Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/235

 July, 1873.] CORRESPONDENCE, Ac. 211 g&li Grammar of Sama Churn Sircar. For the pur¬ pose imputed by my critio I should have chosen a word like bdgher, which, no doubt, may have actually been once bdghakero. Bub it should not have needed explanation to see that after kera had once been curtailed to er and established as a geni¬ tive post-position, it would be added also to Sans- kritic and foreign nouns in a, the genitive of which can, of course, only ideally be said to have once had the supposed Pr&krit form.—Dr. Pischel fur¬ ther Bays that I might as well say santdna kerake or kerakena or kerakaasa, etc. So I might; indeed so I do. But unfortunately he has overlooked two considerations—first, that it would be too tedi¬ ous to decline a noun through all cases whenever you quote it, and that hence it has been always customary to quote an adj. noun in the nom. case sing. masc.; secondly, that all Bang&ll ad¬ jectives have dropped all case, number, and gender terminations; and that therefore, in whatever case keraka be quoted, it would equally assume the Bhape er in Bang&li. Again, my critic is very severe on me for saying that keraka only occurs about 14 times in the Mrichchhakatikd. Now suppose my statement be incorrect, to err is but human ; and even my oritic is not above it: he says that “ keraka in the more modern dialects is always changed to kelaka but the Hind! has kerd, etc. In regard to the particular point of how often keraka occurs, my critio lias overlooked the fact that I quoted from another edition of the Mrichchhakatikd (viz. Calc. 1829) than he. The two editions evidently dif¬ fer considerably. His edition, no doubt, is the better one. According to my Calc. edn. the word keraka occurs about 10 times, not as a genitive post¬ position or pleonastically, but as a dative post-posi¬ tion (like Sanskrit krite). All these instances I excluded as irrelevant to my purpose. Thus of Dr. PischeTs 38 there remain only about 28. Of these, I own, some escaped me, and 1 am indebted to Dr. Pischel for pointing them ont. On the other hand, I intentionally expressed myself guardedly, “aboutfourteen.” Moreover,I wonder it did not occur to my critio that the more examples of keraka as a genitive post-position can be shown to exist, the more it makes for my theory. For this peculiar use of keraka must have been very common and marked in the colloquial, to have been so frequently introduced into the drama. As re¬ gards the two instances from the Sakuntald, the first is a false one; for kelaka is there used to exprq|? the dative; and the second is a doubtful reading (according to M. Williams). The instance from Hdla, likewise, is a false one. Those from the Malavikd, Mudrardkshasa, and Maloti are true ones; but the two first plays I could not examine* As to the word pakelaka, having only the Calc, edition to consult, I was obliged to trust to it. If the reading is erroneous, the error is not mine. But to say that the error invalidates my deduc¬ tions as to the meaning of keraka is absurd. The meaning of keraka {own, peculiar to, or as Lassen says, pertinens ad, and as Dr. Pischel him¬ self, belonging to) is beyond dispute, whether my suggestion as to how it came by that meaning be true or not. Again, my critic says that there is not the slightest reason for my supposition that the use of the word keraka is slang. Yet, with singular consistency, a little further on he himself says “ there is nothing extraordinary in the pleonastic use of keraka; people of lower condition like a fuller and more individual sort of speech, and to emphasise their own dear selves.” I think it will be generally admitted that this amply' justi¬ fies my supposition; and it is merely what I said myself in other words in the essay. My critio seems to imagine that all Br&hmans must be educated or respectable men, and that policemen may never affect to talk high language. At any rate, a general phenomenon cannot be invalidated by one or two contrary cases which admit of being explained in many ways. As regards the base-form kerika, it is contained in the regular feminine kerikd; but it Beems to occur occasionally also in the other genders: e.g. Mrichchh. 122, 15, mana kelikdim in the acc. plur. neuter (as quoted by Dr. Pischel; Calc. edn. has kelakdim). It is mentioned by Lassen {Inst. Prak. pp. 422, 423), who seems to mistrust the form, but, I think, unjustly; for other words of the same form oocur; e. g. iotthiam (=■ avastikam for evas- takam); the regular ettio (= iyantika, not iyatika, for iyantaka), beside ettao (oak. p. 61, ed. M. Williams); see also Dr. J. Muir, Sanak. Texts, vol. IL p. 122; Weber, Bhogcmati, p. 438. These forms are generally explained by an affix ika, but such instances seem to point rather to the con¬ clusion that the form in ika is a corruption of that in aka. As regards the identification of keraka with Sansk. krita, it is an old traditional one of the Pandits. Dr. Pischel says that Prof. Lassen has proved beyond all doubt “ that this interpretation cannot be accepted,” and that his identification of it with the Sansk. kdrya “ has been adopted by Prof. Weber as in accordance with the laws of the Pr&krit language.” Now in his Inst. Prak. p. 118, Prof. Lassen, after having stated the usual interpretation, gives two reasons (which I shall notice presently) which he thinks Btand in its way and concludes by saying “ hence I am inclined to