2
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
Mr. Gover’s “ Folk-songs of Southern India”
is not only an instructive book, it is probably without excepticºn, the most interesting work relating to India and the social character of its
[JANUARY 5, 1872.
Indian Antiquary, we hope to find the means of publishing them for decipherment and trans lation by those among our correspondents best skilled in such studies.
what a patient worker may effect. Then the History, Chronology and Genealo
Then there are the subjects of Mythology and Religions—with their sects, rites and ceremonies; Literature and Bibliography ; Philology and
gies of the many provinces, races, and royal
Grammar ; Astronomy ; Medicine; Geology and
families are all but exhaustless subjects. On the costumes ancient and modern; on implements of domestic use, husbandry, and war; on Sports and Pastimes; and on the Arts and Handicrafts,
Natural History, which will all supply themes interesting to the scholar, the man of science, the
people, that has appeared for years; and it shows
of India, volumes might be filled. The Ethnology of the various tribes and the connections of their
languages, &c., may well occupy many enquir ers. Topography and Geography—ancient and modern,-are only beginning to attract attention, and are susceptible of very extensive elucidation. Our Indian Governments have at length taken up the compilation of Provincial Gazetteers; but such works can at first be only approximately com
plete, and the compilers—however talented and energetic—cannot be expected to obtain the best possible information, in more than a ma jority of cases. Here, again, our contributors may be of public service, by supplying our pages
politician, the educationist, the missionary, the general reader and the tourist. We are gratified to find that so ready a res ponse has been made by so many eminent scho lars in India to our request for aid, and we have to thank many others for voluntarily offering very valuable contributions to our pages. We invite all our readers to aid us with their pens; there is no country where fresh information of the most varied sort lies so near to every one's hand as in India ; and whoever tries to write, we feel sure, will find the field widen and deepen in interest the oftener he makes the attempt to put it into form for the interest and instruction of others.
Sah, Gupta, Baktrian, Hindu, and Mughal, of various ages and dynasties, that will amply re ward patient study, and respecting which we ex
Finally, by inducing subscribers to join our ranks, and thereby obtaining for us the pecu niary means of which, as yet, we necessarily stand in need, our readers and first supporters will enable us to accomplish the services at which we aim ; and no pains will be spared on our part in endeavouring to stimulate that literary spirit and power which very many of those who have
pect to be aided with researches and coins to figure.
first welcomed our proposals are known to pos
Inscriptions abound in some districts more than in others, and if fac-similes are sent to the
sess, and which not a few are ready to exert for the instruction of all who will join us,
with articles on points of local geography and history.
Numismatology is another branch for which much remains to be done.
There are coinages—
ON THE PRESENT POSITION OF OLD HINDI IN ORIENTAL PHILOLOGY.
BY JOHN BEAMES, B.C.S., M.R.A.S., &c. BALASORE.
ORIENTAL scholars in Europe, as a rule, devote their time and attention exclusively to Sanskrit and its off-shoots, Pali and the Prakrits. With the exception of the veteran Professor, M. Garcin de Tassy, I know of none who have considered
of my recent visit to England, I found that the British Museum contained none, the Bodleian had one bad manuscript of Chand, (which was entered in the catalogue as a Sanskrit poem ') and the library of the Royal Asiatic Society had
the Indian vernaculars of the mediaeval and
not more than half-a-dozen works of this class.
modern periods worthy of their study, and even that eminent scholar's labours have been chiefly directed to Urdu, and other quite modern branches of the Hindi group of dialects. Manu scripts of works by Hindi writers from the twelfth to the sixteenth century are very rare, and those
I found only three or four imperfect copies of
that exist are seldom complete. On the occasion
some of the latest and most common of these
poets in the India Office library, and I believe continental collections are entirely destitute of them, though I had no time during my short
stay in Paris to verify the fact. A wide field is then awaiting attention.
Its
