1882.] Bemarlcs ly Br. Iloernle on Kachchdyana. 125' 



Dr. Hoernle remarked that he had listened with great interest to Col. 

 Fryer's paper, but he could not say tliat his arguments had convinced him. 

 Coh Fryer's position was, that the well-known grammar of Kachchdyana 

 was composed about the 12th century of the Christian era by a Ceylonese 

 priest, called Sariputta. But the Ceylonese themselves ascribed to the 

 grammar an Indian origin. Col. Fryer said, that in the 12th century there 

 lived two Ceylonese priests, bearing the names of the two famous disciples 

 of Buddha, Sariputta and Moggallana ; to the latter, it appeared, the com- 

 position of a grammar was ascribed by the Ceylonese themselves, but not 

 to the former, Sariputta. But Col. Fryer maintained that the Ceylonese 

 were mistaken with respect to Sariputta, and that they erroneously ascr'.b- 

 ed Kachchayana's grammar, which was really written by the Ceylonese 

 Sariputta, to the famous Indian Sariputta, simply because of tlie identity 

 of the two names. But if that were so, it was not easy to understand 

 wdiy a similar mistake was not made in the case of Moggallana. If Cey- 

 lonese tradition was correct in ascribing a grammar to the Ceylonese Mog- 

 gallana, it may be accepted to be also correct, in not ascribing Kachchayana's 

 grammar to the Ceylonese Sariputta, but to an Indian Kachchayana. 



He had been informed by Dr. Mitra that Kachchayana was already 

 mentioned in the Mahavamsa, in the 5th century A. D. In that case, 

 it would be impossible that Kachchayana should have lived in the 12th 

 century A. D. But he did not recollect any such passage in the Maha- 

 vamsa, and was inclined to suspect a misunderstanding. The mere mention 

 of a famous person called Katyayana was not sufficient to identify 

 him with the Grammarian. The Chinese pilgrim Hwentsang, in the 

 8th century, also mentioned a certain Katyayana, famous for his learn- 

 ing, the author of an Ahhidharma and a Kosa, who was said to have lived 

 300 years after Buddha's nirvana. It was not impossible that he might 

 have been the Grammarian ; but there was no direct evidence to identify 

 'them. 



Col. Fryer's arguments in support of his theory were, in the main, two. 

 First, that there was a striking correspondence between Kachchayana's gram- 

 mar and the Sanskrit Katantra grammar with regard to grammatical termi- 

 nology. This circumstance was a well-known one ; the question had been 

 discussed by Dr. Burnell in his " Aindra School of Sanskrit Grammarians," 

 with which work Col. Fryer appeared to be unacquainted. Dr. Burnell 

 showed that the terminology in question was one common to the Aindra or 

 pre-Paninian School of Sanskrit Grammarians ; whence it followed that, when 

 it was used in two grammars, it did not necessarily show that one borrowed 

 from the other, but only that they both belonged to the same school. Not 

 long ago he (Dr. Hoernle) had published an edition of Chanda's grammar 

 of the Ancient Prakrit, in which the same terminology {e. g.y ling a in the 



