﻿AND PBACBIT LANGUAGES. ^13 



died are not, I believe, of very ancient date. Tlie 

 most esteemed is the Sdra-swata, together wit]} its 

 commentary named Chandrica. It seems to have 

 been formed on one of the Caumudrs, by translating^ 

 Panim's rules intolanouage that is intelligible, in- 

 dependently of the gloss, and without the necessity 

 of adverting to a different context. 



Ano THEii popular grammar, which is in high re- 

 pute in Bengal, is entitled Mugd'liabodlia, and is 

 accompanied In" a con^imentary. It is the work of 

 VoPADE VA, and proceeds upon a plan grounded on 

 that of the Caumudzs ; but the author has not been 

 content to translate the rules of Pant ni, and to 

 adopt his technical terms. He has on the contrary 

 invented new terms, and contrived new abbrevia- 

 tions. The same author likcMise composed a metri- 

 cal catalogue of verbs alphabetically arranged. It 

 is named Cavicnlpcidruma, and is intended as a sub- 

 stitute for the D'hatupuia. 



The chief inconvenience attending Vopade'va's 

 innovation is, that commentaries and scholia, writ- 

 ten to elucidate poems and works of science, must 

 be often unintelligible to those who have studied 

 oulv his o-rammar, and that the writinos of his sclio- 

 Jars must be equally incomprehensible (wiiercNer a 

 grammatical subject is noticed) to the students of 

 the Faninhja. Accordingly the Pcuidits of Bengal 

 are cut off in a manner from communication on 

 grannnatical topics with the learned of other pro- 

 vinces in India. Even etymological dictionaries, 

 such as the commentaries on the metrical vocabula- 

 ries, which I shall next proceed to mention, must be 

 unintelligible to them. 



It appears from the prefaces of many different 

 grammatical treatises, tliat works, entitled Dhdtii 

 and Ncinia pdrayana, were formerly ^studied. They 

 must have comprehended, as their title implies, " the 

 whole of the verbs and nouns" appertaining to the 

 language ; and, since they are mentioned as very vo- 



P J luminous, 



