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Pandit SHIVANARAYAN SHASTRI. Nirukta-Mimämsä, Varanasi; Delhi: Indological Book House, 1969. 476 pp. Price Rs. 25. (In Hindi).
Reviewed by M. A. MEHENDALE, Deccan College, Poona
This is an important and very useful publication on Yaksa's Nirukta after The Etymologies of Yäska by Siddeshwar Varma (1953). As the title of Varma's book indicates, his objective was limited. The present book, on the other hand, is more comprehensive in its nature. It discusses at great length, giving much valuable information at each point, many subjects relating to the text, its author, and its contents. The author has, for example, discussed such questions as the authorship of the Nighantu, the date of Yäska, the nature of etymology, the nature of Vedic deities, and many others which arise in the study of the Nirukta. At the end of the book, the author has contributed three chapters dealing with the state of society as reflected in the Nirukta, the philosophy of Yaska, and Yaska's contribution to grammar and poetics.
An enquiry into the nature of words and their analysis are fascinating subjects. It can be said that they attracted the attention of scholars early, and are well reflected in the Brāhmaṇa texts. Yaska's Nirukta is no doubt an admirable attempt in this direction. His hypothesis that all nouns without exception are derived from verbs has compelled him to set himself the task of deriving a set number of words from a set number of verbs, without taking. into account such facts that not all the words in the vocabulary of a language are the result of inheritance and that certain words in the course of history change their form so radically that it would be almost impossible to make any guess about their origin without the help obtained from outside the language. He has therefore at times been drawn into making impossible derivations. The author has no doubt given expression to a balanced opinion (p. 221) with regard to Yäska's etymologies. But at times he has expressed his anger in very strong terms for those who have criticised Yäska which cannot be said to be appropriate in a scholarly work like this.'
The author believes that Yäska is the author of the Nighantu as well as the Nirukta (p. 29 and pp. 292-93, fn. 3). It is true that not all the arguments put forward by those who believe that Nighantu was composed by some other author before Yäska are convincing. But at the same time it is not easy to convince someone that Yäska was the author of the Nighantu. The beginning of the Nirukta, and especially the second sentence, tam imam samämnāyam
1. It is perhaps all to the good that the author has seen only Rajavade's edition of the Nirukta (Yaska 1940) and not his earlier edition of the entire Nirukta with Marathi translation and notes (Yaska 1935).
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