Indian Antiquary Vol 41

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

Page 37

HEBRUART, 1912.]
LAUKIKANYAYANJALI
33
" LAUKIKANYAYANJALI " TWO HANDFULS OF POPULAR MAXIMS CURRENT
IN SANSKRIT LITERATURE, COLLECTED BY COLONEL G. A. JACOB.
BY PROF. VANAMALI CHAKRAVARTTI, M.A., VEDANTATIRTHA; GAUHATI. COLONEL JACOB is a good worker in the cause of Sanskrit studies. His Concordance to the principal Upanishads and the Bhagaradgita' will ever remain a monument of patient industry. His editions of the Vedantasdra and the Eleven Upanishads are equally well-known. He is never satisfied with an untraced quotation, and he is doing yeoman service by publishing the results of his studies, now and then, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. When such a man compiles a book on the popular maxims current in Sanskrit literature, it deserves to be studied with all attention. Indeed, the author has begun a most useful work as a pioneer of the subject of maxim-hunting, and it is with the hope of rousing the attention of the Indian Sanskritists to this subject, that I write this review.
The first. Handful' seems to have been excessively well received by the learned world in England. For the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society says in its July number, 1901_"The modestly styled Handful' is only one more example of the laborious care and love of accuracy for which the author is distinguished."
The author begins by criticising the work of his predecessors in the same field. These predecessore were the illustrious Târânâtha, who is said to have given a list of 151 Nydyas in his Vachaspatya Encyclopædia and Satyavrata Sâmaśrami, the celebrated Vedic scholar of Bengal [cf. pp. ii (preface), iv, 2, 14.). These scholars did not give detailed references to the books in which the maxims occur, and undoubtedly Colonel Jacob deserves our sincere thanks for giving them. He has also pointed out some real mistakes in Târâ pâtha. We are grateful for this too. But we are really sorry that he should have thought it fit sometimes to use too strong language of abuse, for such language about one scholar from another serves no useful purpose; it looks too much like prejudice. Prof. A. Venis renders a maxim wrongly (p. 31, Vol. I); the author simply points out the mistake. Târânâtha commits a mistake and he says bis explanation is rubbish and nonsensical.
We shall now point out a few inaccuracies and mistakes into which Colonel Jacob has himself fallen with the hope that these will be corrected in subsequent editions.
P. v., Vol. I
In explaining the T T **72 /12, the author quotes Bhamati (pp. 380-1, Bibliotheca Indica edition ) : tu au fa uretarafe Ta :
E ITT miya TUTTO ra' and adds in a foot-note" The printed text wrongly reads ' !." We submit that the suggested correction is uncalled for and that the true reading must be either (1) Tega
#: (Bibliotheca Indica) or (2) T4H:( Sanskrit College MSS.) or (3) Tag :(Asiatic Society's MSS.). We would prefer the reading of the Sanskrit College MSS., which keeps the observed in 377997: and 97:. We wonder that Colonel Jacob should have omitted to nentioa the MSS. that anthorised him to make the emendation; for, garely, the critical Western Havant cannot be supposed to have corrected Fost into sogit in the fashion of the uncritical Indian scribe.
Vol. I, pp. li and 12
In explaining the matterary, the author says, “ A crow alighted on & Palmyra tree, and at the same moment some of the fruit (sic.) fell on its head and killed it." We have seen plenty of ar trees in Bengal, but we could scarcely understand how a tdla fruit may fall upon the head of a bird, that has alighted on the tree. Of course, the trae explanation of the Sanskrit text Luoted seems to be that the crow came and alighted on the ground, at the foot of the tree, and hen the fruit fell and killed it.