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xxii
PREFACE
(11) In the instances of wrong cases, mostly the nominative and accusative have been corrected and marked within brackets, and the rest have been rarely corrected. (12) In cases of wrong numbers, singular for plural or dual, and vice versa, and false genders, masculine words treated as if they were neuter or feminine, and vice versa, alterations can hardly be suggested without considerably handling the text. Wherever they are found indispensable, they are marked within brackets and noticed in the Notes. (13) Masculine or neuter forms of accusatives and pronouns used with reference to feminine nouns have been similarly noticed.
(14) Similar alterations have been made of words in sandhi and compounds, where the elementary rules of grammar are violated in a large number of instances without following a discoverable fixed principle.
(15) Inappropriate or incorrect verbal derivatives have been, as a rule, treated in the same way, the alterations, whenever suggested, being marked within brackets. These matters are elaborately discussed and fully illustrated in the writer's Indian Architecture under "The Language of the Silpa-sustra" (pages 199-214).
Signs () indicates a correct form to replace an incorrect one which immediately precedes it; [ ] indicates an emendation by
an addition, omission, or alteration of letters or words.
I feel no hesitation in declaring that a perfect text of the Manasara written in a chaste language is unattainable. It is unlikely that there still exist manuscripts, which are hitherto undiscovered and which are not derived from any of our manuscripts. I am, therefore, of opinion that the Manasura was never written in a chaste language and that its imperfections are original.1
A few critics questioned if Sanskrit (the refined) language of the Silpa-sastra, the science of fine arts, could ever have been barbarous'; one such oritio is dead and gone, and if there be yet any. body left he will have now an opportunity of examining the text for himself and revising his notion (see Opinions and Reviews at the end of Val. IV).
