1859.] Notices of New Works. 501 



Notices op New Woeks eelating to Sanskeit Liteeatuee. 



Ujjwaladattd 's Commentary on the Unadi Sutras, edited from a MS. 

 in the Library of the LJ. I. H. — By Theodoee Aufeecht. Lon- 

 don, 1859. 



The Unadi Sutras are well known in connection with one of the 

 most interesting questions discussed by Indian grammarians, viz* 

 whether it be possible or not to derive all nouns from verbal roots. 

 On the one hand Gargya and Patanjali deny it, while Yaska and 

 'Sakatayana maintain the affirmative.* The Unadi Sutras are a very 

 old attempt to carry out the latter principle, by inventing a system 

 of rules to explain those words which, if derived from a verbal root 

 at all, have diverged from any direct connection with its meaning, — 

 and in some instances from all apparent connection direct or indi- 

 rect, as in ' naku,' an ant-hill, from ' nam' to bend, or ' mayiira,' a 

 peacock, from ' mi' to hurt. Fanciful as many of these derivations 

 may seem, they at any rate are conducted on a system and principle, 

 and are thus far superior to the random guesses of the Greek gram- 

 marians, as in the Etymologicum Magnum. 



The Unadi Sutras are older than Panini (i. e. 300 B. C.) as they 

 are thrice quoted in his Sutras (iii. 3. 1, 2. iii. 4. 75.) and it is not 

 improbable that they may have bean composed by 'Sakatayana. 

 They derive their name from the affix, which is mentioned in the 

 initial sutra, " 7cri-vd-pd-ji-mi-swddi-sddhy-as'ubhya im." 



Dr. Aufrecht has given us a very valuable edition of these Sutras 

 with an hitherto unpublished commentary. The only previous edi- 

 tion had been that in the Siddhanta Kaumudi with a commentary 

 by Bhattoji Dikshita (reprinted by Dr. Bohtlingk, 1844), but both 

 the edition and its reprint were marred by innumerable errors, and 

 many of the worst description. The present commentator is earlier 

 than Bhattoji, his age being fixed between two limits. ' He very 

 frequently quotes Maheswara Viswaprakasa, a lexicon written A. D. 

 1111, and is in his turn mentioned by Rayamukuta, who composed his 

 commentary on Amara in 1431.' (Dr. Aufrecht's preface, p. xiv.) 



The Unadi Sutras (like the Prakrit Sutras of Vararuchi) have 

 suffered by interpolations of examples and even whole rules, and 



* See Prof. Muller's Ancient Sanskrit Lit. pp. 1G4-1G9. 



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