*

DATE OF SIſ HARSHA.

MARCH, 1873.]

Goldstücker agrees with him. But it is a ques

71

tion whether the distinction between northern or

But then though it is so, a restraint is put on us, and we are told such a thing is eatable and

eastern grammarians, which Pánini mentions,

such a thing is uneatable.

really existed in the time of Kātyāyana. But to whatever school of grammarians he may have belonged, supposing such schools existed in his time, it appears, from a passage in the Mahā

same manner, while one is able to express his thoughts equally by correct or incorrect words, what grammar does is to restrict him to the use of correct words, in order that religious good may arise from it.” Now, this is Patanjali's explanation of two

bhāshya, that the author of the Vârtikas was a

Dákshinātya, i.e., a native of the South or Dāk khan. In the introduction to the Mahābhāshya” occurs a passage, the sense of which is this:—

“If a man, who wishes to express his thoughts, does so by using some words or other simply from his acquaintance with the usage of the world, what is the use of grammar 2 The object of gram mar is to restrict the liberty of speech in such a manner that religious good may arise from it; just as is done in the affairs of the world and in matters concerning the Vedas. In the world we find people saying ‘a domesticated cock should

not be eaten, a domesticated pig should not be eaten.' Things are eaten for the satisfaction of hunger. Hunger, however, can be satisfied even by eating dog's flesh, and such other things.

In the

vártikas, the latter of which is yathá laukika waidikeshu, i.e., “as in the world and in the Veda.’

On this Patanjali's remark is Priya-taddhitá Dákshinátyáh yathá loke vede cheti prayoktavye

yathá laukika-vaidikeshwiti pray unjate, i.e., the Dakshinátyas, i.e., people of the South or Däkkhan, are fond of using (words with) taddhita affixes, that is, instead of saying yathá loke vede cha, they say yathá laukika-vaidikeshu” (i.e., instead of using the words loka and veda, they use derivatives from them, formed by affixing the termination ika). This clearly means that Kātyāyana, the author of the vårtika in which the words laukika and Vaidika occur, was a Dákshinátya.

THE DATE OF $Rí HARSHA. BY

KA's HINATH TRIMBAK TELANG, M.A., L.L.B., ADVOCATE, HIGH COURT, BOMBAY.

IN my article and letter on the date of the Nyāyakusumānjali in the Indian Antiquary (vol. I. pp. 297 and 353), the question of the

points out two circumstances tending to show that the “main facts” related by Rājašekhara,

the Jaina writer who gives us this account of Sri

date of Sri Harsha, the author of the Naishadha

Harsha, are “strictly historical.”

Charita and other works, came incidentally under consideration ; and in my letter I made

his second circumstance first. It is that “Rāja

a reference to the conclusion which had been

details with the statements which Sri Harsha

arrived at on that point by Dr. J. G. Bühler, as I knew it from a summary of his paper on the

makes regarding himself in his own works.”f Now, I cannot attach much weight to this cir cumstance; for, surely, even a Hindu biographer, void of the “historical sense,” could not afford either to ignore or to contradict such well-known autobiographical statements as those to which

subject. I have since seen the whole of his paper on the age of the Naishadha Charita of Śri Harsha, and although I cannot say that my view on the subject continues quite unshaken, I still think that the question cannot yet be re garded as finally settled.

In the first place, then, the authority upon which

Dr. Bühler relies for the date of Sri

Harsha gives an account of him, which, as the

Doctor himself very truly remarks, “is in many details obviously fanciful.”f And though I am willing to concede that this circumstance may easily be too much insisted on, it must be acknowledged that this account should be re ceived with considerable caution.

Dr. Bühler

• Ballantyne's Edn. pp. 54, 56.

t Page 5.—My references are to the essay as recently

I will take

Šekhara's narration agrees in some important

Dr. Bühler alludes.

Running counter to such

statements, a biography may, in the majority of cases at any rate, be safely put down as a work of romance. But it does not therefore follow, I think, that the repetition of them in a work is

proof of the remaining statements being trust worthy. Had the case been somewhat different —had the statements coincided with what some

elaborate historical investigation had brought

out, or with facts which could be reached only by a course of bond ſide historical research—the published in a separate pamphlet. | Page 5.