154 
[No. 2, 
G A Grierson— Essays on Bihari Declension. 
Baiswari 
Banaras Bhoipiirl ^tr (P 
BhojpM 
Maithil Bhojpuri 
North Maithili ^©, (Purniya) 
South Maithili ^4i, ^Ho. 
Maithil-Bangali ^§, 
Maithil-Mdgadhi 
Magadhi 
These forms are all of them oblique, and are never used in the sense 
of the nominative. They are especially common in compound verbs, in the 
sense of the dative, e. g., in the phrase “the clock 
wished for the act of striking,” i. e ., “ was about to strike,” *TTV ^TR^T, 
“ he became attached to beating,” i. e., “ he began to beat.” 
Verbs ending in vowels sometimes insert a euphonic ^ or W, so that we 
get phrases like vr, “ the fill of drinking,” “as much as one can 
drink.” Examples of this form are very common, and one or two others 
will be given subsequently. 
I have met one or two other cases of nouns, which are not verbal 
nouns, such as ‘ an edge,’ having a similar oblique form. 
Examples ,— 
(Direct) o}R ff o gpjR 1 if you go to the edge (of a field), 
have a stick (to protect) your head,’ Mill. JProv. 
(Oblique) ‘write near the edge,’ Gor. Sgs. 3. 
It will he seen that in all the dialects (except, perhaps, Banaras Bhoj¬ 
puri), the termination is short, and that each dialect has one or more of 
these terminations, viz., v:, tj, or To trace the derivation of these 
forms it will be more convenient, first to consider the derivation of the 
suffix of the Genitive, which as will be seen further on occurs in the fol¬ 
lowing forms in the various dialects of Bihari <$, and or in old Bihari 
3R, as in Ram. Ba. do., 35, 3R, in which g?© is written an 
absolutely separate word. These genitival affixes are all derived from 
the Sanskrit ®<t:, through the Mg. Pr. f%y. Here we have a termination 
Ty, or % formed from a Mg. Pr. termination in 
Now, to trace the derivation of the Bihari oblique form, we are bound 
by all analogy to refer it to a Mg. Pr. genitive case, and, judging from the 
analogy of W, or 3>©, we may refer the oblique form of the verbal noun 
of which we are now treating to a Mg. Pr. genitive case in or 
We shall now change the example, and take the root THT, ‘ beat,’ as 
more convenient to deal with than the root ‘ see,’ which has only 
doubtful equivalents in Prakrit. We are entitled, then, as above shown, 
to derive «R, or *TR© from a Mg. Pr. genitive or if 
