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Art. XI. —Account of the Sabda Kalpa Druma; a Sanskrit Encyclopœdical Lexicon, published in Calcutta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2011

Extract

Three volumes of this valuable work, comprising each nearly 1000 pages in large 4to, are now in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society, presented to it by the learned author. This portion perfectly justifies the high character which Professor Wilson gave the work in the first edition of his Dictionary in 1819; anticipating only from a few sheets, then printed, how inestimable a store of authentic information on a variety of subjects connected with Sanskrit literature, would be laid open by this admirable undertaking, the extensiveness of which did not, however, admit a hope of its speedy accomplishment. Rádhákanta's work is very distinctly and, generally speaking, accurately printed in the Bengal character; and derives, certainly, not the least part of its superior character to the generality of Indian printings, from being alphabetically arranged in the European method. A great part of its articles have, indeed, become comparatively of inferior importance since the appearance of the second edition of Mr. Wilson's Dictionary, where every additional information, supplied by the learned Hindú on the different meanings of words, has, of course, been carefully reproduced by the celebrated lexicographer, who was then already in possession of the three volumes before us, excepting a few sheets at the end of the last.

Type
Original Communications
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1835

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References

page 189 note 1 Asyá vaidica-lántrica-dhyána-dvayam guhyatvád atra na likhitam.

page 190 note 1 The Puránás speak of forty-nine Agnis; viz. the original god of fire, with his three sons, and forty-five offsprings of the latter.

page 194 note 1 The words of the text, which is in this place obscure, and perhaps spurious, runs thus.—

“Vishamásátmyabhojyátivyaváyád veganìgrahát

Ghrininám sochatám nrínám vyápanne 'gnau trayo maláh

Kupitáh kshayājam kásam kuryur dehakshayapradam.”

page 196 note 1 Gamaka is said in the Sangíta-Ratnácara to be a pleasant trembling or modulation of the sound (Svarasya-kampo-gamakah-srotri-chitta-sukhávahah); many varieties of it are mentioned. Dhátu is of four kinds; the originating (Udgráha); mediating (Melápaka); standing (Druva); and concluding or expiring tone (Abhoga).

page 197 note 1 The Sangíta-Ratnácara always writes this word with a dental instead of the palatal S. This division seems to imply only prelusive and accessory songs in opposition to the first class which contains fixed and regulated airs.

page 198 note 1 A word which I know not what to do with unless to change it into Kausumála-yogáh, thief-tricks, a profession agreeing tolerably well with its place in the list and the spirit of the specification.

page 199 note 1 Chhalitaca seems to be a particular sort of melo-dramatic entertainment as that performed in the second act of the comedy Málavicágnimitra, by the heroine of the play (Wilson, S.'s Hindú Theatre, Lond. 1835, Vol. ii. p. 349)Google Scholar. This exhibition is called a Chhalitaca in the text.

page 199 note 2 In the fourth volume of his View of the History and Literature of the Hindus, p. 468.Google Scholar