Indian Antiquary Vol 56

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 97

APRI!., 1927]
BOOK-NOTICES
79
on re-editing them, and so the publication was slow, the book, however, there are some misprints which and long before he could complete it he dial. might have been avoided. After bis death those in charge of his MSS. thought Tavernier's Travels are so well known and he it but to leave them where they were, to the great travelled so far and observed so very much that loss of scholarship in India and indeed in the world. it is inadvisable, and indeed impossible, to go into Since then his former Assistant, Mr. Enthoven, has the story of his wonderful journeys in A review. donn something to retrieve his researches from obli
mtrieve his researches from obli- Suffice it to say that the notos on, and tbe illustravion, and has again attacked the subject in the
tions of, the text en wonderfully full and illuminatpaper under discussion, "actuated mainly by the ing, as thren scholars have put all the wealth of hope that some member of the Folk-lore Society their learning into them, and when one of them may be moved to undertake the task of revising was the late Dr. Crooke one knows how gmt and and issuing the Notes in a form adapted to the use
wide that learning has been, and how thorougbly of thore interested in primitive religion." It is in the
--though not quite exhaustively after all-modern frrther hope that some reader of the Indian Antiquary
books on the subject have been searched. will be fired to do as Mr. Enthoven desires that Not content with the rotes before the text com. attention is now drawn to this remark.
mences, the annotators of Tavernier have added As to the manner in which this should be done a series of valuable appendices on dimonds end Mr. Enthoven writes: "I am of the opinion that, if precious stones. The first is on "the Great usa is to be made of Campbell's Notes, it would be Mogul's Diamond and the true History of the an advantage to concentrate on the referonces to Koh-i-Nur, containing a large amount of useful India and omit the rest," and he gives his reasons. information, culled from many sources, followed by Then he observes that Campbell "never really de. the story of the Grand Duke of Tuscany's Diamond veloped in a comprehensive statement his conclu- and on the weights of other diamonds. Appendix sions on the meaning of the immense volume of II contains an extraordinarily valuable list of all primitiva practice which he has recordod for us in his
the diamond nines in India, followed by Appendices Gazetteers and Notes. The raw material for the stu
III, IV, and Von Diamond Mines in Bengal dent, however, exists. It seems to me of great im.
and Burma, the Ruby Mines in Burma end the portence that it should be made more accessible."
Sapphire Washings in Coylon. Finally there is an On this I would remark that the publication of
abstract of an extremely rare work, Chapuneau'a Campbell's Notes would thus become "evidence"
Histoire des Joyau.
Altogether we have now a work on Tevernier's for an anthropologist to work up into & "judgment,"
Travola, creditable to all concerned therewith. and from that point of view all the evidence avail. able is of value. As regards value, old evidence is
R. C. TEMPLE. as good as that which is newer, and it would be
ANNUAL REPORT ON SOUTR-INDIAN ESTORAPHY, a miefortvine if the judges I presume our as
1924. Government Press. Madras, 1925. sumed anthropological researcher would constitute
There aro many points of interest in this Report, himself—is to be deprived of any part of it.
which gives an account of good work done in 1924. R. C. TEMPLE.
There are liste of 9 copper-plates examined in the TRAVKO IN INDIA. by JEAN BAPTISTA TAVERNIER year, of 256 stone inscriptions copied in 1923,
trarrlated and annotated by V. BALL, odited by And 452 in 1924. besides 94 photographs of antiWILLIAM CROOKE, with additional notes by 'H.
A quarian objecte. Considering that all the inscrip. Rose: 3 vols., 1925. Oxford University Press. tions mentioned have been road and their contents
The six voyages of Tavernier, first printed in and dates ascertained, the above is a good record 1676, havo indeed boen presented in an edition of work done. But perhaps the most important worthy of bis invaluable work. The very names list in this Report is that in Appendix E giving of the editors are a guarantee of the excellence of the dates of the inscriptions rend, where such dates the work put into the two volumes under discussion. occur, and from thie liat we ree that they belong We have, besides, first of all Dr. Bellis preface and to the following Dynasties : Pallava. Chagi, Kakatiya, his introduction, which is really a life of Tavernier Pandye, Chola, Vijayanagara I, IL, and IIT, Medure aftar Prof, Charles Joret's French life of the great Nayaka and Pudukottai Tondaman. There are traveler. And a bibliography of the various editions herides a number of miscellaneous inscriptions with of Taverniere Travels. Then we mve an introduction dates recorded. The volume thue contains a great by Dr. Crooke, characteristically short and full of mass of real historical information for the enquirer. information, and in addition a large number of Part II of the Report containa special accounta noten, involving immense research, on Tavernier's of certain valuable inscriptions, including a Brahmi history and geography by Mr, Rose. So that Inscription et Allard in the Kistna District, 4 before he gete to Tavernier's text, the modern Ganga Inscription giving an important genealogy, student will find much food for his mind and very A record of RajadbirAja II (Chola) producing much that his predecesors missed. In this part of evidence of the way of the Pandya succession, an