South, specially by a few distinguished families of Maharashtra Brahmans.
To trace the origin of this influence of the South at Benares would really be the history of Sanskrit literature for the last four centuries in all provinces of India with the exception of Bengal and Eastern India, which have a history of their own. The great Pandit, who infused southern ideals at Benares in all matters relating to Hindu life and Hindu religion in preference to northern ideals current in Kanauj, Kasi, Mithila and Bengal, was Narayan Bhatta, an intellectual giant who not only wrote a vast number of Sanskrit works but organised the colony of Southern Brâlmaņs at Benares, travelled far and wide and founded a family of Pandits who hold their pre-eminence even up to the present moment. An authentic history of Bhatta Narayana's family is likely to clear much of the obscurity in which the history of Sanskrit literature during the Mubammadan period is now involved. Rao Sabib Visvanath Narayan Mandalik has done a great service by publishing in his edition of the Vyavahdra-mayakha a genealogy of this family. But genealogy is not history, and it is well known that historical works are very rare in India. Though histories are rare, biographies of historical persons rarer, and biographies of scholars rarer still. In the present case we have got a history of this family written by a distinguished member of the family themselves. The work is entitled Gadhiramádnucharitam and the author is Samkara Bhatta, the second son of Nûrâyaņa Bhatta and a man as distinguished in learning as his father. By the courtesy and good offices of my late lameated colleague Mahamahopadhyâya Govinda Sastri of Benares, I have a copy of that work made for me. The first leaf is missing and the work comes abruptly to an end. It is full of inaccuracies and omissions. The abrapt closing does not detract much from its historical value, for in the last chapters, Sam kara was indulging in grief over the loss of a promising nephew, but the loss of the first leaf is a serious one as it prevents our seeing the real founder of the family. Bat this loss has to a certain extent been made up by Mandalik, who says in his Upôdghdta :
श्रीमदक्षिणदेशेऽगस्त्यश्वासीत् स भगोविन्द : तत्सूनुः श्रीरामेश्वरभट्टोऽभूत् स सर्वदिक ख्यातः . तत्पुत्रः श्रीनारायणभहो जबति सूर्यवत् भूमी तत्सूनू रामकृष्णमहो रामक धारणता यातः