Sanscrit Writing and Language. 113 



in the 300 years between its date and that of the MS. in question, it is barely 

 entitled to the denomination of a Lexicon ; and if it was at first much inferior to 

 what we at present find it, then dictionaries properly so called cannot be said to 

 have been produced till after the time of its distinguished compiler. The very 

 names now given to works of the kind were unknown to the ancients. Glossa- 

 rium first appears in the writings of Aulus Gellius ; but from the context of the 

 passage where it occurs, it cannot be inferred to have been used by him to denote 

 " a book of glosses," nor probably did it acquire that signification till some cen- 

 turies after. Lexicon is, I believe, found for the first time in the Etymologicon 

 Magnum, a compilation of which the author is unknown, but its age is ascer- 

 tained not to reach farther back than the tenth century.* Dictionarium and 

 Vocabularium are terms of still later introduction. 



Thus, among the Greeks, who certainly are entitled to tlie credit of this 

 invention, a gradual progress of it may be traced from small beginnings through 

 several successive stages to its present state of comparative perfection ; and before 

 the like credit can be allowed to any other people, a like progress must be shown 

 to have taken place among them. But nothing of the sort is established, or even 

 alleged to have been established for the Hindoos ; their first Avorks of this nature 

 are said to have been vocabularies of nouns and vocabularies of verbs, which, 

 when united, may have been as extensive as the Greek compilations in the third 

 stage above described ; and at any rate show that a considerable advance must 

 have been made in the knowledge of grammar previously to their formation. 

 That the Brahmans may have had such works nearly as long a time as alphabetic 

 writing, I am quite ready to admit ; but this circumstance would only prove that 

 they were the offspring, not of native invention, but of foreign, and conse- 

 quently, of European instruction. And thus we are conducted to a limit of their 



* A limit to the antiquity of the work is got by ascertaining the age of the latest authors therein 

 mentioned. On this subject Fabricius states as follows : " Sylburgius non multo post Photii, 

 patriarchse, tempora vixisse auctorem Etymologici credidit, sed Chcerobosco etiani junior est, quern 

 constat post Simonem, metaphrastem, hoc est, non ante sacculum decimum scripsisse." — Bibliotheca 

 Grceca a Fabricio, volumen vi. p. 395. 



Sylburgius, in the dedication of his edition of this compilation, acknowledges that he could not 

 find out who the author of it was, in these words : " Auctor qui fuerit nondum cognosci a me 

 potuit." 



VOL. XVIII. P 



