Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/496

AMARANTH. heads or spikes. The genus Amarantus has mostly monojcious flowers. Some of the species are naturally of .singular form, and others as- sume singular but monstrous forms through cultivation. Love-lies-bleeding {Amarantus cau- datus). Prince's feather {Amarantus tiypo- chondriacus), and other species are common annuals in our llower gardens. The spikes of Amarantus caudatus are sometimes several feet in length. The dry red bracts which surround the llower "retain their freshness for a long time after being gathered, for which reason the plant has been employed by poets as an emblem of im- mortality. Tlie Globe amaranth (Goinphreiia glohosa) and the Cockscomb, well known tender annuals, belong to the same natural order. The Globe amaranth is much cultivated in Portugal and other Roman Catholic countries for adorn- ing churches in winter. Its llowers, which are of a shining purple, retain their beauty and fresh- ness for several years. About a dozen species are native and introduced in the United States, where they are mostly coarse annual weeds. Amarantus blitum, Amarantus oleraceus (Chu- san han-tsi), and other species are used as pot- herbs. Wholesome mucilaginous qualities are generally found in the leaves tinoughout the or- der. The seed>i of Amarantus f rumentaceus { called Kiery) and of Amarantus anardana, or Ama- rantus paniculatus, are gathered for food in In- dia, iledicinal properties are ascribed to some species of the order, particularly to Gomphrena officinalis and Gomphrena macrocephala, which liave a high and probably exaggerated reputation in Brazil as cures for many diseases. Consult: L. H. Bailey, Cyclopwdia of American Horticul- ture (New York. 1900-02) ; and G. Nicholson, The Illustrated History of Gardening (London, 1888).

AMARAPURA, iim'a-ra-poo'ra, or Ummera- POORA, "City of the Gods." The former capital of Burma, situated on the east bank of the Irrawaddy, and on the Rangoon and JIandalay Railway, nine miles northea.st of Ava, in lat. 21° 57' N.. long. 9G° 7' E. Tt was founded in 1783; in 1810 it was almost totally destroyed by fire, and in 1839 an earthquake laid it in ruins. In lS.52-.i3 it was finally deserted and the capital of the country removed to Mandalay. Nothing remains of the old city save some rows of beautiful trees and interesting ruins of a palace and of several pagodas. A celebrated temple in the suburbs contains a famous colossal bronze image of Gautama (Buddha). The pop- ulation in 1810 was estimated at 170,000; it has declined to less than .5000.

AM'ARASIN'HA, or AM'ABA-SIM'HA. A celebrated Sanskrit lexicogiapher of antiquity, whose vocabulary, Aiiiara-kosa, or '"Auiara's Treasury," formed a storehouse of words in early times, and a mine of information for later workers in the field. This glossator is commonly called simply .mara in the native commentaries; but his title Siuilui shows that he belonged to the princely class. Little is known of his life, except that he was a Buddhist in religion, and it is assumed that all his writings, except the diction- ary, peri.shed through the persecutions which the Buddhists at one time suffered at the hands of the orthodox Brahmans. There is, however, great uncertainty as to the time when .mara lived. His date has been generally put at about 500 A.D. His name is associated with the poet Kalidasa ( q.v. ), and the others of the "nine gems" at the court of Vikramaditya in an Augustan Age of Sanskrit literature. The sixth century a.d. is the date most commonly assigned for the reign of this mon;irch : but the Hindus place him some centuries earlier, a view which there is rather a tendency to follow than to re- ject. (See Kaudasa.) The real title of Amara's Sanskrit vocabulary is not Ainara-koiu, but XdmaUnganusasana, "a book of words ami gen- ders." It is also called Tri-kanda or Tri-kandi, i.e. tripartite, from its three books of words and homonyms relating to the world and man and miscellaneous matters. The second of these is the longest, and each book is subdivided into chapters, called vargas. The whole work com- prises about 1500 verses, generally consisting of lines of si.teen syllables, and the words are ar- ranged, not alphabetically, but. in general, as synonjTiis according to subject and gender. There aie numerous editions of the Aniara-koiu, accompanied also by the old native commentaries. Mention may be made of the edition with intro- duction, English notes, and index by Colebrooke (Serampore, 1808). This was reprinted in 1S29. A French edition, with translation, was published by Loiseleur-Deslongschamps ( 2 vol- umes, Paris, 1830-45). Valuable are the editions by Chintamani Sastri Thatte. under the superin- tendence of F. Kielhorn (2d edition, Bombay, 1882), and in the collection of Sanskrit ancient lexicons, or Abhidhfinasamgraha (Bombay, 1889). Consult Zachariie, "Die indisehen Wiirterbucher" (KoS'a), in Biihler's thundriss der indo-urischen Philologie und Altertumskunde {Strassburg, 1897).

AMARI, a-ma're, Michele (1806-89). An Italian historian and Orientalist. He was born at Palermo. At the age of sixteen he entered a government office, and soon afterward—his father being condemned to thirty years' imprisonment for a political crime—the duty of supporting his mother and the other members of the family devolved upon him. He succeeded, nevertheless, in acquiring an education, learned French and English, and published a translation of Marmion in 1832, In 1837 he removed to Naples, In 1841 appeared his masterpiece. La Guerra del Vespro Siciliano {The War of the l^icilian Vespers), in which the author overthrows the prevalent notion, established by Villani, of the cause of the famous massacre of 1282. The book was quickly prohibited, and, as a consequence, widely read. It was translated into German by Dr. Schroder, of Ilildesheim, and into English bj' Lord Ellesmere. Dreading punishment at Naples. Amari fled to France, where he gave himself up to the study of Arabic and modern Greek, and to the prepara- tion of his Storia dei Musnhnnnni di l^irilia (1854-68), Upon the outbreak of the revolution of 1848, he returned to Italy, and shortly after his arrival was elected vice-president of the committee of war in Sicily, He was next sent on a diplomatic mission by the provisional government to France ana England. In 1849 he published at Paris La Sicile et les Bourbons, to show up the pretensions of the Neapolitan sovereign, .'^fter the Sicilian insurrection had been quelled, .mari took tip his residence in Paris, where he devoted himself to literary pursuits till 1859, when he returned to Italy, fighting the following year under Garibaldi, He was made senator in 1861, and in 1862-64 was minis-