42 Notes on the JEJran Inscriptions. [No. 1, 



The Babu, animadverting on my rendering of the Eran inscriptions, 

 says : " He translates ^s^fl^WT: into the unmeaning* ' derived 

 prosperity to his race ;' when he should have followed Prinsep and 

 given ' for the prosperity of his race.' " On turning to the version 

 of Mr. Prinsep, I am not at all startled to discover that he has not so 

 translated ^re^¥ff%%T:, an epithet of Harivishnu. He has not trans* 

 lated the expression at all. It is lower down, in the column inscrip- 

 tion, that the words occur to which his " for the prosperity of his 

 race" are meant to correspond. f Differing, there, from Mr. Prinsep, 

 in deciphering the original, I have given " with purpose to advance 

 the merit of his father and mother." 



When I called farlTiT«r*ITcr^I " a hoary solecism," I should not 

 have done so, — as I wrote near two years ago, — % if I had had access, 

 at the time I so characterized it, to a respectable Sanskrit Dictionary. 

 The Babu, with all the air of a discoverer, magnanimously taunts me 

 with this mistake, notwithstanding my voluntary and explicit admis- 

 sion that I had erred. Who shall say that, but for his ploughing with 

 my heifer, I might not here have eluded the Babu's penetration ? 

 However, my translation of the aforesaid expression, " the counterpart 

 of his sire," is quite correct. The Babu, with intent to make me out 

 wrong, refers to Dr. Groldstucker's Sanskrit Dictionary, Dr. Grold- 

 stiicker authorizes me to say that my explanation is quite as good as 

 his own. 



* More literal than my " who derived prosperity to his race" would have 

 been " cause of the prosperity of his race." Only I wished to make promi- 

 nent the devolution which is implied by the Sanskrit. 



The verb " derive," as employed by me, has been in the English lan- 

 guage for several hundred years ; and it is not yet obsolete. Within a 

 short time I have met with it, in the acceptation which the Babu pronounces 

 to be " unmeaning," in three living writers. 



" The term, indeed, is derived to us from the Schoolmen ; and so far they 

 are chargeable with having perplexed theology with the disquisitions arising 

 out of it." Bishop Hampden's Bampton Lectures, third edition, p. 181. 

 Also see pp. 153, 184, 331. 



" The king's power of assent is a power derived to him from the whole 

 body of the realm." Gladstone ; The State inits Relations with the Church, 

 second edition, p. 9. Also see the same author's Church Principles, Sfc. p. 5. 



" It is proper to state that I forego auy advantage which could be derived 

 to my argument from the idea of abstract right, as a thing independent of 

 utility." J. S. Mill : on Liberty, pp. 23, 24. Also see the same author's 

 Considerations on Representative Government. 



f Journal As. Soc. Beng., 1838, p. 634. 



% Journal As. Soc. Beng., 1861, p. 139. 



