Page:The materia medica of the Hindus (1877).djvu/18

 The Bengali equivalents of the Sanskrit terms in the glossary-have been taken mainly from Sir Rájá Rádhakánta Deva's Encyclopedia of Sanskrit learning entitled the Sabdakalpadruma. The Hindi names have been obtained from the vernaculars given in the Bháprakása; the Amrita-ságar, a Hindi translation of a treatise on Sanskrit medicine; and the Kesava-binoda-bhásá Nirghantu, a Hindi treatise on therapeutics translated from the Sanskrit by Pandit Kesava-prasáda Dvivedi of the Agra College.

The scientific equivalents of these Sanskrit and vernacular terms have been gleaned chiefly from Roxburgh's Flora Indica, Jameson's Report on the Botanical garden of the North-West Provinces for 1855, O'Shaughnessy's Bengal Dispensatory, Powell's Report on Panjab Products, etc. The translations of these writers have been verified, whenever it was practicable to do so, by identifying the plants in the Royal Botanic Gardens. The rest have been given chiefly on the authority of Roxburgh after carefully comparing his descriptions with the characters assigned to them by Sanskrit writers. Some plants, the identification of which was doubtful, have been omitted from the list. The scientific names of many of these plants have been ascertained for the first time, by Dr. King, after examination of specimens procured by me. Dr. King has also furnished the recent botanical names of numerous plants the old names for which have now become obsolete. With regard to the spelling of the Sanskrit and vernacular terms, I should mention that professor H. H. Wilson's system of transliteration, or as it is now sometimes called the Hunterian System, has been adopted, so far as is necessary to arrive at the correct pronunciation of the words, but the minute distinctions between the two varieties of the dental and palatal S, the four varieties of N, and the long and short sounds of some of the vowels, which are not always practically observed in pronouncing them, have not been insisted upon in correcting the proof-sheets. The vernacular terms have been for the most part, spelt as they are written in standard Bengali and Hindi dictionaries. The spoken language varies so much in different parts of the country and among different classes of people, that it would be hopeless to attempt any thing like a complete