Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/51

 February, 1873.] JUNNAR TA'LUKA. 43 Present Participle. 1. Dharu, holding. 2. Dharat(or dharata), holding. Infinitive. , )to hold. Dh ar ite, D h a r a i t e Thin is really the locative case of the present participle dharat, and though it is now used as a regular infinitive in modern Bengali, yet in our text it must in most places be translated as a locative. Thus in song No. I. given above, heraita is “ in (his) looking,” ije. ‘when he looks j” paras’ ite, u in (his) touching,” t. e., “ when he touches.” This sense is retained in the compound present of modern Bengali; thus dekhitechhij “ I am seeing,” is dekhite + achhi=u I am in (the act of) seeing.” Conjunctive Participle. 1. D h a r i, 2. Dh ariy a, having held. 8. D h a r i y e, The first of these is tbe old Hindi form so common in all the poets, the second is the modern Bengali form, the third is an intermediate form from the older dhariyai of some Hindi poets. No distinction is made between singular and plural; this is very much the case in modern Bengali, and especially so in the rural dialects, thus— Sab sakhi meli sutala paea— “All (her) friends meeting slept beside her.” Where sutala agrees with the plural noun. Of the 8rd person imperative, a good example is Mana rahuk puna j auk parana— “ Let honour remain, but let life go.” I do not, of course, pretend to have exhausted Bidyapati’s grammar in these few remarks; but the more salient points have been indicated, partly with a view to fix the master’s place in philology, and partly to exhibit the rise of the distinctive formations of modern Bengali. NOTES ON JUNNAR TALUKA. By W. F. SINCLAIR, Bo. C.S. ( Continued from page 12.) Four miles below the Manik Dho stands the city of Junnar, commonly called Jooner—a typi¬ cal specimen of an old Mughul garrison town. It lies upon the slope between the river on the north and the fort of &iwner on the south, and fills up altogether a space of about one mile and a half long and one mile broad, besides the usual contingent of garden-houses, mosques, and cemeteries. In the days of Aurangzeb it was for a long time one of the chief posts of the imperial army, frequently of the Viceroy in person, lying, as it did, in the centre of its group of fortresses, blockading the great routes of the Nana and Malsej ghats, and offering every convenience for observing and incommoding the restless Sivaji in his Swaraj.* The population of Junnar, exclusive of fighting-men, must in those days have been from 85,000 to 40,000 souls. It now contains about 8,500, and reminds one, within its ample enceinte, of the old panta¬ loon in “ his youthful hose well saved, a world too wide for his shrunk shank.” The name Junnar is said to be a corruption of Jtind Nagar— “ the ancient city;” and indeed it is probable that there has always, since traffic and population got any hold on the country, been a considerable town either on the site or in the neighbourhood of the modern Junnar. In the little village of Amarapura, about two miles east of the present city, there are great numbers of sculptured stones built into wells and tombs, apparently themselves the remains of Hindu temples. In the same place Mr. Dickinson, an English gentleman settled on the spot, found a stone which, I think, has been either a lintel or part of a frieze sculptured with a row of sitting figures, apparently Buddhist. There was within a few years ago an old Musalman Jemadar hanging about the fort of Chakan, 18 miles north of Puna, in whose family, he said, was a tradition that Malik’ul Tijar, when he built the fort, brought a great number of large stones from the temples which he destroyed in Amara¬ pura of Junnar. The Chakan fort itself is very much overgrown with prickly-pear and rubbish, and has been many times besieged, and at least twice mined, since the days of Malik’ul Tijar, which perhaps in part accounts for the fact that I, at any rate, could find no stones there at all corresponding to those of Amarapura. Of an earlier date, probably, than even these ancient remains are some at least of the Bud- ♦ The Marathi name of the original kingdom of the Bhonslas, lying between the Bhlmft and the Nirft.