1852.] Literary Intelligence. 185 



Literary Intelligence. 



Raja Radhakanta Deb has just completed the 7th and last volume 

 of the Sabdakalpadruma. The unintermittent labors of more than a 

 quarter of a century have at last come to a successful close. The 

 author has already achieved his reputation, as well among the Pandits 

 of Hindustan, as the Savants of Europe. His Sanskrit Encyclopaedia 

 ■ stands foremost among the contributions which the present or any pre- 

 ceding century has rendered to Sanscrit learning. The utility of 

 such a voluminous compendium of the arts and sciences has been 

 fully appreciated, and its author has received more than a solitary 

 mark of acknowledgment from the Oriental scholars of the day. It 

 would be curious to inspect the numberless testimonies of approba- 

 tion which Native and Mahratta, English and German, have com- 

 peted with each other in offering to his merits ; nor is the labour unde- 

 serving of even a higher tribute. The Raja has spent the brightest 

 part of his mortal existence in the hope of living an immortal life for 

 generations to come, and reared an imperishable monument for him- 

 self. He himself alludes to his labours in the Preface appended to the 

 present volume of his work : 



" From my days of scholarship up to the present time having under- 

 gone an immensity of labour, &c," — a period of time embracing no less 

 than 35 years. This is more thau what Furdousi, the great chronicler 

 of the Kings of Persia, has alleged. 



£j C^^. f*?* J 1 *" C5^ 



"Thirty years have I laboured after the Shah Nameh." 

 The words which immediately follow those already quoted from the 

 Preface are worthy of notice : sft^^f^^sTRrfcrj: "with the assistance 

 of a variety of the most learned individuals." This is what the Pandits 

 devoted for years to this Herculean task had every right to expect at 

 his hands. It might be supposed that one who is so sanguine in his 

 expectancy of obtaining his due at the hands of posterity should not 

 be forgetful of the reputation of his coadjutors. It is alike honorable 

 to himself, and nothing but just to his learned assistants, — for we must 

 be permitted to observe that in Sanscrit learning the Pandits in question 



2 B 



