﻿AND fUACRIT LANGUAGES. £2l 



ingthcm tlie affinity of Hindi with the Sanscrit lan- 

 giuigt' is peculiarly strikiiiiv ; and no person ac- 

 quainted witli botli can hesitate in alhrming that 

 Hindi is chietly borrou'cd from Sanscrit. Many 

 words of M'hich the etymology shows tlieni to be the 

 purest Sanscr1,t, are received unaltered ; many rr.ore 

 undergo no change i)ut that of making the final 

 vowel silent; a still o-i'^aVer number exhibits no other 

 difference than what arises from the uniform permu- 

 tation of certain letters ; the rest too, with compara- 

 tively few exceptions, may be easily traced to a Sans- 

 crit origin. That this is the root from which Hindi 

 lias sprung, (not Hindi the dialect whence Sanscrit 

 has been refined,) may be proved by etymology, the 

 analogy of which is lost in Hindi and preserved in 

 Sanscrit. A i'ew examples will render this evident. 

 CrIya signifies action, and Carma act, both of 

 Avhich are regularly derived from the root Cfi to do. 

 They have b'jcn adopted into Hindustani, with many 

 other regular derivatives of the same root; (such, 

 for example, as Carada [contracted iiito Carna\ th.e 

 act of doing; Carta the agent; Cdran cause, or the 

 means of doing; Cari/a [Cdij, Cai,'\ the thing to be 

 done, and the intent or purpose of the action.) But 

 I select these two instances, because both words are 

 -adopted into Hindustani in two several modes. Thus 

 Crid signifies action, and Cind expresses ouii meta- 

 phorical sense of the same Sanscrit word, viz. oath 

 or ordeal. Again. Cirid-cai^am signifies funeral rites; 

 but Cam is the most usual form in which the San- 

 scrit Carma is exhibited in the Hindustani ; and it 

 thus assumes the same form with Cam, desire, a very 

 different word taken from the Sanscrit derivative of 

 the root Cam, to seek : here then, Hindustani con- 

 founds 



A"^ZEM Sha'h ; and the modern edition is therefore c?.]led A^zemshdb/. 

 The old edition h;is been elsgantly tran lated iiuo Sanscrit verse, by 

 Heripresa'da' P.ANDiTA, Under the pucrocjge cf Che't Si.s'h, when 

 R.ya oi Benarcs. 



