JULY, 1873.]

CORRESPONDENCE, &c.

gāli Grammar of Šama Churn Sircar. For the pur pose imputed by my critic I should have chosen a word like bagher, which, no doubt, may have actually been once bighakero. But 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 j, the genitive of which can, of course, only ideally be said to have once had the supposed Prākrit form.—Dr. Pischel fur ther says that I might as well say santána kerake

or kerakema or kerakassa, 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 Bangāli ad jectives have dropped all case, number, and gender terminations; and that therefore, in whatever

case keraka be quoted, it would equally assume the shape er in Bangăli.

Again, my critic is very severe on me for saying that keraka only occurs about 14 times in the Mrichchhakatiká. Now suppose my statement be

incorrect, to err is but human ; and even my critic is not above it; he says that “keraka in the more modern dialects is always changed to kelaka;”

but the Hindi has kerd, etc. In regard to the particular point of how often keraka occurs, my critic has overlooked the fact that I quoted from another edition of the Mrichchhakatiká (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. Pischel's 38 there remain only about 28. Of these, Iown, some escaped me, and I am indebted to Dr. Pischel for pointing them out. On the other hand, I intentionally expressed myself guardedly, “about fourteen.” Moreover, I wonder it did not

occur to my critic 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 Sakuntalá, the first is a false one; for kelaka is there used to express the dative; and the second is a doubtful reading (according to M. Williams). The instance from Hála, likewise, is a false one. Those from the Malaviká, Mudrarákshasa, and Malatí are true

ones; but the two first plays I could not examine.

211

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 critic seems to imagine that all Brāhmans 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 seems to occur occasionally also in the other genders: e.g. Mrichchh. 122, 15, mana kelikáin in the acc. plur. neuter (as quoted by Dr. Pischel; Calc, edn, has kelakāimī). 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 occur; e.g. šotthiami (= swastikań for svas takam); the regular ettio (= inſantika, not iyatika, for iyantaka), beside ettao (Sak. p. 61, ed. M. Williams); see also Dr. J. Muir, Sansk. Teacts, vol.

II. p. 122; Weber, Bhagavati, 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, kārya “has been adopted by Prof. Weber as in accordance with the laws of the

Prākrit 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 stand in its way and concludes by saying “hence I am inclined to