ISO Hoernlc — On the term Oaurian. [Nov. 



free from the defects of tlie term Gaurian, but also possess all its advantages. 

 The terms Sanskritic and Indo- Aryan certainly do not possess those advantages ; 

 for to render them at all accurate, the word " vernacular," at the very least, 

 must be added. But this is tlie very word which in praxis would have to be 

 omitted. For it would be too tedious and inconvenient, always to speak of 

 a grammar, a rule, a law, etc., of the Sanscritic vernaculars ; while on the otlier 

 hand to say merely " Sanscritic grammar, or rule, or law, etc.," would be inac- 

 curate and misleading, because omitting the only word {i. e. Vernacular) 

 which gives to the term the necessary limitation and accuracy. With Gaurian 

 it is different ; it carries this limitation in itself. 



There is, no doubt, considerable difficulty in finding a collective name 

 for the modern Sanskritic languages of North India, which shall be open to no 

 objection in any direction. The proposal of such terms, as Cis-Vindhyan, 

 and others, sufficiently shows this. It may be wise then, under the circum- 

 stances, to agree to employ the term Gaurian, which has many peculiar 

 advantages, and is sufficiently determinate for all practical purposes ; and 

 which, as I may repeat, I have been neither the first nor the only one to 

 use,* to denote the modern Sanskritic languages of North India. 



Babu Ecijendralala Mitra said, — 



" As the paper just read has been written with special reference to 

 certain remarks made by me on the author's " Essay on the Gaurian 

 Languages" submitted at the June meeting of the Society, I feel myself 

 called upon to say a few words on the subject. The author, I am sorry, 

 has missed the point of my argument. What I insisted upon then, and 

 now contend for, is that we have no right to use well-known ancient or 

 mediaeval Indian terms in a new sense, and wish the public to believe that we 

 are using well-known and well-established ancient or mediaeval terms. It may 

 be all very well for spiritualists to say that spirit means matter, because 

 John Davis, or Judge Edmonds, or some other elder of their body, has, in one 

 of his ecstatic moments, found it to be so ; but in sober science, it is quite in- 

 admissible ; and no reference to authorities can justify that which is essentially 

 wrong. The evil of such a course may be easily illustrated. I know not 

 who it was that first named a class of animals amphibious, but we now know, 

 that the animals so designated cannot live in water, and die 01/ land, and 

 naturalists have, therefore, been obliged to drop the use of the word altogether. 

 We know also that a chemist named an article narcotine, probably on the 

 lucus a non lucendo principle, for it has no narcotic property whatever, r.nd 

 somebody has lately been obliged to re-name it anarcotine. Other examples 

 I could give the meeting by hundreds, but the}^ are not wanted. The 

 gentlemen whom I have now the honor to address, know full well the 

 enormous extent of the injury which has been done to science by wrong 

 * See Caldwell, Comp. Gram, of the Dravidiun, p. 27. 



