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Errors in Sanskrit Dictionaries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
It is somewhat disconcerting that in our Sanskrit lexicons we sometimes meet with words which have been wrongly translated and this is particularly distressing when such words are frequently used in literature and indicate objects which must have been familiar to the Indo-Aryans. A notable example is Skt. haṃsa, commonly interpreted by the dictionaries as meaning not only a goose but also a swan or a flamingo. Unfortunately Western indologists have shown a distinct preference for the latter two aquatic birds, because the goose is considered a far too prosaic creature to enter the exalted realm of poetry. A study of the subject has convinced me that hamsa means the goose and nothing else.1 My conclusion is based in the first place on ornithological evidence.
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- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , February 1957 , pp. 561 - 567
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- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1957
References
page 561 note 1 For a more detailed, treatment of the subject vide my lecture published in Art and Letters, the Journal of the Royal India, Pakistan and Ceylon Society, XXVII, 1953, 17–24.Google Scholar
page 561 note 2 Ann. Rep. Arch. Survey of India, 1902–3, p. 154, fig. 8.
page 561 note 3 The makara as a decorative motif of Indian art develops a remarkable variety of forms, but these clearly originate from the crocodile; cf. my paper ‘Le makara dans la sculpture de l'lnde’, Revue des Arts Asiatiques, 1930, 133–47.Google Scholar
page 562 note 1 For this information I am indebted to Dr. K. de Vreese. In Sinhalese the man-eating crocodile infesting rivers and lakes is called datimora and the shark mora (from Skt. makara).
page 562 note 2
The Periplus, § 38, when speaking of Seythia and the seven mouths of the Indus, says: ‘Now as a sign of approach to this country to those coming from the sea there are serpents 
coming forth from the depths to meet you, and a sign of the places just mentioned and in Persia, are those called graae’. These ‘serpents’ observed by the Greek mariner were no doubt crocodiles, the word 
being a rendering of Skt. graha or grāha (lit.‘seizer’) a synonym of makara; cf. Bhāg. P. VIII, 1, 30.
page 562 note 3 In the Bhāg. P. III, 10, 23, the makara occurs in a list of 13 five-nailed (pañcanakha) animals.It closes the list together with the tortoise and the iguana (godhā).
page 562 note 4 The Jātaka, ed. by Fausböll, , II, 1879, pp. 158–60, no. 208.Google Scholar In the fable of the deceitful heron and the crab (Pañc. I, kathā 7) the former tells the aquatic animals that the pond in which they live will soon dry up. kecicca svayameva makaragodhāśiśumārajalahastiprabhṛtayo gacchanli. Evidently these animals, being amphibious, can easily escape.
page 563 note 1 van Blom, J.R., Tjandi Sadjiwan (doctor's thesis), Leiden 1935,Google Scholar pp. 86 f., fig. 35.
page 563 note 2 Hindī-Śabdsāgar, p. 2620, magar (1) ghaṛiyāl nāmak prasiddh jaljantu; mīn, machli.
page 563 note 3 Pañe, II, verse 33 (or 34). Benfey, , Pantschatantra, 1859, II, p. 163,Google Scholar has ‘ein Hai’ and Richard Schmidt, p. 146 ‘ein Seeungeheuer’.
page 563 note 4 Cent proverbes du Payen Barthrouherri, traitant de la conduite raisonnable parmy les hommes, 1670, chapitre I, v. 4.Google Scholar
page 563 note 5 A medallion of the Bharhut railing shows an enormous fish with a crocodile head swallowing a boat with its three occupants of whom only the heads are visible. A second boat with three oarsmen is seen above. Cunningham, , The Stūpa of Bharhut, 1879,Google Scholar pl. XXXIV, fig. 2
page 564 note 1 M.Bh. (Bombay), III, 169, 4.
page 564 note 2 M.Bh. (Bombay), III, 270, 19.
page 564 note 3 Sport in British Burmah, 1879, I, 168.Google Scholar
page 564 note 4 The Bhăgvăt-gēētū or Dialogues of Krěěshnă and Ărjŏŏn in eighteen lectures, London, 1785, 151.Google Scholar
page 564 note 5 For a fuller discussion of the problem cf. JRAS, 1906, 539–51.
page 564 note 6 Amara's pratolī rathyā is adopted by Apte and by the Śabdakalpadruma with the addition durganagaradvāre iti kecit.
page 565 note 1 In the compound pāśādabālaggapadolikāe the word bālagga is still unexplained (ed. Stenzler, p. 132,11. 17 and 20) Böhtlingk's rendering ‘im Taubenhäuschen auf der Zinne meines Palastes’ is unsatisfactory. Paranjpe, V.G., The toy-cart of clay, Poona, 1937, p. 136,Google Scholar has ‘gate-room of the palace-terrace ’ and Karmarkar, R.D., Mṛcchakaṭikā of Śūdraka, second edition, Poona, 1950, 304,Google Scholar ‘small terrace-end of the palace’.
page 565 note 2 Inscriptions of the early Gupta kings (CII, III), 1888, 42 ff. The word pratolī occurs also in the Hansi stone inscription of Pṛthvīrāja, samvat 1224 ( Ind. Ant., XLI, 1912, 17–19 Google Scholar); the undated inscription of Pantha, recording the erection of a temple of Bhavānī at Benares ( Ep. Ind., IX, 59 Google Scholar); and the Kanker inscription of a minister of Bhānudeva of Kākaira recording the erection of two temples of Śiva and other buildings and a pratolī in Śaka 1242, A.D. 1320 ( Ep. Ind., IX, 125 Google Scholar).
page 565 note 3 We may add Kauṭilya Arthaśāstra, ch. XXIV, par. 8, 9, 15, quoted by Acharya, P.K., Dictionary of Hindu architecture, 1927, 366.Google Scholar
page 566 note 1 Mṛcch. ed. Stanzler, p. 78, 11. 11–14.
page 566 note 2 I propose to read jīanti instead of jāanti. It is interesting that the kāyastha, the writer of legal documents, is also included in the list of persons and animals who make life intolerable to decent people; cf. my Antiquities of Chambā State, Part I, 1911, 133 f.
page 567 note 1 cf. ibid., 130 ff., fig. 22.