PANINI AND ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY.
JANUARY 5, 1872.]
21
of nearly 1,200 feet, and the ruins have a very inconsiderable elevation. Bastions are clearly visible at the following distances from the south
must he remembered he made his measurements
east angle, viz., 200, 320, 420, 520, 620, 720,
endeavoured to trace carefully the rampart and in many places removed the heaps of brick which
820, 920, 1,020, 1,120 and 1,200 feet. Mont gomery Martin considers the heaps of brick to be the remains of a second set of fortifications
outside the ditch, very faint traces of which are visible
covered it.
on two sides of the wall.
I have
In most cases I succeeded in un
built by Shir Shah, but I am rather inclined to
covering the original wall, which uniformly pre sents a thickness of 14 feet. As regards the outer
regard them as the ruins of the ancient towers, the
walls which are said to have existed, if the
two monasteries and the royal palace which we
heaps of stone which are found at different dis
know to have existed in the town and parts of which as well as other buildings were doubtless built on the city walls. General Cunningham gives a much larger area to the ruined city, but it
tances from the fort are traces of them, they
are so imperfect that any attempt to follow them would be simply futile. (To be continued.)
PANINI AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF AFGHANISTAN AND THE PANJAB. THE
chief native
By PROF. RAMKRISHNA GOPAL BHANDARKAR, M.A. authorities for Ancient comprised in each group
Indian Geography hitherto made use of by Anti quarians, are the Purānas and the Itihăsas. But there is another, and a very important one, which is not frequently referred to. The great Gram marian Pānini and his commentators, often give very useful information in cases where the Purānas and the Itihăsas afford no hint.
We
propose in the following remarks to show by ex amples, what use may be made of this branch of
Sanskrit literature, in illustrating the Ancient Geography of India. In teaching the formation of the names of
places and of the inhabitants thereof, Pān in i, as is usual with him, gives general rules where possible; and where not, he groups together cer
tain names, in which the grammatical peculiarity is the same. These groups are distinguished from each other by the name of the first in the list, With an expression which is equivalent to ‘and
others' added to it. In the body of the work, the names of the groups so formed, and the gram
- tical or etymological changes characteristic
them, are only given, while the words consti "g each group are set forth, in what may be
of
"sidered as an appendix to the work, called
- Pátha. Instances of the general rules are
- " by the commentators, but they are not, on
that *Count, to be considered
as recent.
There
- rmal evidence to show that most of these
ºt have been handed down from the time of . himself. A good many are given by
- jali, the author of the great commentary on
- ini's work. On the other hand, all the words
ought not, because the Gana-pātha is attributed to Pân in i, to be re garded as having been laid down by him. Several of the ganas, or groups, are what are called ákriti ganas, i.e., such as each subsequent writer has the liberty of adding to ; and we have no doubt, that even such as are not now considered to be
of this nature, must have fared similarly at the hands of the early successors of Pän in i. For instance, the name of the mediaeval Kâ thia wad town V a lab hi, occurs at the end of the group called War an à di (Pān. IV-2–82) and of Ujja y in i, in the same group, and also at the end of Dh ( m a di (Pān., IV.-2-127). No one would, we believe, push his scepticism, as to the age of Pän ini so far as to urge that this proves him to have flourished after Valab hi came into impor
tance under the dynasty of Bh at àrka. And if any one were to do so, it would not be difficult to satisfy him. For, independently of the mass of evidence hitherto brought forward to prove that Pán in i flourished long before the Christian Era, we may state that in the copperplate grant” of Dhara sena IV. we find puns on a good many of the technical terms
of Pä mini, and the great grammarian himself is alluded to under the name of Shál a turiya, (native of Shalătura). This shews that Pánini was at that time a person of established reputation, and consequently, was even then an ancient author. The groups organas, therefore,
seem to have been tampered with by his succes sors, but we think we are safe in ascribing the
first three names at least, in each, to him. The number of names of towns, villages, rivers,
T
- Translated at page 14,
