Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

A History of Sanskrit Literature c28.s2: 2. The Extant Lexica

A History of Sanskrit Literature c28.s2

Language
English

2. The Extant Lexica

c28.s2.1

As usual in India the older works were obscured by the later, and we have only names and odd citations of important writers, such as Kātyāyana, to whom a *Nāmamālā* is ascribed, Vācaspati and Vikramāditya, authors of a *Çabdārṇava* and a *Saṃsārāvarta*, and Vyāḍi, whose *Utpalinī* is often cited, and included Buddhist terms. The fragments of a dictionary exist in the Weber manuscript found in Kashgar.¹ But one of the earliest texts preserved for us is the *Nāmaliṅgānuçāsana*² of Amarasiṅha, called usually the *Amarakoça*. Its author is also known as a poet, and was certainly a Buddhist who knew the Mahāyāna and used Kālidāsa. His lower limit of date is dubious, he is not certainly known to the *Nyāsa* of Jinendrabuddhi (A. D. 700), but the decline of Buddhism in India renders it improbable that he lived after the eighth century; his ascription to the sixth, however, rests on nothing better than the assertion that he was a jewel of Vikramāditya’s court.³ The work is synonymous, arranged in three books by subjects, with an appendix in the last on homonyms, indeclinables, and genders. Of its many commentators, special merit attaches to the works of Kṣīrasvāmin (11th cent.), Vandyaghaṭīya Sarvānanda (1159), and Rāyamukuṭamaṇi (1431) who used sixteen earlier writers. An important supplement of rare words is afforded by the *Trikāṇḍaçeṣa* of Puruṣottamadeva, who wrote also, after twelve years’ work, the shorter *Hārāvalī*, including synonyms and homonyms; these give a rich store of very rare terms, many from Buddhist texts.¹ Perhaps as old as Amara is Çāçvata, whose *Anekārthasamuccaya*² betrays age by its arrangement of its homonyms according as the explanation takes a whole verse, a half verse, a quarter verse; indeclinables conclude the work.

c28.s2.2

¹ Hoernle, JASB. lxii. 1. 26 ff.

c28.s2.3

² Ed. TSS. 1914–17.

c28.s2.4

³ Cf. Bhandarkar, *Vaiṣṇavism*, p. 45; Keith, IOC. ii. 303.

c28.s2.5

¹ Cf. Zachariae, *Bezz. Beitr.* x. 122 ff. (before 1150).

c28.s2.6

² Ed. Zachariae, Berlin, 1882.

c28.s2.7

Other dictionaries are decidedly later. From *c.* 950 we have the short *Abhidhānaratnamālā*³ of the poet-grammarian Halāyudha, and a century later Yādavaprakāça’s *Vaijayantī*,⁴ which is of great bulk and arranges its words by syllables, genders, and initial letters. The twelfth century gives a rich variety. Pre-eminent are Hemacandra’s works; the *Abhidhānacintāmaṇi*⁵ deals with synonyms in six sections, beginning with Jain gods and ending with abstracts, adjectives, and particles, and is supplemented by the botanic dictionary *Nighaṇṭuçeṣa*; the *Anekārthasaṁgraha*⁶ deals with homonyms in six sections, beginning with one-syllable and ending with six-syllable words arranged by initial letters and end consonants. The Jain Dhanaṁjaya wrote between 1123 and 1140 his *Nāmamālā*; Maheçvara’s *Viçvaprakāça*⁷ falls in 1111, while Maṅkha’s *Anekārthakoça*⁸ with his own comment, which uses Amara, Çāçvata, Halāyudha, and Dhanvantari, is rather later, and Keçavasvāmin’s *Nānārthārṇavasaṁkṣepa*⁹ falls about 1200. To the fourteenth century belongs the *Anekārthaçabdakoça*¹⁰ of Medinīkara, which is often cited by commentators, as well as the *Nānārtharatnamālā*, written by, or for, Irugapa, general of Harihara.¹¹

c28.s2.8

³ Ed. Th. Aufrecht, London, 1861.

c28.s2.9

⁴ Ed. G. Oppert, Madras, 1893.

c28.s2.10

⁵ Ed. St. Petersburg, 1847.

c28.s2.11

⁶ Ed. Vienna, 1893.

c28.s2.12

⁷ Ed. ChSS. 1911.

c28.s2.13

⁸ Ed. Vienna, 1897; cf. SWA. cxli. 16 ff.

c28.s2.14

⁹ Ed. TSS. 1913.

c28.s2.15

¹⁰ Ed. Calcutta, 1884.

c28.s2.16

¹¹ Çeshagiri, *Report*, 1893-4, pp. 41 f.

c28.s2.17

Of uncertain date are minor works dealing with words of one syllable, *Ekākṣarakoça*, or with words of different forms, *Dvirūpa-* or *Trirūpa- koça*, medical or astronomical or astrological glossaries. Buddhist texts revived the Vedic Nighaṇṭus, as they produced works specially written for their interpretation and in prose form; thus the best known, the *Mahāvyutpatti*,¹ gives elaborate information on many Buddhist topics, and includes verbal forms, phrases, and sentences. It is characteristic of the bitter relations between Hindus and Mahomedans that it is not until the time of Akbar that we find the Persian-Sanskrit dictionary *Pārasīprakāça*,² and in 1643 the work of the same title by Vedāṅgarāya on astronomical and astrological terms.

c28.s2.18

¹ Ed. J. P. Minayeff, BB. 13, 1911.

c28.s2.19

² A. Weber, *Über den Pârasîprakâça* (ABA. 1887).

c28.s2.20

In 972 Dhanapāla wrote for his sister Sundarī the *Pāiyalacchī* (*Prākṛtalakṣmī*) *Nāmamālā*,³ a Prākrit dictionary which was used by Hemacandra in producing his *Deçīnāmamālā* ⁴ with commentary, in which he seeks to give Deçī words, that is, terms neither identic with Sanskrit (*tatsama*) nor derived thence by ordinary processes (*tadbhava*). Some of these words are referable to Sanskrit, but most are not, and their provenance is still extremely uncertain.⁵

c28.s2.21

³ Ed. G. Bühler, *Bezz. Beitr.*, iv. 70 ff.

c28.s2.22

⁴ Ed. R. Pischel, BSS. 17, 1880.

c28.s2.23

⁵ Jacobi, *Bhavisattakaha*, pp. 62 f., 65 f., 69; Grierson, MASB. viii. 2 (*The Prakrit Dhātvādeśas*). His theory of semi-Tatsamas (JRAS. 1925, pp. 221 f.) is certainly too widely stated.

c28.s2.24

The scientific value of this lexicographical work cannot be said to be high, nor could this be expected from writers who merely aimed at a practical result. Especially in the later lexica there are cases of words being inserted which merely rest on misreadings of texts or on misinterpretations, and frequently poets have been misled to use words in incorrect senses because they were given as synonyms of some other word in one of its senses, and the synonymity has been generalized. But we are rarely in a position to decide definitely on these points.

Linked texts (20)