Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c30.76

c30.76

It must, however, be acknowledged that in at least one respect their work shows some lack of proportion. They are Bengalis whose studies have been mainly concerned with the history of Northern India ; and this has led them to allot a very small space to the annals of the great kingdoms of the South from the decline of the Sātavāhanas to the end of the rule of the Calukyas, the Cōḷas, and their epigoni (pp. 172-180 and 188-190). In some minor matters also there is room for improvement. Thus, the account of administration on p. 71 f. seems a little too summary and hardly critical enough ; and the statement on p. 81 that "another (highway) stretched from Rājagriha in South Bihār by way of Srāvasti in Oudh to the banks of the Godāvari contradicts the facts,¹ for the highway ran from Srāvastī through Rājagriha to the Godāvarī. The diacritic marking length of vowels is so often misplaced that one is led to think that the authors would have done better to have never used it at all. To quote a few examples, we find *passim* errors such as "Koṅkān," "Mālābār," "Peshāwar," "Māndālay," "Kathakāli," "Āli," "Ālivardi" (for "Ilahvirdī") "Kāshmir," "Wāzir," and both "Qāsim" and "Kāsim," with other inconsistencies in representing the Arabic gutturals. On p. 71 we note with sorrow the misspelling "diarchy" ; on p. 202 f. we regret to see Basava presented as "Vasava," while on p. 203 Vātsyāyana appears as "Vātsāyana," both errors being due to the influence of Bengali pronunciation.² It is disagreeable also to meet hybrid spellings of names such as "Hyder 'Alī" and "Omdut-ul-Umarā."