27 ſ.
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
always reputed to be one of the earliest Christian
[SEPTEMBER, 1873.
A.D. they had acquired sovereign rights over their original settlement, Manigrâmam, by a grant
I have mentioned before the discovery of an old Jain version of the Rāmāyana in Canarese. This is certainly more than a thousand years old, and differs greatly from the Vālmīki-Rămăyana. The Tamil version (by Kampan) is also very old and deserves examination if the question of the
from the Perumāl.
settlements in India.
Nor were these Persians
disliked, as foreigners are now, by the natives of
India. Before the beginning of the ninth century
These Persians were thus
original form of the Sanskrit epic is to be really
established long before the origin of the modern
decided. I hope soon to be able to give some
schools of the Vedānta, and the founders of these
account of the Canarese version, as I have found
sects were all natives of places close to Persian
an excellent MS., written about 420 years ago. which is wonderfully correct.—A. BURNELL in The Academy.
settlements.
Šankarāchārya was born not far
from Cranganor, where the Persians first founded a colony; Rāmānuja was born and educated near Madras; and Mādhavāchārya, the founder of the sect which approaches nearest of all to Christianity,
was a native of Udupi, a place only three or four miles south of Kalyāmapūr. A comparison of the
doctrines of these sects with those of the Mani. chaeans will, I think, settle the question; but I must reserve that for another occasion.
That
these Persians were Manichaeans is, I think, to be concluded from the name of their settlement,
Manigrämam. This can only mean “Manes-town;” the only other possible meaning, “Jewel-town,” is utterly improbable. Prof. Weber has shown that the Brahmasamāj
doctrines are an unacknowledged result of Chris tian missions in this century; the S. Indian Vedānta sects must be taken as a similar result
of perhaps the earliest Christian (though Mani chaean) mission to India.
Professor Palmer, the Lord Almoner's Professor
of Arabic in the University of Cambridge, has an Arabic Grammar in the press, mainly founded on Syrian authorities. From what I hear of the arrangement, it will be more like a portable edi tion of Silvestre de Sacy's Grammaire Arabe than anything else one knows. The Professor has also been translating Alice in Wonderland into Arabic verse and prose, and proposes publishing it, pro vided he can get the use of the original plates. C. M.
An answer to the query respecting the right and left hand Castes (p. 214) will be found in the edition of the Kural by F. W. Ellis. The distinc tion arises primarily from the landowners and their serfs being the heads of ome class, and the Brah mans, artizans, and other interlopers forming the other. But the constituent castes of either party
How close the connection between Persia and vary.
India was in the sixth century A. D. is also known rom the history of the European versions of the Pañchalantra.
The existence of
knowledge presupposes a greater knowledge of Indian matters by foreigners than has ever since been the case up to the end of the last century. I may remark also that the facts I have men tioned above render it probable that Būrzweih or Barzūyeh, who first translated the Pañchatantra into Pehlevi, was actually a Christian, as the Arab historian, Ibn Abu Oseibia, states.
The S. Indian
Sanskrit Pañchatantra is the oldest yet discovered (see Prof. Benfey's note, Academy, vol. iii. pp. 139 140); may not Bârzuyeh have got his copy in S. W. India?
Patriotic Hindus will hardly like the notion that their greatest modern philosophers have bor rowed from Christianity; but as they cannot give an historical or credible account of the origin of these Vedantist sects, if we take the above facts into
consideration, there is more against them than a strong presumption, for these doctrines were cer tainly unknown to India in Vedic or Buddhistic times.
CASTES OF THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY.
this work in
India was then known to the Persians, and this
A.B.
(Continued from page 242.) Kabbar:—A caste of low
rank
in Southern
India; in Dhārwää they are numerous, and, like the village Kolis, act as ferrymen: in Kanara they are few, and are engaged like Bhuis in fish ing and carrying palanquins: their habits are those of their class.
Buchanan describes the “Cubbaru’
as a branch of the Bhuis, some being cultivators and others lime-burners. Morals and habits rude.
Kabalgári is the name of a similar caste in Dharwād.
Chavadriá:—A Bhill tribe in Gujarat, chiefly in the Surat collectorate, numerous; small culti
vators, labourers, or fishermen in the Tàpi river. Their condition is hardly raised above the lowest
level; they are one of the classes included in the Kālā Prajá, or the black race. Paitharwat :-A caste of middle rank, in the Dekhan, stone-masons and artificers in stone.
Kandri –A caste in Gujarat who are confec tioners, &c.
Jangars : —Singers and bards; holding middle rank, and often in public or private employ.