Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/229

 July, l$73.j REVIEWS. 203 We miss, however, the beautiful plates of the lat¬ ter, omitted apparently at tho suggestion of Colonel Keatinge, os being “very inaccurate”,—a character which, as applied to tho views, is in most cases, unfortunately, only too correct; still it is somewhat awkward when the reader comes to page S and reads,—“ To render this more distinct, I present a profile of the tract described from Abu to Kotra,” &c., and to find that this section of the country has been condemned to omission with the artistic pictures. At p. 224, the author says ho “ exhibits the abode of the fair of Ceylon”— meaning the palace of Padmanf,—but it is not to be seen; and again at p. 576 we read of “ the Jain temple before the reader, and a sketch of the fortress [of Komalmer] itself, both finished on tho spot,” and yet neither of them is before the reader. And so in other cases. This of course is one of the results of tho want of editing : another is the uncorrected errata. The author himself had pointed out a few of those in volume I. but even of them only one has been corrected; and on page 25, where, by a misprint of ‘ or ’ for * on,’ the ori¬ ginal had “ Maheswar, or the Nerbudda river,” the reprint has “ Maheswas, or tho Nerbudda river,” while at p. 51 we have “ perpetua larchon,” exactly as in the quarto. But no writer is more in need of careful editing than Tod : his book is as readable as his opinions are often rash and fanciful. His facts—where he confines himself to facts—are interesting and im¬ portant, and are fortunately so numerous as to give his work a high value in spite of his very illegitimate and misleading etymologies, on which he frequently hangs whole theories of ethnology. His imagination is never at a loss: from a few names having each a syllable or so alike, he can reconstruct whole chapters of lost history. In Chapter II. he cites (p. 28) the Agni Purdna for * the genealogies of the Surya and Indu (moon) races,’—but they are not found there. A little further on, he makes tho P&ndavas the sons of Yyasn by Pandea (p. 29); ho would make his the ‘ Abisares’ of the Greek writers (p. 38); Raja- griha is ‘the modern R&jmah&l’ (p. 39) ; ‘Dush- khanta,’ as he names Dushyanta, is ‘the father of 6akuntal&, married to Bharat’ (p. 40); Tanjore he makes tho probable capital of * the Rugio Pandiona’ of Ptolemy; Un-deS, the country of the Shawl goat or Tibet, he makes An-de6, in order to identify it with Anga-desa (p. 41); Valmika (as he calls Valmiki) and Yyasn ‘ were cotemporaries’ (p. 42); Marco Polo was at Kashgar ‘ in the sixth century’ (p. 56); the Jaxartes is the same as the Jihoon (p. 57); madhu means * a bee’ in Sanskrit, and the name of the drink extracted from the Mahu& tree is derived from madhu (p. 66); ‘ Siv-r&t’ is the same as * Sacrant’ (Sankrant) and means ‘ father night’; tho ficus rcligiosa ‘presents a perfect resemblance to the poplar of Germany and Italy, a species of which is the aspen’ (p. 73); Lariki of Ptolemy was K&tliiavad, and took its name from the Silar tribe (p. 104); and so on,—endless inaccuracies rendering Tod most untrustworthy as a guide. And even in what camo under his own eye he sometimes sacri¬ fices truth to effect: thus, describing an old temple at Komalmer (vok I. p. 577) lie soys,— “ The extreme want of decoration best attests its antiquity, entitling us to attribute it to that period when Sampriti Rfija, of the family of Chandra¬ gupta, was paramount sovereign over all these regions (200 years b.c.). . . Tho proportions and forms of the columns are especially distinct from the other temples, being slight and tapering in¬ stead of massive, the general characteristic of Hindu architecture ; while the projecting cornices, which would absolutely deform shafts less slight, are peculiarly indicative of the Talcshac architect. . . It is curious to contemplate the possibility, nay the probability, that the Jain temple now before the reader may have been dosigned by Grecian artists, or that the taste of the artists among tho Rajputs may have been modelled after the Gre¬ cian. ” Yet after all this aud much more confi¬ dent assertion, no competent critic looking at tho plate “before the reader” in the first edition, would be disposed to relegate the temple to an earlier ago than about a.d. 1500; and indeed it bears this inscription upon it, which shows more¬ over that it never was a Jaina temple,— wrn$rri^rriiT crPr WTftCTCT *K frT gs^r W ^ toft VA *rrar <r || &1| spy u showing clearly enough that the temple was scarcely more than three centuries old when ho saw it, dating only from tho reign of RAiia San- gr&m, a.d. 1514. Yot with all its errors and de¬ fects, Tod’s work is one of sterling value, and well worthy of careful study; and whilst some will regret the want of references in this new edition to later and more trustworthy writers, and the correction of errors, or, perhaps, that tho wheat has not to some extent been separated from the chaff by the judicious omission of the greater por¬ tion of the merely fanciful speculations of the author,—all interested in it will feel grateful to the publishers for bringing so convenient and careful a reprint within their reach.
 * Barusar the son of Chandragupta” the same as
 * TO II