1883.] 
G. A. Grierson —Essays on Bihari Declension. 
137 
so that the weak forms of the old genitive plural, above quoted, would be 
and not and not and not 
and not Now, it is possible to derive from hut 
impossible to derive from I know that it can be assumed 
that is derived from the strong form but it is equally 
easy to derive it from the instrumental (Prakrit) ^fjJT<5|T (or from 
^ni), and this last derivation has the following advantages: 
(1) It accounts for the termination y in nouns which (like 1 T<t) are 
never used in modern languages in their strong, but always in their weak 
forms. 
(2) It accounts for the fact that if is always (with one or two 
isolated exceptions) used in a singular sense, while the termination ft is 
distinctly a plural one. 
(3) It accounts for the western Bliojpurx forms in such as 
®T«T, 
(4) It is simpler to derive the instrumental if from a Skr. instru¬ 
mental, and the locative y from a Skr. locative, than to take two termina¬ 
tions, for one case (the genitive), one singular, and the other plural, and to 
adopt one, for no very valid reason, as a locative singular, and the other as 
an instrumental singular. 
Another argument of Dr. Hoernle’s given in the foot note to p. 208 
is as follows; ‘ this explains why the Marathi instr. in if is seldom used 
except with the prepositions or 3TScr; for it is really a genitive or ob¬ 
lique form, and as such naturally takes a postposition. If it were, as 
commonly supposed, identical with the old Skr. instr, in y*r, the addition of 
the postposition would be very superfluous and anomalous.’ The addition 
of the postposition may be superfluous, but it is not, I think anomalous. 
In Maithili the preposition fV^TT ‘without’ governs the instrumental, 
both in the form in if, and in its inorganic or periphrastic form. 
Examples are, 
(1.) Organic instrumental. 
Famine song, 10. 
ft*IT «TJT f%W «rf? ‘ without water nothing sprouted in the 
vi 
world.’ 
(2.) Periphrastic instrumental. 
Sal. 3. 
fy*TT yyy In %T«TT JITITTjy, ‘ without a husband how can I pass 
my days?’ 
These examples taken together show that there is no idea of a genitive 
sense, but that there is a pure idea of an instrumental sense in in 
the first example. 
With regard to the locative termination y, the arguments respecting 
T 
