Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/408

368 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [December, 1873. whose roaring, from their mouth fulls the grass.’* Again, M&rkandeya iu the section on tho Savari, a kind of S&md&li, has the sAtra (fol. 66 b): || kerake kelake v&sy&t || amhakerakara Dhanam amhakela- kam va I; and Chandrasekhara, the best commenta¬ tor of the SakuntalA, remarks : kerakasabdah prd- krite Atmiye vartate. Thus kera, keraka, kelaka* are found even in tho latest and most corrupt dialects. When should it havo been curtailed, and what particular necessity could induce the Bangalis alone to shorten it, while all the others have either lengthened it or retained it unal¬ tered ? According to Vararuchi, III. 18, 19, corresponding to Hemachandra, VIII. 1. 155 and VIII. 2. 63-64, Trivikrama, I. 4. 59-60, the words t&rya, 8urya, and dhairya may elide tho ya and become tdra, sdra, dhtra (comp. Lassen, Inst, prdcr. p. 247). After the same principle kdrya becomes kdra; the word has not been noticed by the grammarians, because it existed al¬ ready in Sanskrit. This kdra is preserved in the Bang&li genitive 31PFI + 5TIT, and has been curtailed to jfpTR* and *n Urdu to hamdrd, tumhdrd. Hemachandra, VIII. 4. 434, in tho section on the Apabhransa has the sAtra: || yushmad&der iyasya d&rah || apabhramse yushma- d&dibhyah. parasya fyapratyayasya dara ity Adeso bhavati [|, and among tho examples tuhdrd, amhdrd, raahdrd are quoted. Trivikrama, III. 3. 23, and inhar&ja, fol. 73 b, have : |f chhasya yushmad&der d&rah ||. If we compare these sAtras with tho sAtras mentioned above, nobody, I think, can doubt that dra, which, as the BangAli shows, originally was kdra, and our kera are only modi¬ fications of the same word, viz. kdrya. Kdra could easily be curtailed after a homogeneous vowel, being of frequent occurrence already in Sanskrit; but kdrya in the shape of kera is a mere Pr&kpitic word. Originally its use was restricted to the pronouns and tho words para and rdjan ; afterwards it was lengthened and used in connec¬ tion with substantives. It has never been cur¬ tailed. Secondly, the change of r to l forbids us to accept Prof. Hoernle’s theory. There can bo no doubt that kelaka is tho more modern form; and that the change of r to l in this word is not arti¬ ficial, but thoroughly organic, is proved by tho Ma¬ rathi keld, keli, kdem, and the Low Hindi kaild mentioned by Prof. Hoemlo himself. Indeed it would be a strange phenomenon if the same word kera had not only retained its original shape in tho vernaculars, but had also been changed into kela and again shortened to er. This is impossi¬ ble, because it is unnatural and against tho genius of language. Thirdly, keraka is nowhere a sort of affix. If wo stylo keraka an affix, we must do the same with innumerable other adjectives. Keraka is never used in the Mrichchhakatika or any other play in tho sense of a genitive postposi¬ tion; it never determines the case of another noun; it has never been anything else but a real adjective noun. Prof. Hoernle denies having said that the geni¬ tive of santdna was formerly santdna keraka. At p. 132, however, he says : “ Take, for instance, the genitive of santdna, a child ; it would be santdna keraka.” What else can this mean but what I have concluded from it ? That the Bangali adjec¬ tives have dropped all case, number, and gender terminations I knew as well as Prof. Hoernle does : but exactly because all of them havo done it, and because this is the rule, it is difficult to see how keraka alone could have been curtailed to such an extent. In the language of the gipsies, where, as I havo remarked above, kera is very frequently employed, the adjectives are treated in almost the same way as in Bangali, but still kera had retained its old shape. Whothor keraka occurs fourteen or twenty-eight times in the Mrichchha- katlkd is of no consequence. I should not have mentioned that at all if I had not been struck by the astonishing confidence with which Prof. Hoernle asserted that this word in the determina¬ tive sense—according to his views—is found in the Mrichchhakatikd only : a confidence all the more astonishing as ho confesses now himself that he has not even examined, to say nothing of read, such plays as tho Mdlavikd and the Mudrdrdk- shasa! That the word keraka must have been very common in the colloquial speech Prof. Hoernle need not tell me. This, however, is no reason why it should havo been curtailed; tho ques¬ tion is not how often keraka occurs, but what chauges it may have undergone. If every word of frequent occurrence wero curtailed to one syllable, our language would soon resemble the Chinese language. It is due to the uncritical editions of Sanskrit plays by tho Indian Pandits that the word is not met with oftener in other plays. In tho SakuntalA. I shall restore it in three more pas¬ sages where the best manuscripts have it, though it is not found in any of the present editions of this play. Tho first instance which I quoted from the 6akuntala is not a false one; keraka is used there pleonastically; it could bo omit¬ ted very well. Tlie second instance is not in tho least doubtful, but as certain as anything can be. Monier Williams is no authority, his edi¬ tion—apart from its being a pons as! nor am— being founded upon the worst possible manu¬ scripts. I gladly recognize the superiority of Prof. Hoernle in every other respect, but ns for the &aknntnla I must lay claim to know a little more about tho play than he, having collated,