Jain Journal 1998 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 42

BANERJEE RESEARCH IN SANSKRIT AND JAINA LITERATURE
73
As near Sanskrit rendering is given separately, I give here only the Sanskrit explanation of Nairyosang:
yā kumārye (=kāumarye) niṣidanti dirgham agṛhītāḥ (aparinītāḥ ityarthah)... prakaṭam dātāram ca varṣati. (kila tābhyo bhartāram prakāśayati). āsu yācayitāram subuddhim. (kila tatkālam eva antaḥ kārye samtiṣṭhamānam).
After the prophetic pronouncement of Sir William Jones in 1786, European scholars, having a real good knowledge of Greek and Latin at their back, started learning Sanskrit to find out the common source as mentioned by Sir William Jones in his speech. By the pursuit of their untiring zeal of research, the first use of Comparative Grammar (Vegleichende Grammatik) came into existence in 1808 when Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1824) wrote his book "On the Language and the Wisdom of the Indians." Then followed hosts of scholars like Franz Bopp (17911867), Eugène Burnouf (1801-1882), Friedrich Max Müller (1823-1900), August Schleicher ((1823-1868), Karl Brugmann (1849-1919) Berthold Delbrück (1842-1922), William Dwight Whitney (1827-1894), C.C. Uhlenbeck (1866-), Antoine Meillet (1866-), Arthur Anthony Macdonell and many others. All these pioneers have contributed so much to Indo-European philology that today in writing a book on Sanskritic studies, nobody could avoid their contributions to the subject. They have applied their philological or linguistic insight into Sanskrit texts. As these scholars were well-conversant with the classical languages of Europe, their outlook was always comparative. Linguistic Science has a discipline of its own. It is not mere comparative vocabulary that is linguistics, it is the inductive and deductive discipline of the subject which is applied to all kinds of Sanskrit studies-be it textual or linguistic, religious or mythological, philosophical or social. At the initial stage, the main emphasis was on collecting common cognate vocabularies, on establishing a sort of root-theory once propagated by Yask in 500 B.C., on making phonological rules for common IE languages and a thorough systematic explanation of morphological matters. At a later stage of the same century a comparative syntax and semantic analysis were established. Beside linguistics, the most important contribution of the Europeans is the principles of editing Sanskrit texts-how to collate manuscripts and how to select the reading of a text. In this respect too, the European Sanskritists had to learn the principles as adopted in the case of Greek and Latin. It is there they succeeded most.
The Greek people had a tradition of preserving the text of Homer. In this respect Zenodotus ( 4th/3rd cent. B.C.) and Aristarchus (3rd/2nd cent. B.C.) were the pioneers. The scholars of Alexandria