[THE FOLLOWING TEXT HAS INCOMPLETE SECTIONS, WHICH ARE ON ORDER]

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A
SANSKRIT - ENGLISH DICTIONARY

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{SANSKRIT - ENGLISH DICTIONARY}

ETYMOLOGICALLY AND PHILOLOGICALLY ARRANGED

with special reference to

COGNATE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

{SIR MONIER MONIER-WILLIAMS, M.A., K.C.I.E}.
Boden Professor of Sanskrit
Hon. D.C.L. Oxon, Hon. LL.D. Calcutta, Hon. Ph.D. Go|ttingen
Hon. Fellow of University College and Sometime Fellow of Balliol College,
Oxford

NEW EDITION, GREATLY ENLARGED AND IMPROVED

with the collaboration of

PROFESSOR E. LEUMANN, Ph.D.        PROFESSOR C. CAPPELLER, Ph. D.
of the University of Strassburg         of the University of Jena

And other Scholars

{MOTILAL BANARSIDASS PUBLISHERS
PRIVATE LIMITED . DELHI}

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First Edition Published by Oxford University Press, 1899
Reprint: Delhi, 1963, 1964, 1970, 1974, 1076, 1079, 1081, 1084, 1086, 1990, 1993

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PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION.
       -----

THE first edition of this Dictionary had the advantage of being published by
the Delegates of the Oxford University Press, with the support of the Secretary
of State for India in Council. The present greatly enlarged and improved work
enjoys the same privileges. The first edition appeared in the summer of 1872.
The extent of its indebtednness to the great seven-volumed Sanskr%it-German
Thesaurus compiled by the two eminent German Sanskr%itists, Otto Bo|htlingk
and Rudolf Roth, with the assistance of many distinguished scholars, such as
Professor A. Weber of Berlin - then only completed as far as the beginning of the
letter    \v\ - was fully acknowledged by me in the Preface.

Having regard, however, to the intire originality of the \plan\ of my own work,
I did not venture to describe it as based on the great Sanskr%it-German Wo|rterbuch.
For that plan I claimed to be alone responsible. Every particle of its detail was
thought out in my own mind, and the whole work was brought to completion by
me, with the co-operation of five successive assistants-whose names were duly
recorded-in about twelve years from the date of my election to the Boden
Professorship in the University of Oxford.

The words and the meanings of the words of a Dictionary can scarcely be
proved by its compilers to belong exclusively to themselves. It is not the mere
aggregation of words and meanings, but the method of dealing with them and
arranging them, which gives a Dictionary the best right to be called an original
production.

In saying this I am not claiming any superiority for my own method over
that of the two great German Sanskr%it scholars-which, of course, has advantages
of its own. Nor am I detracting one whit from the tribute of admiration which
I and other lexicographers are always desirous of rendering to the colossal
monument of industry and scholarship represented by their work. I am merely
repeating my claim to the production of a Sanskr%it-English Dictionary on a wholly
unique plan-a plan the utility of which has been now proved by experience.

It was not thought desirable to print off more than a thousand copies of the
first edition of my book. These-notwithstanding the necessarily high publishing
price-were sold off in a few years. It then became a question as to how the
continuous demand ofr the Dictionary was to be met, and the Delegates decided
to provide for it by a supplementary facsimile edition, produced by a photo-
lithographic process. Copies printed by that process have been procurable ever
since. Of course I was well satisfied with the factual evidence thus afforded of the

@vi
practical utility of my Dictionary, and the more so as, along with many eulogistic
reviews and notices, it met with some adverse criticism, especially at the hands
of German Sanskr%itists.

Not that such criticisms discouraged me. On the contrary, as soon as I
became aware of the likehool of my volume becoming out of print, I set about
preparations for a new edition on the very same general plan, although with an
earnest determination to improve the original work by the light of such critical
animadversions as seemed to me to be pertinent. And I must at once acknowledge
that in these efforts I received valuable suggestions from Professor Ernst Leumann
of the University of Strassburg, who was my first collaborator at an early stage
of the new undertaking (see p. xxxi). It ought, however, to be put on record
that, even before Professor Leumann's co-operation, I had made the discovery that
the great increase in the number of printed Sanskr%it texts and works bearing on
Sanskr%it scholarship, since the issue of my first edition, would entirely preclude
the idea of my producing a mere "re'chauffe'" of my former volume, with additions,
however numerous, introduced from my own interleaved copy and the contributions
of fellow-Sanskr%itists. It would necessitate the re-writing of the whole from be-
ginning to end-a formidable task, tantamount to the production of an entirely new
Dictionary. This task I began to put in hand alone at least twenty years ago,
and it is only due to the authorities at the India Office, under whose auspices this
work was inaugurated, and with whose assistance it has been printed, that I should
explain the causes which have led to the unexpected delay in its publication.

In real truth I am bound to confess that I entered upon my third lexico-
graphical career with a little too magnifiecent audacity, and a little too airy hope-
fulness, at a time when my energies were severely tried, not only by my ordinary
duties of lecturing in Sanskr%it, but by other collateral activities.

Amongst the latter it may be mentioned that I had devoted myself to
researches into Indian religions and philosophies, for a series of public lectures
before the University, which I felt bound to give in my capacity of Boden
Professor. And I certainly could not have ventured to carry on these researches
-much less to have printed them in various books as trustworthy>1 - if I had not
gained a "first-hand" knowledge of my subject by placing my own mind in direct
touch with the mind of the learned natives of India in their own country.

It was for this and other cognate reasons>2 that - with the consent and
approbation of two successive Vic'e-Chancellors, and at my own expense - I under-
took voyages to India on three several occasions (in 1875-6, 1876-7, 1883-4),
and extended by travels from Bombay to Calcutta and the confines of Tibet-
from Cashmere to Madras and the extreme South, including the chief homes of
Buddhism in the island of Ceylon.

>1 Some of these books are referred to in the present
Dictionary; for example, that on "Hindu#ism" (pub-
lished by the S.P.C.K., 13th edition); that on
"Bra#hmanism" &C. (also called "Religious Thought
and Life in India;" published by Mr. J. Murray,
Albemarle Street, 4th ed., referred to as RTL.); that
on "Indian Wisdom" (published by Messrs. Luzac
of Great Russell Street, 4th ed., referred to as IW.);
that on "Buddhism" (also published by Mr. Murray,
2nd ed., referred to as MWB.).

>2 One of these was the founding of an Indian
Institute for the promotion of Indian studies in my
own University of Oxford. Another was to induce
the Government of India to found six Government
scholarships for enabling deserving Indians to finish
their education at our University.

@vii

On each occasion I was cordially assisted by the Governor-General and local
Governments of the day>1. On each occasion, too, I found scattered throughout
vast areas old fellow-students and pupils of my own administering immense pro-
vinces, and eager to help me in my investigations; and on each occasion I met to
my surprise with learned and thoughtful natives-not only in the cities and towns,
but even in remote villages-able and willing to converse with me in Sanskr%it, as
well as in their own vernaculars, and to explain difficult points in their languages,
literatures, religions, and philosophies.

It may well be believed that these Indian journeys were of great value
in extending the horizon of my own knowledge, and increasing my power of
improving the Dictionary, but it must be confessed that they interrupted its
continuous prosecution.

And, in very deed, the intermittent character of my latest lexicographical career
would have made its completion during my life-time almost hopeless, had I not
been ably aided by successive assistants and fellow-workers, whose co-operation is
gratefully acknowledged by me subsequently (p. xxxi); that of Professor C. Cappeller
having extended over far the larger portion of the work.

And this is not all that I have to urge in extenuation of my apparent dilato-
riness. A still more unavoidable cause of delay has been the unlooked-for amount
of labour involved. This is fully explained in the Introduction (see p. xvi), but
I may briefly mention here that it has consisted in adding about 60,000 Sanskr%it
words to about 120,000-the probable amount of the first edition; in fitting the
new matter into the old according to the same etymological plan; in the veri-
fication of meanings, old and new; in their justification by the insertion of
references to the literature and to authorities; in the accentuation of nearly
every Sanskr%it word to which accents are usually applied; in the revision and
re-revision of printed proofs; until at length, after the lapse of more than a quarter
of a century since the publication of the original volume, a virtually new Dictionary
is. sent forth.

It would, of course, be unreasonable to look for perfection in the result of
our combined efforts. The law of human liability to error is especially applicable
to the development of a new method of any kind. Nor are the imperfections of
this volume ever likely to become better known to the most keen-sighted critics
than they are to the compilers themselves.

It is said of the author of a well-known Dictionary that the number of
mistakes which his critics discovered in it, were to him a source of satisfaction
rather than annoyance. The larger a work, he affirmed, the more likely it was
to include errors; and a hypercritical condemnation of these was often symptomatic
of a narrow-mindedness which could not take in the merit of any great per-
formance as a whole.

Without having recourse to this convenient way of discomfiting critics of the
\Chidra^nveshin\ type, and without abating one iota of justifiable confidence in the

>1 The three Viceroys were Lord Northbrook, the
late Lord Lytton, and Lord Ripon. I owe a deep
debt of gratitude to Lord Ripon for receiving me as
his guest at Government House, Calcutta, in 1883-4;
and to Sir Richard Temple for receiving me at
Government House, Belvedere, during the Prince of
Wales' visit in 1875-6; and to Sir James Fergusson for
receiving me at Government House, Bombay, in 1884.

@viii
general trustworthiness of the present Dictionary, its compilers can yet be keenly
alive to its thoroughly human character.

Speaking for myself I may say that blended with my thankfulness for the
longevity that has enabled me to see a protracted undertaking brought to a com-
pletion, is a deep consciousness that I am not young enough to consider myself
infallible. Indeed it is at once the joy and sorrow of every true scholar that the
older he grows the more he has to confess himself a learner rather than a teacher, and
the more morbidly conscious he becomes of his own liability to a learner's mistakes.

For all true scholars I do not fear, but court, criticism. Such critics
will understand how a sense of responsibility may increase with advencing age,
putting an author out of conceit with his own performances, and filling him with
progressively intensified cravings after an impossible perfection. They will make
due allowance for the difficulties besetting the production of so many densely
printed pages, often comprising column after column of unbroken serried type, and
abounding with countless dots and diacritical marks. Nor will they be surprised at
occasional inequalities of execution in a work representing efforts spread over numerous
years. Nor will they need to be reminded that occasional distractions, trials of health
and weariness of spirit are unavoidably incident, not only to the responsible head of
a prolonged undertaking, but to his several assistants. Indeed it is no disparagement
to those who have contributed to the detail of this work to admit that a com-
pilation, which is the result of the collaboration of so many different personalities, must
in some degree reflect the idiosyncrasies and infirmities peculiar to each.

Yet notwithstanding my desire that due weight should be given to such
considerations, I may be pardoned if I express my confident expectation that the
volume now offered to students of both Sanskr%it and comparative philology, will
supply them with the most complete and useful one-volumed Sanskr%it-English
Dictionary ever yet produced - a Dictionary, too, which in its gradual progress
has, I trust, kept pace with the advancing knowledge and scholarship of the day.

At all events I feel sure that I may affirm for my collaborators, as well as for
myself, that we have earnestly striven to sevure for this new volume, even
more than for the old, the possession of four principal characteristics, namely:-
1. Scholarly accuracy; 2. Practical utility; 3. Lucidity of arrangement, designed to
set forth, as clearly as possible, the etymological structure of the language, and
its bearing on that of the cognate languages of Europe; 4. Completeness and
comprehensiveness, at least to the fullest extent attainable in the latest state of
Sanskr%it research, and to the utmost limit compatible with compactness and
compression into a single volume.

And here it is my duty to notify, in justice as much to my assistants as to
myself, that I must be held primarily responsible, not only for the plan, but for
the general character of the whole Dictionary. This will be understood when
I state that I have from the first exercised a strict superintendence over the
details of both editions-not only in carefully supervising the manuscript, but in
adding new words, in modifying or amplifying meanings, in subjoining explanations
from my own literary notes-made during my sojourning at the chief seats of
learning in India-in examining and re-examining every proof-sheet.

I ought to state, however, that during occasional attacks of illness I have been
@ix
compelled to trust more to my collaborators than at other times>1; and I must also make
an exception in regard to the Additions, the abundance of which is justifialbe
by the circumstance that many of them are taken from texts and books published
quite recently. For although a manuscript list of all the words and meanings in the
supplementary pages was submitted for my approval, and although many words
in the list have been eliminated by me, while others have been added from my
own notes, yet the necessity for passing the worst winter months ina Southern
climate has made it impossible for me to have at hand every new book needed
for the verification of every addition which I have allowed to be retained.

With regard to a strictly personal criticism in which I have for many years
been content to acquiesce without comment, I may perhaps advantageously-now
that I have nearly arrived at the end of my career-make a brief explanation.
Some of my critics and a few candid friends have expressed surprise that I should
have devoted so much of my long tenure of the Boden Professorship to the dry,
dreary and thankless drudgery of writing Dictionaries and Grammars, and to
practical researches carried on among the Pandits of India in their own country,
rather than to the duty of proving the profundity of my learning and my fitness
to occupy a high Professorial position by editing or translating obscure Sanskr%it
texts which have never been edited or translated before>2.

In explanation I must draw attention to the fact that I am only the second occupant
of the Boden Chair, and that its Founder, Colonel Boden, stated most explicitly in his
will (dated August 15, 1811) that the special object of his munificent bequest was to
promote the translation of the Scriptures into Sanskr%it, so as "to enable his countrymen
to proceed in the conversion of the natives of Inida to the Christian Religion>3."

It was on this account that, when my distinguished predecessor and teacher,
Professor H. H. Wilson, was a candidate for the Chair in 1832, his lexicographical
labours were put forward as his principal claim to election.

Surely then it need not be thought surprising, if following in the footsteps
of my venerated master, I have made it the chief aim of my professorial life to
provide facilities for the translation of our sacred Scriptures int o Sanskr%it>4, and for

>1 I cannot allow myself to think that the Dictionary
has suffered much from this cause, except perhaps
during the collaboration of the late Dr. Scho|nberg, the
rapid impairment of whose powers did not at first strike
me so as to make me aware of the necessity for increased
vigilance on my part (see p. xxxi).

>2 I believe it is held that for an Alpine climber to
establish a reputation for mountaineering he must as-
cend some peak, however comparatively insignificant,
that has never been ascended before. But the appli-
cation of such a principle as a sole proof of scholarship
in the present day, can no more hold good in Sanskr%it
than in Greek and Latin. At all events let any one
who claims a reputation for superior scholarship on
that sole ground associate with Indian Pandits in their
own country and he will find out that far severer proofs
of his knowledge and acquirements will be required of
him there.

>3 Lieutenant-Colonel Boden, of the-Bombay Native
Infantry, returned to England in 1807 and died at Lisbon,
Nov. 21, 1811. His daughter died Aug. 24, 1827, where-
upon his bequest passed to the University of Oxford,
but the first election to the Chair, for some reason
unknown to me, did not take place till 1832.

>4 In his address proposing himself for election to
the Boden Electors, Professor H. H. Wilson laid stress
on what he had done for "the rendering of Scripture
Terms into the Sanskr%it language." It was doubtless
on this account that after he was elected he urged me
to compile an English-Sanskr%it Dictionary-a work
never before attempted. I laboured at this for about
seven years, and although the result (published in a
thick volume by the Directors of the East India Com-
pany in 1851) cannot, I fear, be said to meet the needs
of the present day, yet it should be borne in mind that
it was \pioneering work\. Nor can it be said to have
been useless, seeing that seven years after its publication
the following testimony to tis utility was voluntarily
tendered by the Rev. J. Wenger, translator of the Bible
into Sanskr%it and Editor of Dr. Yates" Sanskr%it Dic-

@x
the promotion of a better knowledge of the religions and customs of India, as the
best key to a knowledge of the religious needs of our great Eastern Dependency.
My very first public lecture delivered after my election in 1860 was on "The Study
of Sanskr%it in Relation to Missionary Work in India" (published in 1861).

For the rest, I have already alluded to the advantage which this Dictionary
has derived from the support of the Governments of India, and I ought here
to acknowledge with gratitude that, without the subsidy granted by successive
Secretaries of State in Council, the present volume could not have been sold to
the public at the price at which it is now offered. In regard to the Oxford
University Press it will be sufficient to say that this volume adds to the countless
evidences of its efficiency and of the wealth of its resources. But I may be
permitted to congratulate its Delegates and Controller on their good fortune in
possessing an unrivalled Oriental Press-reader in Mr. Pembrey. For more than
forty years he has read the final proofs of all my books; and I can from my own
experience, and without exaggeration, affirm, that I doubt whether any one can
surpass him in the perfection to which he has brought the art of detecting errors
due to the inadvertence of both authors and printers.

It is only necessary for me to add that having been alone responsible for
the singularity of the plan of the original Dictionary, I thought it desirable to
prefix to the first edition several sections of introductory explanations. In the
same way my supremecy in the production of the present new work necessitates my
undertaking the responsibility of writing a new series of explanations, in which I have
deemed it desirable to pursue the main lines of my preVious method, and not to
discard any portion of the old matteR which could be advantageouSly retained.
MONIER MONIER-WILLIAMS.
INDIAN INSTITUTE, OXFORD, 1899.

POSTSCRIPT.
This Dictionary, to which my father devoted so many years of labour, was
completed by him a few days before his death, which took place at Cannes, in the
south of France, on April 11, 1899. It had been his hope to see this work published
shortly after his return to England. Although this desire was not granted, it was
a satisfaction to him to know that the last revise had received his final corrections,
and that the book would be issued from the University Press within a few weeks
of his death.
M. F. MONIER-WILLIAMS.
\May\ 4, 1899.

tionary:- "I received a copy of Professor Monier
Williams" English and Sanskr%it Dictionary at a time
when I was about to commence a translation into
Sanskr%it of portions of the Old Testament. I have
used it daily for the last seven years, and the more
I have consulted it the more excellent I have found it.
I feel bound to say that he appears to have succeeded,
not only beyond my previous ideas of what was likely,
but also of what was feasible, to be accomplished at the
present time. The Pundits whom I employ have like-
wise expressed their unqualified admiration of the labour
and erudition which his volume displays. The Rev. J.
Parsons of Benares, who has been engaged for some
years past in preparing a new Hindee version of the
New Testament, has likewise derived material assistance
from Professor M. W.'s work. Indian missionaries
generally own him a large debt of gratitude."

Let me add that I hope the present Sanskr%it-English
Dictionary will furnish some young scholar with
materials for the compilation of a far more satisfactory
English-Sanskr%it Dictionary than that which I began
to compile more than half a century ago.

@xi

INTRODUCTION.
    ---

SECTION I.

\Statement of the circumstances which led to the peculiar System of Sanskr%it Lexicography
introduced for the first time in the Monier-Williams Sanskr%it Dictionary of 1872\.

To enable me to give a clear account of the gradual development of the plan of the present work,
I must go back to its earliest origin, and must reiterate what I stated in the Preface to the first edition,
that my predecessor in the Boden Chair, Professor H. H. Wilson, once intended to compile a Sanskr%it
Dictionary in which all the words in the language were to be scientifically arranged under about 2,000
roots, and that the actually made some progress in carrying out that project. Such a scientific
arrangement
of the language would, no doubt, have been appreciated to the full by the highest class of scholars.
Eventually, however, he found himself debarred from its execution, and commended it to me as a
fitting
object for the occupation of my spare time during the tenure of my office as Professor of Sanskr%it at
the old East India College, Haileybury. Furthermore, he generously made over to me both the
beginnings
of his new Lexicon and a large MS. volume, containing a copious selection of examples and quotations
(made by Pandits at Calcutta under his direction>1) with which he had intended to enrich his own
volume.
It was on this account that, as soon as I had completed the English-Sanskr%it part of a Dictionary of
my own (published in 1851), I readily addressed myself to the work thus committed to me, and
actually
carried it on for some time between the intervals of other undertakings, until the abolition of the old
Haileybury College on January 1, 1858.

One consideration which led my predecessor to pass on to me his project of a root-arranged Lexicon
was that, on being elected to the Boden Chair, he felt that the elaboration of such a work would be
incompatible with the practical objects for which the Boden Professorship was founded>2.

Accordingly he preferred, and I think wisely preferred, to turn his attention to the expansion of the
second edition of his first Dictionary>3-a task the prosecution of which he eventually intrusted to a
well-known Sanskr%it scholar, the late Professor Goldstu|cker. Unhappily, that eminent Orientalist
was singularly
unpractical in some of his ideas, and instead of expanding Wilson's Dictionary, began to convert it
into
a vast cyclop???dia of Sanskr%it learning, including essays and controversial discussions of all kinds.
He
finished the printing of 480 pages of his own work, which only brought him to the word
\Arim%-dama\ (p. 87
of the present volume), when an untimely death cut short his lexicographical labours.

As to my own course, the same consideration which actuated my predecessor operated in my case,
when I was elected to fill the Boden Chair in his room in 1860.

I also felt constrained to abandon the theoretically perfect ideal of a wholly root-arranged Dictionary
in favour of a more practical performance, compressible within reasonable limits-and more especially
as
I had long become aware that the great Sanskr%it-German Wo|rterbuch of Bo|htlingk and Roth was
expanding into dimensions which would make it inaccessible to ordinary English students of
Sanskr%it.

Nevertheless I could not quite renounce an idea which my classical training at Oxford had forcibly
impressed upon my mind-viz. that the primary object of a Sanskr%it Dictonary should be to exhibit,
by a lucid etymological arrangement, the structure of a language which, as most people know, is not
only
the elder sister of Greek, but the best guide to the structure of Greek, as well as of every other
member
of the A#ryan of Indo-European family-a language, in short, which is the very key-stone of the science
of comparative philology. This was in truth the chief factor in determining the plan which, as I now
proceed to show, I ultimately carried into execution.

>1 This will be found in the library presented by me to the
Indian Institute, Oxford.

>2 The main object was really a missionary one, as I have
shown in the Preface to this volume (p. ix), and in my life of
H. H. Wilson appended to my Reininiscences of Old Haileybury
College (published by A. Constable & Co.).

>3 His first Dictionary was published in 1819, and his second in
1832, while he was a candidate for the Boden Professorship.

@xii

And it will conduce to the making of what I have to say in this connexion clearer, if I draw
attention at the very threshold to the fact that the Hindu#s are perhaps the only nation, except the
Greeks,
who have invertigated, independently and in a truly scientific manner, the general laws which govern
the
evolution of language.

The synthetical process which comes into operation in the working of those laws may be well called
\sam%skaran%a\, "putting together," by which I mean that every single word in the highest type of
language
(called Sam%skr%ita>1) is first evolved out of a primary \Dha#tu\-a Sanskr%it term usually
translated by "Root,"
but applicable to any primordial constituent substance, whether of words, or rocks, or living
organisms-
and then, being so evolved, goes through a process of "putting together" by the combination of other
elementary constituents.

Furthermore, the process of "putting together" implies, of course, the possibility of a converse process
of \vya#karan%a\, by which I mean "undoing" or "decomposition;" that is to say, the resolution of
every
root-evolved word into its component elements. So that in endeavouring to exhibit these processes of
synthesis and analsis, we appear to be engaged, like a chemist, in combining elementary substances
into solid forms, and again in resolving these forms into their constituent ingredients.

It seemed to me, therefore, that in deciding upon the system of lexicography best calculated to
elucidate the laws of root-evolution, with all the resulting processes of verbal synthesis and analsis,
which
constitute so marked an idiosyncrasy of the Sanskr%it language, it was improtant to keep prominently
in
view the peculiar character of a Sanskr%it root-a peculiarity traceable through the whole family of
so-called
A#ryan languages connected with Sanskr%it, and separating them by a sharp line of demarcation from
the
other great speech-family usually called Semitic>2.

And here, if I am asked a question as to what languages are to be included under the name A#ryan-
a question which ought certainly to be answered \in limine\, inasmuch as this Dictionary, when first
published in 1872, was the first work of the kind, put forth by any English scholar, which attempted
to introduce comparisons between the principal members of the A#ryan family-I reply that the A#ryan
languages (of which Sanskr%it is the eldest sister>3, and English one of the youngest) proceeded from
a common but nameless and unknown parent, whose very home somewhere in Central Asia cannot be
fixed with absolute certainty, though the locality may conjecturally be placed somewhere in the region
of
Bactria (Balkh) and Sogdiana, or not far from Bokhara and the first course of the river Oxus>4. From
this centre radiated, as it were, eight principal lines of speech-each taking its own course and
expanding
in its own way-namely {the two Asiatic lines}: (A) the Indian-comprising Sanskr%it, the various
ancient
Pra#kr%its, including the Pra#kr%it of the Inscriptions, the Pa#li>5 of the Buddhist sacred Canon, the
Ardha-
Ma#gadhi# of the Jains, and the modern Pra#kr%its or vernacular languages of the Hindu#s, such as
Hindi#,
Mara#t%hi#, Gujara#ti#, Benga#li#, Oriya &C. (B) the Iranian - comprising the Avesta language
commonly called
Zand or Zend>6, old Persian or Akh???menian, Pahlavi#, modern Persian, and, in connexion with
these,
Armenian and Pushtu; and then {the six European lines}: (A) Keltic, (B) Hellenic, (C) Italic, (D)
Teutonic,
(E) Slavonic, (F) Lithuanian, each branching into various sub-lines as exhibited in the present
languages of
Europe. It is this Asiatic and European ramification of the A#ryan languages which has led to their
being
called Indo-European.

Now if I am asked a second question, as to what most striking feature distinguishes all these
languages fro the Semitic, my answer is, that the main distinction lies in the character of their roots

>1 Sanskr%it is now too Anglicized a word to admit of its being
written as it ought to be written according to the system of trans-
literation adopted in the present Dictionary-Sanskr%it.

>2 The name Semitic or Shemitic is applied to Assyrian,
Hebrew, Aramaic (or Aram???an), Arabic, and Himyaritic,
because in the tenth chapter of Genesis, Shem is represented as
father of the principal nations speaking these languages-e.g.
Assur (Assyria), Aram (Syria), and of Arphaxad, grandfather
of Eber, from whom came the Hebrews-or Trans-Euphratian
race, the name Hebrew coming from ??? and really meaning
"one who lives beyond (a river)"-and Joktan, the father of
many of the tribes inhabiting South Arabia. It is usual, too, to
reckon among Semitic races the people of Abyssinia, whose
sacred and literary language is the Ethiopic or Ge'ez, while their
spoken dialects are Tigre' for the north and north-east, and
Amharic for the certre and south, all presenting affinities with
the ancient Himyaritic Arabic of South Arabia (Yaman). Hence,
speaking generally, we may classify Semitic languages under the
two heads of:-1 "North Semitic," comprising Assyrian, Hebrew,
and Aramaic; 2. "South Semitic," comprising Arabic, Himyaritic,
and Ethiopic.

>3 Though the younger sisters sometimes preserve older forms.
>4 According to some German Theorists the cradle-land of the
A#ryans was in the steppes of Southern Russia. Others have
fantastically placed it in Northern Europe. Most scholars hold
to the old idea of "somewhere in Central Asia," and probably in
the region of Bactria (Balkh) and Sogdiana, althought there might
have been a second centre of migration. I myself firmly believe
that Balkh was once a chief ancient home of A#ryan civilization.
Its ruins are said to extend for twenty miles.

>5 See note 3, p.xxv, on Pa#li and on the Pra#kr%it of the inscriptions.
>6 As to the Avesta, commonly called Zend (more correctly
Zand), this is that ancient language of Eastern I#ra#n in which are
written the sacred books of the Zoroastrians, commonly called
Zend-Avesta-books which constitute the bible and prayer-book
of the Pa#rsi#s-those fugitives from Persia who are scattered
everywhere throughout India, and are now among the most
energetic and loyal of our Indian fellow-subjects.
@xiii
or radical sounds; for although both A#ryan and Semitic forms of speech are called "inflective>1," it
should
be well understood that the inflectiveness of the root int he two cases implies two very different
processes.

For example, an Arabic root is generally a kind of hard tri-consonantal framework consisting of three
consonants which resemble three sliding but unchangeable upright limbs, moveable backwards and
forwards
to admit on either side certain equally unchangeable ancillary letters used in forming a long chain of
derivative words. These intervenient and subservient letters are of the utmost importance for the
diverse
colouring of the radical idea, and the perfect precision of their operation is noteworthy, but their
presence within and without the rigid frame of the root is, so to speak, almost overpowered by the
ever
prominent and changeless consonantal skeleton. In illustration of this we may take the Arabic tri-
consonantal root {KTB}, "to write," using capitals for the three radical consonants to indicate their
unchangeableness; the third pers. sing. past tense is {K}a{T}a{B}a, "he wrote," and from the same three
consonants, by means of certain servile letters, are evolved with fixed and rigid regularity a long line
of derivative forms, of which the following are specimens:-{K}a{TB}, and {K}i{T}a#{B}at, the act of
writing;
{K}a#{T}i{B}, a writer; ma{KT}u#{B}, written; ta{KT}i{B}, a teaching to write; mu{K}a#{T}a{B}at, and
ta{K}a#{T}u{B}, the
act of writing to one another; muta{K}a#{T}i{B}, one engaged in mutual correspondence; i{KT}a#{B}, the
act of
dictating; ma{KT}a{B}, the place of writing, a writing-school; {K}i{T}a#{B}, a book, {K}i{TB}at, the act of
transcribing.

In contradistinction to this, a Sanskr%it root is generally a single monosyllable>2, consisting of one or
more consonants combined with a vowel, or sometimes of a single vowel only. This monosyllablc
radical
has not the same cast-iron rigidity of character as the Arabic tri-consonantal root before described.
True, it has
usually one fixed and unchangeable initial letter, but in its general character it may rather be
compared to
a malleable substance, capable of being beaten out or moulded into countless ever-variable forms, and
often in such a way as to entail the loss of one or other of the origianl radical letters; new forms being,
as it were, beaten out of the primitive monosyllabic ore, and these forms again expanded by affixes
and suffixes, and these again by other affixes and suffixes>3, while every so expanded form may be
again
augmented by prepositions and again by compositions with other words and again by compounds of
compounds till an almost interminable chain of derivatives is evolved. And this peculiar expansibility
arises
party from the circumstance that the vowel is recognized as an independent constituent of every
Sanskr%it
radical, constituting a part of its very essence or even sometimes standing alone as itself the only root.

Take, for example, such a root as {Bhu#}, "to be" or "to exist." From this si, so to speak, beaten out
an immense chain of derivatives of which the following are a few examples:-{Bhava} or {Bhavana},
being;
{Bha#va}, existence; {Bha#vana}, causing to be; {Bha#vin}, existing; {Bhuvana}, the world; {Bhu#} or
{Bhu#mi},
the earth; {Bhu#-dhara}, earth-supporter, a mountain; {Bhu#-dhara-ja}, mountain-born, a tree;
{Bhu#-pa}, an
earth-protector, king; {Bhu#pa-putra}, a king's son, prince, &C.; {Ud-bhu#}, to rise up; {Praty*-a#-bhu#},
to be near at hand; {Pro^dbhu#ta}, come forth, &C.>4

Sanskr%it, then, the faithful guardian of old Indo-European forms, exhibits these remarkable
properties
better than any other member of the A#ryan line of speech, and the crucial question to be decided
was,
how to arrange the plan of my Dictionary in such a way as to make them most easily apprehensible.

On the one hand I had to bear in mind that, supposing the whole Sanskr%it language to be referable
to about 2,000 roots or parent-stems>5, the plan of taking root by root and writing, as it were, the
biographies of two thousand parents with sub-biographies of their numerous descendants in the order
of
their growth and evolution, whould be to give reality to a beautiful philological dream-a dream,
however,
which could not receive practical shape without raising the Lexicon to a level of scientific perfection
unsuited to the needs of ordinary students.

On the other hand I had to reflect that to compile a Sanskr%it Dictionary according to the usual plan

>1 As distinguished from unchangeably "monosyllabic" like the
Chinese, and "agglutinative" like the Dra#vid%ian of Southern
India, and like the Turkish and other members of an immense
class of languages, in which there are no so-called "inflections,"
but merely affixes or suffixes "glued" as it were to the root or
body of a word, and easily separable from it, and not blending
intimately with it, and so, as it were, inflecting it.

>2 Of course it is well understood that there are in Sanskr%it
a certain number of dissyllabic roots, but I am here merely
contrasting Semitic and A#ryan roots \generally\.

>3 The \vikaran%a\ of a root may be called an "affix," and the
verbal termination &C. a "suffix."

>4 For other illustrations of this see 1. \kr%i\, p. 300; 1. \s*ru\,
p. 1100; 1. \stha#\, p. 1262 of this volume.

>5 The number of distinct Dha#tus or radical forms given in
some collections is 1,750, but as many forms having the same
sound have different meanings, and are conjugated differently,
they are held to be distinct roots and the number is thereby
swelled to 2,490. It should be noted, too, that a great many of
these Dha#tus are modifications or developments of simpler
elements, and this Dictionary does not always decide as to
which of two, three or more roots is the simplest, although when
roots are allied their connexion is indicated. Probably the real
number of elementary radicals in Sanskr%it might be reduced to a
comparatively small catalogue-even, as some think, to a list of
not more than about 120 primitive roots. Many Sanskr%it roots
have alternative Pra#kr%it forms or vice versa^, and both forms are
allowed to co-exist, as \bhan\ and \bhan%, dhan\ and \dhan%, nr%it\ and
\nat%\; others whose initials are aspirated consonants have passed
into others aspirated consonants or have retained only the aspirate,
as in \bhr%i, dhr%i, dhvr%i, hvr%i, hr%i\ &C. Again, such a root as \svad\
is probably nothing but a compound of \su\ and root \ad\, and such
roots as \stubh, stumbh, stambh\ are plainly mere modifications of
each other.

@xiv
of treating each words as a separate and independent entity, requiring separate and independent
explanation,
would certainly fail to give a satisfactory conception of the structure of such a language as Sanskr%it,
and
of its characteristic processes of synthesis and analysis, and of its importance in throwing light on the
structure of the whole Indo-European family of which it is the oldest surviving member.

I therefore came to the conclusion that the best solution of the difficulty lay in some middle course-
some compromise by virtue of which the two lexicographical methods might be, as it were,
interwoven.

It remains for me to explain the exact nature of this compromise, and I feel confident that the plan
of the present work will be easily understood by any one who, before using the Dictionary, prepares
the
way by devoting a little time to a preliminary study of the explanations which I now proceed to give.

SECTION II.

\Explanation of the Plan and Arrangement of the Work, and of the Improvements
introduced into the Present Edition\.

Be it notified, at the very threshold, that there are four mutually correlated lines of Sanskr%it words in
this Dictionary:-(1) a main line in Na#gari# type, with equivalents in Indo-Italic type>1; (2) a
subordinate
line (under the Na#gari#) in \thick\ Indo-Romanic type>1; (3) a branch line, also in thick
Indo-Romanic type,
branching off from either the first or the second lines with the object of grouping compound words
under
one head; (4) a branch line in Indo-Italic type, branching off from leading compounds with the object
of grouping together the compounds of those compounds. Of course all four lines follow the usual
Sanskr%it Dictionary order of the alphabet (see p. xxxvi).

The first or main line, or, as it may be called, the "Na#gari# line," constitutes the principal series of
Sanskr%it words to which the eye must first turn on consulting the Dictionary. It comprises all the
roots
of the language, both genuine and artificial (the genuine being in \large\ Na#gari# type), as well as
many
leading words in small Na#gari#, and many isolated words (also in small Na#gari#), some of which
have their
etymologies given in parentheses, while others have their derivation indicated by hyphens.

The second or subordinate line in thick Indo-Romanic type is used for two purposes:-(\a\) for
exhibiting clearly to the eye in regular sequence under every root the continuous series of derivative
words
which grow out of each root; (\b\) for exhibiting those series of cognate words which, to promote
facility
of reference, are placed under certain \leading\ words (in small Na#gari#) rather than under the roots
them-
selves.

The third or branch line in thick Indo-Romanic type is used for grouping together under a leading
word all the words compounded with that leading word.

The fouth or branch Indo-Italic line is used for grouping under a leading compound all the
words compounded with that compound.

The first requires no illustration; the second is illustrated by the series of words under     1. \kr%i\
(p. 300) beginning with 1. {Kr%it}, p. 301, col. 3, and under     1. \kara'\ (p. 253) beginning with 1.
{Karaka}
(p. 254, col. 1); the third by the series of compounds under     1. \kara'\ (p. 253, col. 1) and {Ka'ran%a}
(p. 254, col. 1); the fourth by the series of compounds under -{vi#ra} (p. 253, col. 3).

And this fourfold arrangement is not likely to be found embarrassing; because any one using the
Dictionary will soon perceive that the four lines or series of Sanskr%it words, although following their
own alphabetical order, are made to fit into each other without confusion by frequent backward and
forward cross-references. In fact, it will be seen at a glance that the ruling aim of the whole
arrangement
is to exhibit, in the clearest manner, first the evolution of words from roots, and then the
interconnexion
of groups of words so evolved, as members of one family descended from a common source. Hence
all the genuine roots of the language are brought prominently before the eye by large Na#gari# type;
while the evolution of words from these roots, as from parent-stocks, is indicated by their being
printed
in thick Romanic type, and placed in regular succession either under the roots, or under some leading
word connected with the same family by the tie of a common origin. It will be seen, too, that in the
case of such leading words (which are always in Na#gari# type), their etymology-given in a
parenthesis-
applies to the whole family of cognate words placed under them, until a new series of words is
introduced
by a new root or new leading-word \in Na#gari# type\. In this way all repetition of etymologies is
avoided,
and the Na#gari# type is made to serve a very useful purpose.

It will also be seen that words which are different in meaning, but appear identical in form, are
distinguished

>1 I use the expression "Indo-Romanic" and "Indo-Italic" to
denote the expanded Roman and Italic alphabets adapted by the
use of diacritical points and marks to the expression of Sanskr%it
and other Indian languages. The thick Indo-Romanic type
employed in this volume is a product of the Oxford Clarendon
Press, and therefore named Clarendon type.

@xv
from each other by the figures 1, 2, 3, &C., placed before the Indo-Romanic or Indo-Italic transliterated
forms:-
see, for example,   1. \a-s*i#ta\,    2. \as*i#ta\ (p. 113)>1; 1. {A#'pya},    2. \a#pya\,    3. \a#pya\ (pp,
142,
144);   1. \br%ih\,   2. \br%ih\,   3. \br%ih\ (p. 735).

In regard to the roots of the language, it will be observed that they are treated of in the present
work - both in respect of the meanings and of the exhibition of tenses, participles, and verbal forms
evolved from them - more thoroughly and exhaustively than has hitherto been attempted in a
Dictionary>2.

Furthermore, all the verbs formed from the roots with prepositions (as, for example,    \anu- / kr%i\,
p. 31,   \sam-abhi-vy-a#- / hr%i\, p. 1156) are arranged according to the method followed in Greek
and Latin Lexicons; that is to say, such verbs are to be looked for in their own alphabetical order, and
not under the roots \kr%i\ and \hr%i\. The practical convenience resulting from this method, and
the great adventage
of exhibiting the connexion of every verb and its meanings with its derivatives, constitute in my
opinion
an invaluable gain, especially to the student who studies Sanskr%it as he would Greek and Latin, and
makes
it a guide to the study of the other members of the Indo-European family. At all avents it forms one
of the unique features of the present work, stamping it with an individuality of its own, and
differentiating
it from all other Sanskr%it Dictionaries. The labour entailed in the process - necessarily a wholly
\pioneering
process\ - of thus rearranging the verbs in a language so rich in prepositions, can only be understood
by
those who have undergone it.

As to the separation of meanings it must be noted that mere amplifications of preceding meanings
are separated by a comma, whereas those which do not clearly run into each other are divided by
semicolons. A comma, therefore, must always be taken as marking \separate shades of meaning\,
except
it occurs in parenthetical observations.

Let it be observed, however, that all the meanings of a word belonging to a group are not always
given in full, if they may be manifestly gathered from the other members of the group. This applies
especially to participles and participial formations.

Observe too that all remarks upon meanings and al descriptive and explanatory statements are given
between ( ), all remarks within remarks and comparisons with other languages between [ ].

I was told by a friendly critic, soon after the appearance of the first edition, that meanings and
synonyms had been needlessly multiplied, but when the book had been fairly tested by repeated and
extended application to various branches of the literature, it was found that apparently superfluous
synonyms often gave the precise meanings required to suit particular passages. In the present edition -
to save space - some synonyms which seemed mere surplusage have been rejected; and I fear I may
have occasionally gone too far in sanctioning some of these rejections. For experience proves that the
practical utility of a Dictionary is less impaired by a redundancy than by a paucity of meanings.

Again, a glance at the following pages will show that the arrangement of compound words under
a leading word, as introduced in the edition of 1872, and continued with modifications in the present
edition, is entirely novel.

It may perhaps be objected that there are too many of these compounds; but once more it may be
urged that a Sanskr%it Dictionary must not be by ordinary laws in this respect, for Sanskr%it has
developed more than Greek and German and any other Aryan language the faculty of forming
compounds. The
love of composition is indeed one of its most characteristic features. To exclude compounds from a
Sanskr%it
Lexicon would be, so to speak, to "unsanskr%itize" it. Not only are there certain compounds quite
peculiar to Sanskr%it, but, in the grammar, composition almost takes the place of Syntax, and the
various
kinds of compound words are classified and defined with greater subtlety and minuteness than in any
other known language of the world. When a student is in doubt whether to translate compounds like
{Indra-s*atru} as Bahuvri#his or Tatpurushas, the Dictionary is surely bound to aid in clearing up his
perplexity. Even as it is, many useful compounds have, I fear, been sacrificed to the exigencies of
space.
The meanings of these, however, can be easily inferred from the meaning of their component
members.
Take, for example, such a word as {sam%yukta^kshara}, "a compound or conjunct letter."

Another distinctive peculiarity of this Dictionary consists in the articles on mythology, literature,
religion, and philosophy, scattered everywhere throughout its pages. My own collection of notes from
various sources, especially those made during my three Indian journeys and published in the books
named in the Preface to this volume (see p. vi, with note), have enabled me to furnish students with
much useful information on many subjects not hitherto treated of in Sanskr%it Dictionaries. It will, I
feel

>1 In this first case the hyphen used in the transliterated form
is no doubt sufficient to distinguish the two forms from each other.
Hence, to economize space, the figures have occasionally towards
the end of the work been omitted (see \sama#na', Sa-ma#na\, p. 1160).
>2 I must, however, here repeat the acknowledgment of my
original indebtedness to "Westergaard's Radices;" nor must
I omit to mention Whitney's valuable Index of Roots, Verb-
forms and Primary Derivatives.

@xvi
sure., be admitted that the knowledge gained by me from personal contact with Indian Pandits and
educated men in their own Universities, and with all sorts and conditions of Hindu#s in their own
towns and villages, has been a distinct advantage to this Dictionary. It has enabled me to give much
useful information not found in other works, and to avoid many mistakes made by Sanskr%itists who
have
only a book-knowledge of India.

A further peculiar feature is the introduction of a large number of names of persons and places.
This may be objected to as a needless extension of the scope and limits of a Dictionary. In extenuation
I contend that greater liberty ought to be allowed to a Sanskr%it Dictionary in this respect than to
Greek and Latin Lexicons, because Oriental alphabets have no capital letters enabling such names to
be
distinguished from ordinary nouns.

Then again, in regard to the names of works, which are also multiplied to an unusual extent,
Sanskr%it literature it so vast that, although - as I hold - very little worthy of attention remains to be
edited, yet it may often be of great importance to have attention drawn to unknown treatises, or to
commentaries on well-known works ascertained to exist in manuscript in the libraries of Europe or
India.

As to plants and trees, the adjective qualifying the name of a plant, as well as the name of the
plant itself, ought occasionally to be marked, according to the rules of botanical science, with an initial
capital letter. But it is often difficult for a non-botanist to decide as to the correct usage. It was
therefore
thought better to use capital letters for both substantive and adjective, especially as in the new edition,
to
save space, the word "plant" is omitted. Hence the second capital letter, though often inappropriate,
serves as a symbol for denoting that the epithet is that of a plant.

I need scarcely draw attention to the comparisons from cognate languages which manifestly
constitute a special feature of this volume. Many doubtful comparisons have been eliminated from the
present edition. A few questionable ones have, I fear, been retained or rashly inserted, but they will be
easily detected (e.g. under {Aya#'sya}, p. 85).

In regard to what may be thought a needless multiplication of indecent words and meanings,
offensive
to European notions of delicacy, I am sorry to say that they had to be inserted, because in very truth
Sanskr%it, like all Oriental languages, abounds with words of that character, and to such an extent,
that
to have omitted them, whould have been to cut out a large percentage of the language. A story is told
of a prudish lady who complimented Dr. Johnson on having omitted all bad words from his English
Dictionary; whereupon he replied: "Madam, it is true that I have done so, but I find that you have
been looking for them." In point of fact students of Sanskr%it literature cannot sometimes avoid
looking
for such words. Nor have I, except in rare instances, veiled their meaning under a Latin translation
which only draws attention to what might otherwise escape notice.

In extenuation it may fairly be urged that in India the relationship between the sexes is regarded as
a sacred mystery, and is never held to be suggestive of improper or indecent ideas.

After the foregoing explanation of the general plan of the work it remains to describe some of the
more noteworthy changes and improvements introduced into the present edition.

And let me at once say that, as it was intended to give explanations of even more Sanskr%it words
than are treated of in the great Wo|rterbuch of Bo|htlingk and Roth, and in the later Wo|rterbuch of
the
former, and, as it was decided that to prevent its expansion beyond the limits of one compact
volume, the number of pages in the new edition should not be augmented by much more than a
hundred
and fifty, it became a difficult problem to devise a method of making room for the ever-increasing
number
of words which, as the work grew under our hands, continually pressed more and more for admission
into
its purview.

Let any critic, then, who may feel inclined to pass a severe judgment on the contrivances for
abbreviation in the present edition of the Dictionary, think for a moment of the difficulties in which its
compilers found themselves involved. It was only gradually that the actual fact revealed itself-the very
startling fact that we had to provide for the treatment of about one half more Sanskr%it words, simple
and compound, than in the first edition. That is to say calculating as I had done that the number of
Sanskr%it words - simple and compound - in the first edition amounted to about 12,000, it became
evident
to us, as the work proceeded, that the number to be provided for in the new edition could not be
reckoned at less than 180,000. It was as if a builder employed in repairing one of his own buildings
had been told that he ad to provide for the crowding of 180,00 human beings into a room, originally
constructed by him to hold only twelve hundred.

Or perhaps the difficulty may be better illustrated thus:- A traveller, after having made a voyage
round the world, starts some time afterwards for a second similar journey. The rules of the ship in
@xvii
which he embarks only permit of his taking a limited amound of baggage into his cabin, and naturally
his first idea is to take the same box which accompanied him on the first occasion. Into this he begins
by packing his possessions, with perhaps a little more compression than before. He soon finds,
however,
that the lapse of time has added to his acquisitions, and that no close packing will enable him to make
room for them. What then is he to do? He is permitted to make his one box a little longer and
deeper; but even then he has not room enough. His only resource is to make his one receptacle
hold more by filling up every crevice, and fitting one article into the other by various ingenious
devices.

This is an illustration of the difficulties encountered in the process of compressing the immense mass
of new matter which had to be brought within the compass of the new edition. It has been possible to
lengthen the pages of the new volume by about an inch, so that each column now contains about eight
or
nine lines more than in the first edition, and the volume has been increased in thickness by more than
one hundred pages (and with the Addenda by 147 pages). These enlargements have given
considerable
additional space, but not nearly as much as was needed. All sorts of contrivances for contracting,
abridging, and abbreviating had, therefore, to be adopted, so as to secure the greatest economy of
space
without impairing the completeness of the work - considerations which will, I hope, be a valid excuse
for
the occasional violations of uniformity which forced themselves upon us, as the need for greater com-
prehensivencess, within a limited circumference, became more and more imperative.

Perhaps the necessity for such measures will be better understood if I here enumerate some of the
sources whence the additional matter in the present volume has been derived.

Imprimis, all the latter portion of the great seven-volumed Wo|rterbuch of the two great German
lexicographers beginnings with the leter   \v\. Next, all the additions in Geheimrath von Bo|htlingk's
later
compilation, and especially his Nachtra|ge. Then all my own manuscript Addenda in the interleaved
copy
of my first edition>1; and lastly all the words from many important pure Sanskr%it and Buddhistic
Sanskr%it
works printed and published in recent years, most of which will be named in the sequel.

Doubtless, therefore, in describing the improvements which mark this new Dictionary, the first place
should be given to the vast mass of new matter introduced into it. This I venture to assert, after a
somewhat rough calculation, amounts to very little short of 60,000 additional Sanskr%it words with
their
meanings.

And a still further increase has resulted from the introduction of references to authorities, and to
those portions of the literature in which the words and meanings recorded in the Dictionary occur.
The
reason given by me for abstaining from more than a few such references in the first edition, was that
abundant quotations were to be found in the great seven-volumed Thesaurus - so often named before
- 
which all who used my Dictionary could easily find means of consulting. In real fact, however, not
a few words and meanings in the earlier portion of the first edition of my book were entered on the
authority of Professor H. H. Wilson, while many more in the middle and towards the end were
inserted
from sources investigated independently by myself, and were not supported by any of the quotations
given
in the Thesaurus. It followed as a matter of course that, very soon after the publication of my first
edition in 1872, the almost entire absence of independent references of my own was animadverted
upon
regretfully by even friendly critics.

Naturally, therefore, I determined to remedy an evident defect by introducing a large number of
references and quotations into the new edition. Nor is it surprising that this determination grew and
strengthened in the course of execution, so much so, indeed, that after the printing of page 60 I
decided,
with Professor Leumann's co-operation, to give no words and no series of meanings without quoting
some authority for their use, or referring to the particular book or portion of literature in which they
occur.

And further, it became a question whether we were not bound to indicate by a reference in every
case not merely the particular books, but the chapter and line in which each word was to be found,
and
sometimes even to quote entire passages. This, in fact, as will be seen, has been occasionally done, but
it soon became evident, that the immense copiousness of Sanskr%it literature - a copiousness far
exceeding
that of Greek and Latin - would preclude the carrying out of so desirable an object in full, or even to
a somewhat less extent than in the great St. Petersburg Thesaurus - unless indeed my new Dictionary
was to be enlarged to a point beyond the limits of a single compact volume. Nay, it soon became clear
that the exigencies of space whould make the mere enumeration of all the works in which a word
occurs
impossible. In the end it was found that the use of the symbol &c., would answer all the purpose of
a full enumeration.

>1 Unfortunately in noting down words for insertion I omitted to quote the sources whence they were
taken, as I did not at
the time contemplate improving my new edition by the addition of references.

@xviii

Hence it must be understood that RV.>1 &c. &c. denotes that a word occurs in the whole literature - 
both Vedic and Pst Vedic - beginning with the Rig-veda, while Mn. &c. signifies that the use of a
word
is restricted to the later literature beginning with Manu.

And again, when a word had not yet been met with in amy published literary work, but only in
native lexicons, it was decided to denote this by the letter L.

As to the words and meanings given on my authority and marked MW., many of them have been
taken by me from commentaries or from the notes which I made after conversations with learned
Pandits
in their own country. For it seems to me that Sanskr%it Dictionaries ought sometimes to give
important
modern words and meanings as used by modern educated Sanskr%it scholars in India - such, for
example,
as the meaning of \pra^n%a-pratisht%ha#\>2 (see Additions under {Pra^n%a}, p. 1330).

Then a third improvement in the present edition, as every true scholar will admit, is the accentuation
of words occurring in accentuated texts, although it will be found, I fear, that occasional accidental
omissions
occur, and in cross-references the accent has often been designedly dropped. Many accents, too, which
are
only known from Pa#n%ini and the Phit%-su#tras have been intentionally omitted.

It is admitted that accentuation is \marked\ only in the oldest Vedic texts, and that in later times it
must have undergone great changes - so far at least as the \spoken\ accent was concerned. And this
led me
to decide that in preparing a practical Dictionary which employed so many complicated diacritical
marks,
it would be better not to increase the complication by adding the marks of accentuation. All
accentuation
was, therefore, designedly omitted in the first edition. But the careful study of Pa#n%ini's grammar,
which
my higher lectures, during the period of my active occupancy of the Boden Chair (1860-1888), obliged
me to carry on, forced upon me the conviction that, inasmuch as at the time when the great Indian
Grammarian - the chief authority for both Vedic and classical grammar - elaborated his wonderful
system,
every word in Sanskr%it, as much in the ordinary language as in the Vedic, had its accent>3, a
knowledge
of accents must be often indispensable to a right knowledge of the meaning of words in Sanskr%it.

And in real truth the whole of Pa#n%ini's grammar is interpenetrated throughout by the ruling idea of
the importance of accentuation to a correct knowledge of words and their meanings.

For example, we learn from Pa#n%. vi, I, 201, that the word {ksha'ya} means "abode," but {kshaya'}
with
the accent on the last syllable means "destruction." And again, from Pa#n%. vi, I, 205, that {datta},
"given,"
which as a p. participle has the accent on the second syllable (\datta'\) is accentuated on the first
syllable (i.e.
is pronounced \da'tta\) when it is used as a proper name. On the other had, by Pa#n%. vi, I, 206,
{dhr%i'sht%a}
has the accent on the first syllable, whether as a participle, or as a name (not \dhr%isht%a'\ at p. 519).

Further, by Pa#n%. vi, I, 223 and vi, 2, I all compounds have different meanings according to
the position of the accent. Hence {Indra-s*atru} means either "an enemy of Indra" or "having Indra as
an
enemy," according as the accent is on the last or first member of the compound (\Indra-s*atra'\ or
\I'ndra-s*atru\; see
Additions, p. 1321). These examples may suffice to show the importance of accentuation in affecting
meanings.

That this holds good in all languages is shown by the careful way in which accentuation is marked
in modern English Dictionaries. How, indeed, could it be otherwise when the transference of an accent
from one syllable to another often makes such important alteration in the sense as may be noted in the
words "ga'llant" and "galla'nt," "re'cord" and "reco'rd," "pre'sent" and "prese'nt," "au'gust" and "augu'st,"
"de'sert" and "dese'rt." The bearing, too, of Sanskr%it accentuation on comparative philology will be
evident
to any one who has noted the coincidences between the accentuation of Greek and Sanskr%it words.

Manifestly then it would have been inexcusable had we omitted all accentuation in the present
enlarged
and improved work>4. It must be admitted, however, that incidence of accent has not been treated
with exact uniformity in every page of this volume.

In Pa#n%ini's system, as is will known, the position of the accent is generally denoted by some
indicatory
letter, attached to the technical names given by him to his affixes and suffixes, including the
terminations

>1 Rig-Veda has now become an Anglicized word, and the dot
under the R has been omitted in the Dictionary for simplicity.

>2 I am sorry to have to confess that imbued as I once was with
false notions as to the deadness of Sanskr%it, I have sometimes
omitted to give the meanings of important modern words like
\pra^n%a-pratisht%ha#\ in the body of the Dictionary.

>3 The absence of accent was only permitted in calling out to
a person in the distance, Pa#n%. i, 2, 33.

>4 The importance of correct accentuation and intonation in
a language, the very sound of which is held by the Hindu#s to be
divine, and the bearing of Sanskr%it accentuation on that of
Greek, had become so impressed on me, that when I was sent as
a Delegate to the Berlin International Congress of Orientalists by
the Government of India in 1881, I requested Pandit S*ya#maji#
Kr%ishn%a-varma# (who was also a Government Delegate) to illustrate
my paper on Vedic hymns by repeating them with the right accentu-
ation. The Pandit's illustrations were not only much appreciated,
but received with grateful acknowledgments at the time by the
eminent Chirman, Prof. A. Weber, and other Sanskr%it scholars
present, but were misconstrued by one of my auditors - the well-
known and most energetic Hon. Secretary of the Royal Asiatic
Society. That gentleman made the Pandit's illustrative additions
the subject of an extraordinary criticism in a paper on "Oriental
Congresses," written by him and published in the Calcutta Review,
No. CLXI (1885), and quite recently reprinted. A letter lately
received by me from Professor A. Weber, and printed last year in
the Asiatic Quarterly Review, expresses the astonishment which
we both felt at the statements in that paper.

@xix
of verbs and of verbal derivatives (called \pratyaya\). Thus, by Pa#n%. vi, I, 163 the letter \c\ added
to a suffix
(as in \ghurac\, Pa#n%. iii, 2, 161), indicates that the derivative {bhan*gura} formed by that suffix is
accented on
the \last\ syllable (e.g. {bhan*gura'}).

In Vedic texts printed in Na#gari# character the accents are denoted by certain short lines placed
above
and below the letters, but in the present Dictionary we have not thought it necessary to mark the
accent of
words printed in Na#gari#, but only of their equivalents in Romanic and Italic type, the common
Uda#tta or
acute accent being marked by ', and the rarer Svarita by `.

And in this connexion it should be mantioned that the employment of the long prosodial mark (#)
to denote long vowels (e.g. {a#}) has manifestly one advantage. It enables the position of an accent to
be
indicated with greater clearness in cases where it falls on such vowels (e.g. {a#'}).

Next to the three principal improvemants thus explained ought certainly to be reckoned the increased
mechanical aids provided for the eye, to facilitate the search for words in pages overcrowded with
complicated and closely printed type. And most conspicuous among these aids is the employment of
thick "Clarendon" type (see p. xiv, note I) in place of the Italics of the previous edition, both for
the derivatives under roots and under leading words and for the compounds under such words; thus
allowing the Italic type to be reserved for compounds of compounds.

Then another improvement of the same kind has been effected by the distribution of the compounds
belonging to leading words under two, three, or even more separate heads, according to the euphonic
changes in the finals of these words. Thus in the first edition all the compounds belonging to the
leading
word {Bahis} were arranged under the one word \Bahis (= Vahis\); but in the present edition these
compounds are far more readily found by their segregation under the five heads of {Bahis, Bahih%,
Bahir,
Bahis*}, and {Bahish} (see pp. 726, 727).

Furthermore, among useful changes must be reckoned the substitution of the short thick line (not
necessarily expressive of a hyphen>1) for the leading word in all groups of compounds whose first
member
is formed with that leading word. Take, for example, such an article as that which has the leading
word {Agni}, at pp. 5, 6. It is easy to see that the constant repetition of {Agni} in the compounds
formed
with that word was unnecessary. Hence {- kan%a, - karman} &c. are now substituted for {Agni-kan%a,
Agni-
karman} &c. By referring to such an article as {Maha#}, at pp. 794-802, an idea may be formed of the
space economized by this simple expedient.

And here I must admit that a few changes may possibly be held to be doubtful improvements,
the real fact being that they have been forced upon us by the necessity for finding room for those
60,000 additional Sanskr%it words with their meanings, the accession of which to the pages of the
Dictionary - as already mentioned - became a paramount duty.

For instance, towards the end of the work, the exigencies of space have compelled us to use Italics
with hyphens, not only in the case of sub-compounds (as, for example, -\man%i-maya\ under
{candra-ka#nta}
at p. 386, col. 3, is for {candraka#nta-man%i-maya}), but also in the case of compounds falling under
words combined with prepositions (as, for example, under such words as 2. {Vi-gudha, Vi-bha#ga}, at
p. 977).

The same exigencies of space compelled us to group together all words compounded with 3. {vi}
(see p. 949) and with 7. \sa\ (see under {sa-kan*kat%a}, p. 1123 &c.).

The same considerations, too, have obliged us to make a new departure in extending the use of
the little circle !! to English words. Its ordinary use, of course, is to denote that either the first or last
part of a Sanskr%it word has to be supplied. For instance, such a word as \kes*a-v!!\, coming after I.
{Vapani#ya}
at p. 919 stands for \kes*a-vapani#ya\, while \!!da, !!data, !!dasva\ after \codati\, at p. 400, are for
\coda, codata,
codasva\; and similarly {!!dyotana} under {Pra-dyota} at p. 680 is for {Pra-dyotana}.

The application of this expedient to English words has enabled us to effect a great saving. It must
be understood that this method of abbreviation is only applied to the leading meaning which runs
through a long article, or to English words in \close juxtaposition\. For example, the leading
signification
of {ratha} under the article I. \ra'tha\ (p. 865) being "chariot," this is shortened to "ch!!" in the
remainder of
the article; and "clarified butter" in one line is shortened to "cl!! b!!" in the next. By referring to such
an article as {sahasra}, at p. 1195, it will be seen what a gain in space has thus been effected.

In cases like {-!!n_s*a} under \kala#'\ (p. 261) the !! denotes that {-!!n_s*a} is not a complete word
without the
prefixing of {a}, which is not given because it has become blended with the final \a#\ of theleading
word \kala#\.

Much space, too, has been gained by the application of the symbols ^ ^ ^ ^ (adopted at Professor
Leumann's suggestion) to denote the blending of short and long vowels. Thus ^ denotes the blending
of two short vowels (as of \a + a\ into \a^\); ^ denotes the blending of a short with a long vowel (as
of
\a + a#\ into \a^\); ^ denotes the blending of a long with a short (as of \a# + a\ into \a^\); ^
denotes the blending
of two long vowels (as of \a# + a#\ into \a^\), and so with the other vowels, e.g. \e^\ for \a + i,
o^\ for \a + u, o^\ for \a + u#\
&c. (see for example {kr%ita^gni} for \kr%ita + agni\, {kr%ito^daka} for \kr%ita + udaka\, at p. 303).

>1 Some compound words which are formed by Taddhita affixes supposed to be added to the \whole
word\ ought not strictly to have
a hyphen.

@xx

A further economy has been effected by employing the symbol / for root.

In this new adition, too, the letters "mfn." placed after the crude stems of words, have been generally
substituted for the forms of the nominative cases of all adjectives, participles, and substantives (at least
after the first 100 pages), such nominative forms being easily inferred from the gender. But it must be
borne in mind that nearly all feminine stems in \a#\ and \i#\ are also nominative forms. In cases
where adjectives
make their feminines in \i#\ this has been generally indicated, as in the previous edition.
Occasionally, too, the
neuter nominative form (\am\) is given as an aid to the eye in marking the change from one gerder
to another.

Other contrivances for abbreviation scarcely need explanation; for instance, "N." standing for "name"
is applicable to epithets as well as names, and when it applies to more than one person or object in
a series, is omitted in all except the first; e.g. "N. of an author, RV.; of a king, MBh." &c.

Also, the figures 1, 2, 3 &c. have been in some cases dropped (see note I, p. xv), and the mention
of cl. 8 is often omitted after the common root \kr%i\.

Finally, I have thought it wise to shorten some of the articles on mythology, and to omit some of the
more doubtful comparisons with the cognate languages of Europe.

SECTION III.

\Extent of Sanskr%it Literature comprehended in the Present Edition\.

I stated in the Preface to the first edition of this work - written in 1872 - that I had sometimes
been asked by men learned in all the classical lore of Europe, whether Sanskr%it had any literature.
Happily, since then, a great advence in the procecution of Indian studies and in the diffusion of a
knowledge of India has been effected. The efforts and researches of able Orientalists in almost every
country have contributed to this result, and I venture to claim for the Oxford Indian Institute and its
staff of Professors and Tutors a large share in bringing this about.

Nevertheless much ignorance still prevails, even among educated English-speakers, in respect of
the exact position occupied by Sanskr%it literature in India - its relationship to that of the spoken
vernaculars of the country and the immensity of its range in comparison with that of the literature of
Europe. I may be permitted therefore to recapitulate what I have already said in regard to the term
"Sanskr%it," before explaining what I conceive ought to be included under the term "Sanskr%it
literature."

By Sanskr%it, then,, is meant the learned language of India - the language of its cultured inhabitants - 
the language of its religion, its literature, and science - not by any means a dead language, but one
still spoken and written by educated men in all parts of the country, from Cashmere to Cape Comorin,
from Bombay to Calcutta and Madras>1. Sanskr%it, in short, represents, I conceive, the learned form
of
the language brought by the Indian branch of the great A#ryan race into India. For, in point of fact,
the
course of the development of language in India resembles the course of A#ryan languages in other
countries,
the circumstances of whose history have been similar.

The language of the immigrant A#ryan race has prevailed over that of the aborigines, but in doing so
has
separated into two lines, the one taken by the educated and learned classes, the other by the
unlearned - 
the latter again separating into various provincial sub-lines>2. Doubtless in India, from the greater
exclusiveness of the educated few, and the desire of a proud priesthood to keep the key of knowledge
in their own possession, the language of the learned classes became so highly elaborated that it
received the name {Sam%skr%ita}, or "perfectly constructed speech" (see p. xii), both to denote its
superiority to
the common dialects (called in contradistinction {Pra#kr%ita}) and its more exclusive dedication to
religious
and literary purposes. Not that the Indian vernaculars are exclusively spoken languages, without any
literature of their own; for some of them (as, for example, Hindi#, Hindu#sta#ni#, and Tamil, the last
belonging
to the Dra#vid%ian and not A#ryan family) have produced valuable literary works, although their
subject-matter
is often borrowed from the Sanskr%it.

Next, as to the various branches of Sanskr%it which ought to be embraced by a Dictionary
aiming, like the present, at as much completeness as possible - these are fully treated of in my book
"Indian Wisdom" (a recent edition of which has been published by Messrs. Luzac & Co.). It will be

>1 A paper written by Pandit S*ya#maji# Kr%ishn%a-varma# on "Sanskr%it
as a living language in India," was read by him at the Berlin
Oriental Congress of 1881, and excited much interest. He argues
very forcibly that "Sanskr%it as settled in the \Asht%a^dhya#yi#\ of
Pa#n%ini was a spoken vernacular at the time when that great gram-
marian flourished." In the same paper he maintains that Sanskr%it
was the source of the Pra#kr%its, and quotes Vararuci's Pra#kr%ita-pra-
ka#s*a xii, 2 (Prakr%itih% sam%skr%itam, "Sanskr%it is the source"). Of
course the provincialized Pra#kr%its - though not, as I believe, derived
directly from the learned language, but developed independently - 
borrowed largely from the Sanskr%it after it was thus elaborated.

>2 It has been recently stated in print that Russian furnishes an
exception to the usual ramification into dialects, but Mr. Morfill
informs me that it has all the characteristics of A#ryan languages,
separating first into Great and Little Russian and then into other
dialects.
@xxi
sufficient therefore to state here that Sanskr%it literature comprises two distinct periods, Vedic and
Post-Vedic, the former comprising works written in an ancient form of Sanskr%it which is to the later
form what the language of Chaucer is to later English.

Vedic literature begins with the R%ig-Veda (probably dating from about 1200 or 1300 B.C.), and
extending through the other three Vedas (viz. the Yajur, Sa#ma, and Atharva-veda), with their
Bra#hman%as,
Upanishads, and Su#tras, is most valuable to philologists as presenting the nearest approach to th
original
A#ryan language. Post-Vidic literature begins with the Code of Manu (probably dating \in its earliest
form\
from about 500 B.C.), with its train of subsequent law-books, and extending through the six systems of
philosophy, the vast grammatical literarue, the immense Epics>1, the lyric, erotic, and didactic poems,
the Ni#ti-s*a#stras with their moral tales and apothegms, the dramas, the various treatises on
mathematics,
rhetoric, prosody, music, medicine, &C., brings us at last to the eighteen Pura#n%as with their
succeeding
Upa-pura#n%as, and the more recent Tantras, many of which are worthy of study as repositories of
the
modern mythologies and popular creeds of India. No one person, indeed, with limited powers of
mind
and body, can hope to master more than one or two departments of so vast a range, in which scarcely
a subject can be named, with the single exception of Historiopraphy, not furnishing a greater number
of texts and commentaries or commentaries on commentaries, than any other language of the ancient
world. To convince one's self of this one need only glance at the pages of the present Dictionary, and
note the numerous works named there, which, if the catalogue were complete, would probably
amount
to a total number not far short of the 10,000 which the Pandits of India are said to be able to
enumerate.

Nor is it their mere number that astonishes us. We are appalled by the length of some of
India's literary productions as compared with those of European countries. For instance, Virgil's
AE???neid is said to consist of 9,000 lines, Homer's Iliad of 12,000 lines, and the Odyssey of 15,000,
whereas the Sanskr%it Epic poem called Maha#-bha#rata contains at least 200,000 lines, without
reckoning
the supplement called Hari-van_s*a>2. In some subjects too, especially in poetical descriptions of
nature
and domestic affection, Indian works do not suffer by a comparison with the best specimens of Greece
and Rome, while in the wisdom, depth, and shrewdness of their moral apothegms they are unrivalled.

More than this, the Hindu#s had made considerable advences in astronomy, algebra, arithmetic,
botany, and medicine, not to mention their superiority in grammar, long before some of these sciences
were cultivated by the most ancient nations of Europe. Hence it has happened that I have been
painfully
reminded during the progress of this Dictionary that a Sanskr%it lexicographer ought to aim at a kind
of
quasi omniscience. Nor will any previous University education, such at least as was usual in my
youth,
enable him to explain correctly the scientific expressions which - although occasionally borrowed from
the
Greeks - require special explanation.

In answer then to the question: What extent of Sanskr%it literature is comprehended in this
Dictionary? I reply that it aims at including every department, or at least such portions of each
department
as have been edited up to the present date.

And here I must plainly record my conviction that, notwithstanding the enormous extent of Sanskr%it
literature, nearly all the ost important portions of it - Vedic or Post-Vedic - worthy of being edited or
translated have been already printed and made accessible in the principal public libraries of the
world>3.

No doubt the vast area of India's philosophical literature has not yet been exhaustively explored;
but its most important treatises have been published either in India or in Europe. In England we may
appeal with satisfaction to the works of our celebrated scholar Colebrooke, of the late Dr. Ballantyne,
and
more recently of such writers as E. B. Cowell, A. E. Gough, and Colonel Jacob, all of whom have
contributed to the elucidation of this most difficult, but most interesting branch of study, while
amoung
Continental scholars the names of Deussen, Garbe, and Thibaut are most distinguished.

>1 See the chapters on the Epic poems in "Indian Wisdom," and
my edition of the "Story of Nala," published at the Clarendon
Press, and my little work on "Indian Epic Poetry" (now scarce).

>2 The late Professor Bu|hler has shown that the inscriptions of
about 500 A.D. quote the Maha#-bha#rata and describe it as con-
taining 100,000 \verses\.

>3 I do not mean this remark to apply to Buddhistic literature,
which is very extensive, and is partly in Sanskr%it, and has much
still unedited and untranslated. The \Divya^vada#na\, edited by
Professor E. B. Cowell and Mr. Neil, is an example. It is
written in Sanskr%it or rather in a kind of Sanskr%itized Pa#li,
or Pa#li disguised in Sanskr%it garb. Other Buddhist Texts, written
in Sanskr%it, are now being ably edited by the well-known Tibetan
traveller, Rai S*arat Candra Da#s, Baha#dur, C.I.E., to whom I was
greatly indebted for help in my researches at Darjeeling and its
neighbourhood. Much Jaina philosophical literature, too, is
still unedited, although well worthy of attention, and although
only occasionally referred to in this Dictionary. It is written in
Sanskr%it as well as in Ardha-Ma#gadhi# Pra#kr%it for the elucidation
of which Professor Leumann has done such excellent work. In
fact, the Sanskr%it form of Jaina philosophical literature (now being
ably expounded by Mr. Vi#rcand Gha#ndhi at Chicago) still offers an
almost wholly unexplored field of investigation. Furthermore,
it must be admitted that in some cases better editions of pure
Sanskr%it works are needed. For example, a better critical
edition of the Maha#-bha#rata than those of Calcutta and Bombay is
a desideratum. The Southern Recension of that immense work
is I believe engaging the attention of Dr. Lu|ders, Librarian of
the Indian Institute.

@xxii

There is also much still to be done in what may be called Epigraphic or Inscription literature, in which
Dr. Fleet, Dr. E. Hultzsch, and Professor F. Kielhorn are labouring so effectively. And I am happy to
say
that we have occasionally availed ourselves of their labours in the following pages.

The Tantras, too, present a field of research almost wholly untrodden by European scholars, and these
books at one time attracted much curiosity as likely to present a hopeful mine for exploitation. I
therefore,
during my Indian journeys, searched everywhere for good MSS. of the most popular Tantras, with
a view to making the best procurable example of them better known in Europe by a good printed
edition
and translation. Everywhere I was told that the Rudra-ya#mala Tantra was held in most esteem>1. But
after a careful examination of its contents I decided that it was neither worth editing nor translating
(see
my "Bra#hmanism and Hindu#ism," pp. 205-208).

As to translations, the long array of "Sacred Books of the East" might well be supposed to have
exhausted the whole reservoir of Sanskr%it works worthy of being translated; even admitting that the
entire
range of Sanskr%it literature is held to be more or less sacred. Yet the series is still incomplete>2.

Assuming then my opinion on this point to be correct, I think I may fairly claim for the present
Dictionary as great an amount of comprehensiveness as existing circumstances make either possible or
desirable. Of course the earlier part of the work must perforce be less complete than the later. Nor can
it be said to deal with every branch of literature with equal thoroughness, but its defects are, I hope,
fairly remedied by the ample Additions at the end of the volume.

SECTION IV.

\Reasons for applying the Roman Alphabet to the expression of Sanskr%it, with an account of
the Method of Transliteration employed in the Present Dictionary\.

As I cherish the hope that this Dictionary may win its way to acceptance with the learned natives of
India, I must ask European scholars to pardon my diffuseness if I state with some amplitude of detail
my
reasons for having applied the Roman or Latin alphabet to the expression of Sanskr%it more freely
than
any other Sanskr%it lexicographer.

For indeed I know full well that all who belong to the straitest sect of Hindu# scholars will at once
flatly deny that their divine Sanskr%it can with any propriety be exhibited to the eye clothed in any
other
alphabetical dress than their own "divine Na#gari#." \Na hi pu#tam% sya#d go-kshi#ram%
s*va-dr%itau dhr%itam\. "let
not cow's milk be polluted by being put into a dog's skin." How can it possibly be, they will exclaim,
that the wonderful structure of our devine language and the subtle distinctions of its sacred sounds
can be
properly represented by such a thoroughly human and wholly un-Oriental graphic system as a
modern
European alphabet?

Let me, then, in the first place point out that our so-called European alphabet, as adopted by the
Greeks,
Romans, and modern nations of Europe, is really Asiatic, and not European in its origin. And
secondly,
let me try to show that it has certain features which connect it with the so-called divine Na#gari#
alphabet
of the Bra#hmans. Nay more, that it is well suited to the expression of their venerated Sanskr%it;
while its
numerous accessory appliances, its types of various kinds and sizes, its capital and small letters,
hyphens,
brackets, stops &C., make it better suited than any other graphic system to meet the linguistic
requiremants
of the coming century - which will witness such vast physical, moral, and intellectual changes,
that a new order of things, and almost a new world and a new race of beings, will come into
existence.
In that new world some of the most inveterate prejudices and peculiarities now separating nation from
nation
will be obliterated, and all nationalities - brought into fraternal relationship - will recognize their
kinshin
and solidarity.

Even during the present century the great gulf dividing the West from the East has been partially
bridged
over. Steam and electricity have almost destroyed the meaning of differences of latitude and longitude;
and nations which were once believed to be actually and figuratively the antipodes of each other have
been
brought to feel that mere considerations of distance are no obstacles to the reciprocal interchanges of
personal
intercourse, and no bar to the adoption of all that is best in each other's customs and habits of
thought.

And a still more remarkable event has happened. Europe has learnt to perceive that in imparting

>1 A section of it has been printed in Calcutta.

>2 The use made of some of the series is thankfully acknowledged
at p. xxxii; but it is surprising that the long line of 49 thick
octavo volumes includes no complete translation of India's most
sacred book - the R%ig-veda. Only about 180 out of 1017 hymns
are translated in vols. xxxii and xlvi, when a continuous English
version of all the hymns might have been given in one volume.
It is regrettable, too, that vol. xlii only gives about a third of the
Altharva-veda hymns, and that the Bha#gavata-pura#n%a, which is a
bible of modern Hindu#ism, has no place in the list, while some
volumes give translations of far less important works, and some give
re-translations of works previously translated by good scholars.

@xxiii
some of the benefits of her modern civilization to Eastern races, she is only making a just return for
the
lessons imparted to her by Asiatic wisdom in past ages.

For did she not receive her Bible and her religion from an Eastern people? Did not her system of
counting by twelves and sixties come to her from Babylonia, and her invaluable numerical symbols
and
decimal notation fro India through the Arabs? Did not even her languages have their origin in a
common
Eastern parent? It connot, therefore, be thought surprising if her method of expressing these languages
by graphic symbols also came to her from an Eastern source.

We connot, indeed, localize with absolute certainty the precise spot whence issued the springs of that
grand flow of speech which spread in successive waves - commencing with the Sanskri%it in Asia and
the
Keltic in Europe - over a large proportion of those two continents. Nor can we fix, beyond all liability
to
question, the local source of the first known purely phonographic alphabet. But we stand on sure
ground
when we assert that such an alphabet is to be found inscribed on Phoe???nician monuments of a date
quite
as early as the cognate Moabite inscription on the stone of King Mesha, known to belong to the
middle
of the ninth century B.C.>1

It was of course \a priori\ to be expected that Phoe???nicia - one of the chief centres of trade, and
the principal channel of communication between the Eastern and Western worlds in ancient times
- should have been compelled to make use of graphic symbols of some kind to enable her to carry
on her commercial dealings with other nations; and it may fairly be conjectured that a mere system
of ideograms would have been quite unsuited to her needs. But this does not prove that the
phonographic
signs on Phoe???nician inscriptions were invented all at once, without any link of connexion with
previously
current ideographic prototypes. And it is certainly noteworthy that the discovery at Tel-el-Amarna in
Egypt
of letters from an ancient king of Jerusalem written on tablets in the early Babylonian cuneiform
script>2
proves that a Babylonian form of ideographic writing existed in Palestine and the neighbourhood of
Phoe???nicia
as early as the fifteenth century B.C.

Those, however, who have conjectured that the Phoe???nician phonograms were developed out of the
Babylonian cuneiform symbols, connot be said to support their hypothesis by any satisfactory proof,
literary
or epigraphic.

Nor does the theory which makes the South Semitic or Himyaritic scripts>3 the precursors and
prototypes of the Phoe???nician seem to rest on sufficiently clear evidence.

On the other hand it is certain that if we investigate the development of the Egypcian hieroglyphic
ideograms, we shall find that they passed into a so-called "hieratic" writing in which a certain number
of
phonograms were gradually introduced. And it is highly probable that Phoe???nicia in her commercial
inter-
course with a country so close to her shores as Egypt, or perhaps through a colony actually
established
there, became acquainted in very early times with this Egyptian hieratic script.

Furthermore, a careful comparison of the elaborate tables printed in the latest edition of te
Encyclopae???dia
Britannica, and in the Oxford "Helps to the Study of the Bible" - giving the Egyptian and
Phoe???nician
symbols side by side - tends no doubt to show a certain resemblance of form between five or six of
the
Phoe???nician and corresponding Egyptian letter.

Nevertheless, the comparison by no means makes it clear that \all\ the Phoe???nician letters were
derived
from Egyptian models>4, nor does it invalidate the fact that existing epigraphic evidence is in favour
of regarding
Phoe???nicia as practically the inventor of theat most important factor in the world's progress - a
purely phono-
graphic alphabet.

Here, however, I seem to hear some learned native of India remark: - It may be true that the
Phoe???nician
inscriptions are prior in date to those hitherto discovered in India; but do you really mean to imply
that
India's admirably perfect Deva-na#gari# alphabet, which we hold to be a devine gift>5, was borrowed
from
the imperfect alphabet of a nation of mere money-making traders, like the Phoe???nicians? Is it not the
case
that the earliest elements of civilization and enlightenment have always originated in the East, and
spread
from the East to the West - not from the West to the East? And if, as is generally admitted, the
symbols for
numbers, which were as essential to the world's progress as letters, originated in India and passed
through

>1 The Phoe???nician inscriptions have been deciphered by assuming
that the Phoe???nician language must have been akin to Hebrew.
Although their age cannot be ascertained with absolute certainty,
yet there is good reason the believe that some of them are of
greater antiquity than the cognate Moabite inscription of King
Mesha which was found at Dibon, a little N.E. of Jerusalem and
south of Heshbon.

>2 Some of these tablets show that diplomatic correspondence
passed between Babylonia and Egypt through Palestine. In fact,
"Babylonian" was in those days the language of diplomacy, as
French once was in Europe. Other tablets in Babylonian cunei-
form character have proved to be letters written by the king of
Jerusalem to the Egyptian monarch to whose suzerainty he appears
to have been subject.

>3 There are two kinds of Himyaritic inscriptions, viz. Sabae???an
and Minae???an.

>4 Notwithstanding the elaborate proofs given by the Abbe' Van
Drival in his ingenious and interesting treatise on "\Vorigine de
Ve'criture\."

>5 See note 2, p. xxvi.

@xxiv
Semitic countries into Europe, why should not alphabets have had the same origin and the same
course?
Did not the Hindu#s invent for themselves their own grammar, their own science of language, their
own
systems of philosophy, logic, algebra, and music? Have they not an immense literature on these and
other
subjects, much of which must have been written down at least 600 years B.C.? And are there not
references
in this literature to the existence of writing in India in very ancient times? for instance, in the
Va#sisht%ha
Dharma-su#tra of the later Vedic period, in the Laws of Manu>1, in Pa#n%ini, who lived about 400
B.C.>2, in
the Pa#li Canon of the Buddhists which refers to writing schools and writing materials>3. And again,
do not
the actual inscriptions of King As*oka of the third century B.C. exhibit a remarkably perfect system of
alpha-
betical signs, and many verying forms in different districts of India, postulating several centuries of
antecedent
development>4? And if no Indian epigraphs of an earlier date than the reign of Aso*ka have yet been
discovered,
is not that due to the circumstance that the art of incising letters on stone and metal only came into
use
when great Hindu# kings arose, whose empire was sufficiently extensive to make it necessary to issue
edicts
and grants to their subjects? Bearing all this in mind, may it not be contended that if there has been
any
plagiarism in the matter of alphabets, the borrowing may have been \from\ the Hindu#s rather than
\by\ them?

Such questions as these have often been addressed to me by learned Pandits, and it must be confessed
that they are by no means to be brushed aside as unworthy of consideration. Quite the reverse. They
contain many statements to which no exception can be taken. But my present object is not to furnish
incontestable proof of the derivation of Indian alphabets from a Phoe???nician source. It is rather to
point out
to Indian scholars that even admitting (with some eminent authorities) that there is good ground for
claiming
an indigenous origin for Hindu# alphabets, many of the letters composing them offer points of contact
and
affinity with those of Phoe???nicia, and therfore with those of Greece and Rome and modern Europe.

And at the outset it must be frankly acknowledged that the first phonographic alphabet brought to
light on ancient Phoe???nician monuments constituted by no means a perfect alphabetic system. It had,
no doubt,
advenced beyond the ideographic stage, and even to some extent beyond the syllabic, but its
phonograms
were only twenty-two in number, and mainly represented consonants. It had not attained to the level
of
an alphabet in which vowel symbols are promoted to an equality of representation with consonantal,
and
treated as compeers, not as mere secondary appendages. And even to this day, te Semitic alphabets
connected with the Phoe???nician - viz. the Hebrew, Aramae???an, and Arabian - are nearly as
imperfect, and very
little better than, so to speak, consonantal skeletons, wanting the life-blood which vowels only can
impart.

Indeed, the imperfection of the Phoe???nician script is well shown by the fact that the Greeks who, as
every one admits, were indebted to the Phoe???nicians for their redimentary consonantal method of
writing,
had no sooner received it (probably quite as early as 800 B.C.) than they began to remedy its defects,
and
gradually developed out of it a true alphabetic method of thie rown, which was ultimately made to
flow from
left to right in opposition to the Semitic method.

Similarly, too, the Romans when they had accepted the Phoe???nician graphic signs from the Greeks,
found it necessary to imporve upon them, and ultimately developed out of them an even more
practical
alphabetic system.

But surely these two facts may be appealed to as making it not improbable that if the Greeks and
Romans, two highly intellectual races, sprung from the same A#ryan stock as the Bra#hmans,
condescended
to accept certain rudimentary phonograms from the Phoe???nicians, and to expand them into
alphabets suited to
the expression of their own languages, the Bra#hmans also might have deigned, if not to accept a
foreign alphabet,
at least to improve their own graphic system by modifications introduced through contact with
Semitic races.

Nor should it be forgotten that in later times the Hindu#s did actually borrow a Semitic alphabet from
Arabia for the expression of their vernacular Hindi#>5.

No doubt it must be admitted that, had any overmastering conviction of the necessity for the
general use of written signs taken hold of the Hindu# mind in early times, India would not have
consented to be beholden to other countries for even improvements in her own forms of writing.

But the most patriotic of India's patriots must acknowledge that the Hindu#s have always preferred
oral to written communications. Indeed, although a vast literature exists in Sanskr%it, not word exists
exactly corresponding to our English word "literature>6;" and even if such a word were available, true

>1 In Book viii, 168 written legal documents are mentioned.

>2 He gives the words \lipi\ and \libi\ in one of his rules (iii, 2, 21).

>3 The bark of the Bhoj (or Birch) tree and the leaf of the palm
seem to have constituted the chief material used by the Hindu#s
till the introduction of paper by the Muhammadans. No such
durable materials as Egyptian papyrus or European parchment -
the letter being prohibited on account of its impurity - seem to
have been employed.

>4 See note 3, p. xxv.

>5 Hindi# when so transliterated is called Hindu#sta#ni# or Urdu#.

>6 \Litera\, "a letter," is derived from \lino\, "to smear," just as San-
skr%it \lipi\ from \lip\. If a corresponding word were to be used in
Sanskr%it it would be \lipi-s*a#stra\. The word \akshara\, which is
the Sanskr%it for a letter, properly means "indelible," and this
meaning seems to point to the use of letters in early times for
inscriptions on stones and metal. Similarly the first meaning of
\lekha\ is "scratching with a sharp point."
@xxv
Indian Pandits would prefer to designate the immense series of their sacred books by such words as
{Veda},
or {Vidya#} (from \vid\, "to know"), {S*ruti} (from \s*ru\, "to hear") {S*a#stra} (from \s*a#s\, "to
teach"), {Smr%iti} )from \smr%i\,
"to remember"); the reason being that, like Papias, Bishop of Hierabolis (whose date, according to
Dean
Farrar, is 140 A.D.), they consider "that the things from books are not so advantageous as things from
the living and abiding voice." Nor must we forget that the climate of India was unfavourable to the
preservation of such writing material as existed in ancient times.

And besides this may it not be conjectured that the invention and general diffusion of alphabetic
writing was to Indian learned men, gifted with prodigious powers of memory, and equipped with
laboriously
acquired stores of knowledge, very much whtat the invention and general use of machinery was to
European
handicraftsmen? It seemed to deprive them of the advantage and privilege of exercising their craft. It
had to be acquiesced in, and was no doubt prevalent for centuries before the Christian era, but it was
not
really much encouraged. And even to this day in India the man whose learing is treasured up in his
own memory is more honoured than the man of far larger acquirements, whose knowledge is either
wholly
or partially derived from books, and dependent on their aid for its communication to others>1.

It seems, therefore, not unreasonable to assume that, when the idea of the necessity for inventing
alphabetic signs began to impress itself on the minds of Semitic races, it had not taken such deep root
among the inhabitants of India as to lead to the invention or general adoption of any one fixed system
of writing of their own. It seems, indeed, more probable that learned men in that country viewed the
art of
writing too apathetically to make a stand against the introduction of alphabetical ideas from foreign
sources.

At all events there can be no antecedent improbability in the theory propounded by German
Sanskr%itists
that an early passage of phonographic symblos took palce from a Phoe???nician centre eastward
towards Mesopo-
tamia and India, at about the same period as their pasage wastward towards Europe, namely, about
800 B.C.

It is not asserted that the exact channel by which they were transmitted has been satisfactorily
demonstrated. Some think - and, as it seems to me, with much plausibility - that they may have been
introduced through contact with the Greeks>2. Perhaps a more likely conjecture is that Hindu#
traders,
passing up the Persian Gulf, had commercial dealings with Aramae???an traders in Mesopotamia, and,
becoming
acquainted with their graphic methods, imported the knowledge and use of some of their phonetic
signs
into India.

This view was first propounded in the writings of the learned Professor A. Weber of Berlin, and has
recently been ably argued in a work on "Indische Palae???ographie," by the late Professor Bu|hler of
Vienna
(published in 1896). If Indian Pandits will consult that most interesting standard work, they will there
find
a table exhibiting the most ancient of known Phoe???nician letters side by side with the kindred
symbols used
in the Moabite inscriptions of Kind Mesha - which, as before intimated, is known to be as old as about
850 B.C. - while in parallel columns, and in a series of other excellent tables, are given the
corresponding
phonographic symbols from the numerous inscriptions of Kind As*oka scattered everywhere
throughout
Central and Northern India>3.

These inscriptions-alphabets are of two principal kinds:-

The first kind is now called Kharosht*hi# (or "Ass's lip" form of writing, \lipi\ being understood)>4.
This
belongs to the North-west corner of the Panja#b and Eastern Afgha#nista#n. It was used by King
As*oka for
a few of his rock and stone inscriptions, and is a kind of writing the prototype of which was probably
introduced into Persia about 500 B.C., and brought by Persian rules into Northern India in the fourth

>1 Pandit S*ya#maji# in his second paper, read at the Leyden
Congress, said: "We in India believe even at the present day
that oral instruction is far superior to book-learning in maturing
the mind and developing its powers."

>2 Certainly, as I think, the change of direction in the writing
may have been due to Greek influence. Pa#n%ini, who probably
lived about 400 B.C., gives as an example of feminine nouns the
word \Yavana#ni#\, which Ka#tya#yana interprets to mean "the Greek
alphabet;" and we know that Greek coins and imitations of Greek
coins, unearthed in North-western India, prove the existence of
that alphabet there before Alexander the Great's time. Hindu#
receptivity of Greek influences in illustrated by the number of
astronomical words derived directly from the Greeks to be found
scattered throughout the pages of the present Dictionary.

>3 As*oka, who called himself Priya-dars%in, and was the grand-
con of Candra-gupta, did for Buddhism what Constantine did for
Christianity, by adopting it as his own creed. Buddhism then
became the religion of the whole kingdom of Magadha, and
therefore of a great portion of India; and Aso*ka's edicts, inscribed
on rocks and pillars (about the middle of the third century B.C.),
furnish the first authentic records of Indian history. Yet the
language of these inscriptions cannot be said to be exactly identical
with so-called Ma#gadhi# Pra#kr%it, nor with the Pa#li of the Buddhist
sacred scriptures, although those forms of Pra#kr%it may be loosely
called either Ma#gadhi# or Pa#li. Nor was the name Pa#li originally
applied to the \language\ of the Buddhist Canon, but rather to the
\line or series of passages\ constituting a text (cf. the use of \tantra\).
According to Professor Oldenberg the Vinaya portion of the texts
existed in its present form as early as 400 B.C. The later Buddhist
texts were written down not long after, and commentaries have
since been compiled in Pa#li and the languages of Ceylon, Siam,
and Burma; the Pa#li of Ceylon being affected by intercourse with
Kalinga (Orissa).

>4 See this Kharosht%hi# fully described in Professor Bu|hler's bock.
The first names given to it were Ariano-Pa#li, Bactro-Pa#li,
Indo-Bactrian, Borth As*oka &C. Sir A. Cunningham called it
Ga#ndha#rian. Pandit Gauri#-S*am%kar, in his interesting work
Pra#ci#na-lipi-ma#la# written in Hindi#, calls it \Ga#ndha#ra-lipi\. Some
think that Kharosht%hi# is derived from the name of the in-
ventor.

@xxvi
century B.C. At all events, it is well known that the Persian monarchs of the Adhae???menian period
employed Aramae???an scribes, and that the Kharosht%hi# writing, even if originally Indian
(according to
Sir A. Cunningham and others), has assumed under their hands a manifestly Aramaic character,
flowing
like all Semitic writing from right to left. Possibly, however, as it seems to me, Grecian influences
(which
penetrated into India before the time of Alexander) may have partially operated in assimilating this
early
North-western Indian script to a Phoe???nician type. It may be excluded from our present inquiry,
because
it never became generally current in India, and never developed into a form suitable for printing.

The second kind of ancient Indian script is called Bra#hma (or Bra#hmi# lipi). This is without doubt
the
oldest of the two principal forms>1. Its claim to greater antiquity is proved by its name Bra#hma -
given
to it by the Bra#hmans, because, as they assert, it was invented by their god Brahma#>2 - an assertion
which
may be taken as indicating that, whatever its origin, it was moulded into its present form by the
Bra#hmans.

And undeniably it is this Bra#hma writing (Bra#hmi# lipi) which has the best right to be called the
true
Indian Brahmanical script. It must have been the first kind of writing used when Sanskr%it literature
began
to be written down (perhaps six centuries B.C.), and it is the script of the As*oka inscriptions of
Central
and Northern India - and even of North-western India, where it is found concurrently with the
Kharosht%hi#.
It was employed to express the Pra#kr%it dialect>3 of the Buddhist kings, and flowed, like its later
development
called Na#gari#, from left to right. Its first appearance on actually existing inscriptions - so far as at
present
discovered - cannot to placed earlier than the date of these kings in the third century B.C.

But it is important to note that the existence of the Bra#hmi# lipi in India must be put back to
a period sufficiently early to allow for its having once flowed from right to left like the Kharosht%hi#,
probably
as early as the sixth century B.C. This is made clear by the direction of the letters on an ancient coin
discovered by Sir A. Cunningham at Eran%>4 - a place in the central provinces remarkable for its
monumental
remains. One can scarcely accept seriously the suggestion that the position of the short     \i\ in the
present
Na#gari# is a survival of the original direction of the writing>5.

If then any unprejudiced Hindu# scholar will examine attentively the tables in Professor Bu|hler's
book,
he will, I think, be constrained to admit that the Indian Bra#hma letters have certain features which
connect
them with the ancient Phoe???nician script, and therefore with the Greek and Roman.

It should not, however, be forgotten that an interval of nearly seven centuries separates the
Phoe???nician
from the Bra#hma inscription-letters, and that to make the affinity between the two alphabets clearer
the
side-lights afforded by collateral and intermediate Semitic scripts ought to be taken into account>6.
Nor
sould it be forgotten that when the Hindu#s, like the Greeks, changed the direction of their writing,
some
of the symbols were turned round or their forms inverted, or closed up or opened out in various
ways.

The further development of the Bra#hma symbols into the modern Deva-na#gari# and its co-ordinate,
scripts>7 is easily traceable. It must, however, be borne in mind that the later Pandits tried to improve
the ancient graphic signs by setting them up as upright as possible and by drawing a horizontal stroke
to serve as a line from which the letters might hang down, and so secure a system of straight writing - 
often conspicuously absent in Hindu#sta#ni# and Persian caligraphy>8.

I here append a table consisting of seven columns, in which I have so arranged the letters as to
illustrate the view that the Phoe???nician alphabet spread about 800 B.C. first westward towards
Greece and
Italy, and secondly eastward towards India.

The column marked 1 gives ten Phoe???nician letters. That marked 2, to the left of 1, gives the ten
corresponding Greek letters; that marked 3 the corresponding Roman; and that marked 4 the corre-
sponding English letters. Then the column marked 2, to the right of 1, gives the ten corresponding
Bra#hma
letters; that marked 3 shows the gradual developments of the Bra#hma symbols as exhibited on
various
inscriptions; and that marked 4 gives the corresponding letters in modern Na#gari#>9.

>1 A variation of it called Bhat%t%iprolu is described by Bu|hler.

>2 In the same way the great Arabian Teacher Muhammad
declared in the first Sura of the Kura#n (according to Rodwell,
p. 2, and Sale, p. 450 with note) that "God taught the use of the
pen." Even some Christians may not be indisposed to agree with
Hindu#s and Muhammadans in holding that the faculty of writing,
as an instrument for the expresslon of thought - although dormant
through all the early ages of the world's history - is as much a
divine gift as language. Muhammad's view, however, of the
divine origin of writing consisted in declaring that the Kura#n
descended ready written from heaven.

>3 For the language of the inscriptions, see p. xxv, note 3.

>4 These letters are shown in Professor Bu|hler's tables.

>5 Our invaluable decimal notation certainly came from India,
and may be said to conform to Semitic methods in the direction
of the notation, inasmuch as units are placed on the right, while
tens and hundreds are on the left.

>6 Professor Bu|hler's first table in his work on Indian Palae???o-
graphy would have been more convincing had he given examples
of collateral and intermediate Semitic forms.

>7 Such as the Benga#li#, the Mara#t%hi#, Gujara#ti# &C., some of which
may be usefully studied as presenting forms more closely resem-
bling the ancient Bra#hma letters.

>8 A similar line is often drawn in English copybooks and on
writing paper as an aid to straight writing, but always \below\, not
above the letters.

>9 Dr. Lu|ders, of the Indian Institute, has kindly assisted me in
the right formation of some of the inscription letters. The
roughness of some is due to their being photographs from
original impressions.

@xxvii

Let any one study this Table and he must, I think, admit that it indicates an original connexion or
family likeness between the Phoe???nician and earliest Indian or Bra#hma letters, whilst it also
illustrates the
fact that the plastic hand of the Bra#hmans has greatly modified and expanded the original germs,
without,
however, obliterating the evident indications of their connexion with the Phoe???nician.

       4          3       2        1         2              3                4     
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** This is for the Greek \theta\, which is represented in this Dictionary, according to present usage, by
\th\, although \???\ or \t\'
would be a more scientific symbol.

??? According to Professor Bu|hler, the Bra#hma, ??? became Na#ga#ri#     \dh\, from which     \d\
was evolved.

And indeed the modest equipment of twenty-two which satisfied the Phoe???nicians, Greeks, and
Romans, to whom the invention of writing was a mere human contrivance for the attainment of
purely
human ends, could not possibly have satisfied the devout Hindu#, who regarded his language as of
divine
origin, and therefore not to be expressed by anything short of a perfect system of equally divine
symbols.
Even the popular Pra#kr%it of King As*oka's edicts seems to have required nearly forty symbols>1,
and the

>1 Some of the inscriptions had not the full complement of
vowel-sings. As a matter of fact I find that in some inscriptions
a list of only thirty-five letters in all is given, while in others there
are thirty-six, and in others again thirty-nine. Professor Bu|hler
says (p. 82 of his latest work published in 1898) that the ordinary
Bra#hma alphabet has forty-four letters traceable in the oldest
inscriptions (including the Bhat%t%iprolu) which with \au\ (derived
from \o\) would make forty-five, and with the mark for Visarga
which "first occurs in the Kushana inscriptions" forty-six. The
common reckoning for the vowels, as taught in indigenous schools,
makes them only twelve.

@xxviii
amount needed for the full Bra#hmi# lipi, as used for the Sanskr%it of that period, could not have
been less
than fifty (if the symbols for \ai, au, r%i, r%i#, lr%i, lr%i#\, and \l%a\ be included).

Then, if we furn to the Bra#hma alphabet in its final development, called Na#gari#, we see at a glance
that it is based on the scientific phonetic principle of "one sound one symbol" - that is, every
consonantal
sound is represented by one invariable symbol, and every shade of vowel-sound - short, long, or
prolated
- has one unverying sign (not as in English here the sound of \e\ in \be\ may be represented in
sixteen
different ways). Hence, for the expression of the perfectly constructed Sanskr%it language there are
sixteen
vowel-signs (including \am%\ and \ah%\ and excluding the prolated vowel forms), and thirty-five
simple consonants,
as exhibited on p. xxxvi of this volume.

Of course a system of writing so highly elaborated was only perfected by degrees>1, and no doubt it
is admirably adapted to the purposes it is intended to serve. Yet it is remarkable that even in its latest
development, as employed in the present Dictionary, it has characteristics indicative of its probable
original
connexion with Semitic methods of writing, which from their exclusively consonantal character are
admittedly
imperfect.

For the Pandits, unlike the Greeks and Romans, cannot in my opinion be said to have adopted to
the full the true alphabetic theory which assigns a separate independent position to all vowel-signs.
And
my reason for so thinking is that they make the commonest of all their vowels - namely short \a\>2 -
inherent
in every isolated consonant, and give a subordinate position above or below consonants to some of
their
vowel-signs. And this partially syllabic character of their consonantal symbols has compelled them to
construct an immense series of intricate conjunct consonants, some of them very complicated, the
necessity
for which may be exemplified by supposing that the letters of the English word "strength" were
Na#gari#
letters, and written       . This would have to be pronounced \satarenagatha\, unless a conjunction
of consonantal signs were employed, to express \sir\ and \ngth\, and unless the mark called
Vira#ma, "stop,"
were added to the last consonant. So that with only thirty-three simple consonants and an almost in-
definite number of complex conjunct consonants the number of distinct types necessary to equip a
perfect
Sanskr%it fount for printing purposes amounts to more than 500.

Surely, then, no one will maintain that, in these days of every kind of appliance for increased facilities
of inter-communication, any language is justified in shutting itself up behind such a complex array of
graphic signs, however admirable when once acquired. At all events such a system ought not to have
the
monopoly for the expression of a language belonging to the same family as our own and in a country
forming an integral part of the British Empire. The Sanskr%it language, indeed, is a master-key to a
know-
ledge of all the Hindu# vernaculars, and should moreover be studied as a kind of linguistic bond of
sympathy
and feloow-feeling between the inhabitants of the United Kingdom and their Indian fellow-subjects.
But to
this end every facility ought to be afforded for its acquirement.

And if, as we have tried to show, the Bra#hmi# lipi, the Na#gari#, and the Greek and Romanic
alphabets
are all four related to each other - at least, in so far as they are either derived from or connected with
the
same rudimentary stock - it surely cannot be opposed to the fitness of things, that both the Na#gari#
and
Romanic alphabets should be equally applied to the expression of Sanskr%it, and both of them made
to
co-operate in facilitating its acquisition.

Nor let it be forgotten that in the present day the use of the English language is spreading everywhere
throughout India, and that it already co-exists with Sanskr%it as a kind of \lingua franca\ or medium
of com-
munication among educated persons, just as Latin once co-existed with Greek. So much so indeed,
that,
contemporaneously with the diffusion of the English language, the Roman graphic system, adopted by
all
the English-speaking inhabitants of the British Empire, has already forced itself on the acceptance of
the
Pandits, whether they like it or not, as one vehicle for the expression of their languages; just as
centuries
ago the Arabic and Persian written characters were forced upon them by their Muhammadan
conquerors
for the expression of Hindi#.

It is on this account that I feel justified in designating the European method of transliteration
employed
in this Dictionary by the term "Indo-Romanic alphabet."

And be it understood that such an acceptance of the Romanic alphabet involves no unscientific

>1 The oldest known inscription in Sanskr%it is on a rock at
Juna#-garh in Ka#thia#wa#r. It is called the Rudra-da#man inscrip-
tion, and dates from the second century A.D. It is not in Na#gari#,
but in old inscription letters. The Bower MS. of about 400 A.D.
shows a great advance towards the Na#gari#, while Danti-durga's
inscription of about 750 A.D. exhibits a complete set of sym-
bols very similar to the Na#gari# now in use. It is noteworthy,
however, that the first \manuscript\ in really modern Na#gari# is not
older than the eleventh century A.D.

>2 This \a<\ is the \a\ of our words "vocal organ" (pronounced \vocul
orgun\). Sanskr%it does not possess the sound of \a\ in our "man,"
nor that of \o\ in our "on." As a consonant cannot be pronounced
without a vowel, the Bra#hmans chose the commonest of their
vowels for the important duty of enabling every consonant to be
pronounced. Hence every consonant is named by pronouncing
it with \a\ (e.g. \ka, kha, ga\ &C.). It is, I suppose, for a similar
reason that we have used the common vowel symbol \e\ for naming
many of our English letters.
@xxix
adaptation of it to the expression of Sanskr%it like our chaotic adaptation of it to the expression of
English;
or like the inaccurate use of it by native writers themselves in transliterating their own Indian
words>1.
Quite the reverse. The Roman alphabet adapts itself so readily to expansion by the employment of
diacritical points and marks, that it may be regarded as a thoroughly scientific instrument for the
accurate
expression of every Indian sound, and probably of nearly every sound, in every language of the
world.
And it may, I think, be confidently predicted that before the twentieth century has closed, man's
vision,
overtasked by a constantly increasing output of literary matter, will peremptorily demand that the
reading
of the world's best books be facilitated by the adoption of that graphic system which is most
universally
applicable and most easily apprehensible. Whether, however, the Roman symbols will be ultimately
chosen
in preference to other competing systems as the best basis for the construction of a world's future
universal
alphabet no one can, of course, foretell with the same confidence.

One thing, I contend, is certain. Any ordinary scholar who consults the present work will be ready
to admit that it derives much of its typographical clearness from certain apparently trifling, but really
important, contrivances, possible in Romanic type, impossible in Na#gari#. One of these, of course, is
the
power of leaving spaces between the words of the Sanskr%it examples. Surely such a sentence as
\sa#dhu-mitra#ny akus#ala#d va#rayanti\ is clearer than \sa#dhumitra#nyakus#ala#dva#rayanti\.
Again, who will deny the
gain in clearness resulting from the ability to make a distinction between such words as "smith" and
"Smith," "brown" and "Brown," "bath" and "Bath?" not to speak of the power of using italics and other
forms of European type. And, without doubt, the use of the hyphen for separating long compounds in
a language where compounds prevail more than simple words>2, will be appreciated by all. I can only
say that, without that most useful little mark, the present volume must have lost much in clearness,
and
still more in compactness; for, besides the obvious advantage of being able to indicate the difference
between such compounds as {su-tapa} and {suta-pa} which would have been impossible in Na#gari#
type, it is
manifest that even the simplest compounds, like {sad-asad-viveka, sv-alpa-kes*in}, would have
required,
without its use, an extra line to explain their analysis>3.

Fairness, however, demands that a f