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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
This vocabulary of over 800 words has been compiled with a view to supplying some omissions in Belsare's Dictionary, published in 1895. Belsare based his work on the valuable Narmakoṣa of the poet Narmadāśankara, of date 1873. The Gujarātī language has in the latter half of the past and in the present century been enriched by the addition of many Sanskṛt tatsamas, and of Persian or Arabic words. On the one hand, eminent modern poets such as Govardhanarāma and Narsinharao, and present century dramatists such as Dolatrāma Kṛparāma Paṇḍya (a Sanskṛt purist), are responsible for the use of many tatsamas. On the other hand, the advance of science and the more intimate acquaintance with the writings of English authors and poets have necessitated recourse to the classical language for expressing abstract ideas and terms, in which the vernacular is clearly deficient. This must be the excuse for introducing so many tatsamas into this vocabulary. It is unavailing nowadays to reject some as “pressed into service to gratify the vanity of a writer”, which is the reason why Belsare omits them. Yet it is not apparent why he excluded the oft-recurring word (blue lotus), while he inserts the rarer (desirous of salvation).