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JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXX, No. 3. January 1996
Professor Banerjee devoted a chapter to the language of the drama. The Mrcchakatika is a farrago of Prakrit dialects and as such it is interesting. However, this has not diminished the merit of the work
In fine, we can say that both the author and the publisher are to be congratulated for undertaking such a publication for the benefit of the academic world. The book is well-bound and printed, and the quality of paper is exceedingly nice. I believe every lover of Sanskrit and Prakirt will welcome this book, and their library will be adorned by the inclusion of this publication.
Satya Ranjan Banerjee
Sukumar Sen-Syntactic Studies of Indo-Aryan Languages, Institute for the study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Tokyo, 1995, pp. 402.
The Prakrit language has been crowned by the reprint of the Historical Syntax of Middle Indo-Aryan by Sukumar Sen together with his other two books on Syntax, namely, The Use of the Cases in Vedic Prose and Syntactic Studies of Buddhist Sanskrit. These three books of Sukumar Sen have been reprinted by the Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Tokyo, 1995, under the title, Syntactic Studies of IndoAryan Languages. All these three books became out of print for a long time. In the language of T. Nara who in his Foreword says that in order to fulfil his guru's (i.e. Sukumer Sen's) last wish he wants to see "a buried treasure book taken out and opened once again under the sun-light to gratify all those scholars and specialists who had been long devoid of opportunity to get access to the precious academic information contained therein". It is indeed true to say that the Tokyo Institution has rendered yeoman service to the scholarly world by reprinting these books.
There is no denying the fact that the Syntactic Studies will promote the historical and comparative studies of Indo-Aryan languages on syntax matters. His studies on syntax, particularly on the Middle Indo-Aryan, is a pioneering work and will act as a torch-bearer for the future generations. That is why, even after the lapse of so many years, we still feel the necessity of consulting his syntaxes. It would have been better, if his another article entitled, Notes on the use of the Cases in the Kathaka-Samhitā, published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, New series, Vol-XXI, 1925, pp. 1-28, were published in the same volume. Though short, the inclusion of this article would have certainly enhanced the quality of this book.
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