Page:The Indian Antiquary, Vol. 4-1875.djvu/74

 February, 1875.] NOTICES OF BOOKS. 61 THE TOLLS OF GO AIL HAT (vol. m. p. 342). The story of the Tolls of Croail Hat ia also told about Junagadh, but there it is the wife who col- lects them, calling herself Phuibu. C. E. G. C. QUERY— " LADA LIPPEE-" SlB, — la a memoir of Dr. John Leyden, who accompanied the Mysore Survey at the beginning or the century as Surgeon and Naturalist, I lately met with the following passage s— " He particularly distinguished himself by trans- lating some inscriptions in an obsolete dialect of the Tamul language, and in an ancient character called the La daLippceorVorrnggia, which no European had ever been able to decypher, and which was hardly known even to the most learned Indians, but which he found out by comparing to- gether several different alphabets." Can you or any of your readers supply informa- tion as to what the character referred to was, and where specimens of it are to bo met with ? Lewis Bicb, Bangalore, Wi December 1874. I'o.-ibly too Vattcjuttu (7nd. Ant. vol. I. p. 329; vul. III. p. 333) may lie here meant. — Ed. NOTICES OK BOOKS. P.i>"cn.vTSTBA (Bombay Sanskrit Serin), BdHed with fate*, Ph.D. Note*, L by F. Kielhorn, V Sana Ph. D., II.-V. by J. G. Buhler, About a quarter of a century ago, the Asiatic Society of Bengal, under the patronage of the East India Company, took in hand the publishing of Valuable Sanskrit works which had previously been accessible only to the few, and that often in an incomplete and inaccurate form. The thorough- ness of the work was sufficiently guaranteed by the names of the scholars selected to carry it out, and wo owe much to the labours of Ballaiityn< CowelU Hall, Riier, Rajendralal Mitra, and others, the fruits of which are presented to us in the old series of the BibUotJicnea Indica. Some books, however, are now out of print, and others— the Isilit-a, Vistara for example— were never finished. Simultaneously with the retirement of the Euro- pean editors from this country the series appears to have ceased. It was afterwards resumed, but not under the same auspices, or with the same happy results. It would be unfair to pass by unnoticed the very laudable efforts in the same direction made by the learned grammarian Pro- fessor TaranAtha Tarkavacliaspati and his worthy son, who have striven to bring the classics within the reach of the poorest. The number of works brought out of late years by these two scholar is amazing, but accuracy has, we regret to aay, been often sacrificed in the desire to bring out a book rapidly. The editors of the Bombay Sans- krit Series arc endeavouring, it would seem, to take up the thread where it was dropped by the for- mer labourers in Bengal, and to give us thoroughly accurate and trustworthy texts, with the addi- tion of concise notes in English. How far their efforts have been successful we propose to ex- amine, confining ourselves on the present occasion bo Nos. I. HI. and IV. of the series, which com- pel-, e t he Panchatmtra. We would remark, however. that whilst the native professor and his son have fallen into the Scylla of undue haste, the scholars here have been drawn into the Chnrybdis ..i excessive slowness. Five years ago, when No. VI. of the series was published, we were in- formed that the DaaahnmdracJtariktt Kddamhari, and MUtati Mdtlhava were in preparation, yet up to the present time Part I. of the first-mentioned is all that has appeared. Let us hope that the remainder are not about to share the fate of a valuable and voluminous work on Caste which was in tlw. pret$ in Bombay more than fifteen years ago, hut has not yet been disgorged by that monster ! Very little need be said regarding the text of the P. fra which Drs. Kielhorn and Biih- ler have now secured for us. It is a thoroughly good one. Misprints have crept in here and there, chiefly in the latter part of the work, but perfect accuracy in Oriental printing seems at present unattainable. The notes, too, as a whole, ureal] that could be desired, and are truly I parvo. It were to be wished that those appended tu the other volumes of the series had been drawn up on the same principle. A notable example of entirely opposite principles of annotating is furnished by the Bl published this year. Regarding some of the notes now before Of must, however, join issue with the learned editors. pnd we will begin with those in No. I. (Tantrn-- iv. and v.) On page 4, the alligator, giving a description of the preparations made by his wife for the reception of the monkey, describes her a* Hijij|rfijfqjT[fqTpjr, which might he rendered " ar- rayed in pearls and rubies," or " having pared pearls and rubies." Dr. Buhler, however, renders ipjfTT by " splendid," which secras wholly unauthorized. The sumo word occurs in Bait Bhdmta, i. 5, 81 : ^iftfpr H'WMd fPTjWT $?Wr