On the 15th of October 1964 the Deccan College celebrates the centenary of its main building, and curiously enough this period coincides with the Silver Jubilee of the Postgraduate and Research Institute which, as successor to the Deccan College, started functioning from 17th August 1939 when members of the teaching faculty reported on duty. When I suggested to members of our faculty the novel idea that the centenary should be celebrated by the publication of a hundred monographs representing the research carried on under the auspices of the Deccan College in its several departments they readily accepted the suggestion. These contributions are from present and past faculty members and research scholars of the Deccan College, giving a cross-section of the manifold research that it has sponsored during the past twenty-five years. From small beginnings in 1939 the Deccan College has now grown into a well developed and developing Research Institute and become a national centre in SO far as Linguistics, Archaeology and Ancient Indian History and Anthropology and Sociology are concerned. Its international status is attested by the location of the Indian Institute of German Studies (jointly sponsored by Deccan College and the Goethe Institute of Munich), the American Institute of Indian Studies and a branch of the Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient in the campus of the Deccan College. The century of monographs not only symbolises the centenary of the original building and the silver jubilee of the Research Institute, but also the new spirit of critical enquiry and the promise of more to come.
Paryayasabdaratna is a lexicon of synonyms composed by Dhanamjayabhattacarya. It is divided into three sargas viz. Urdhvalokasarga, Madhyamalokasarga and Patalalokasarga. Naturally the three sargas treat of vocables pertaining to the upper region, middle region and lower region respectively.
The present edition is based on the following five manu- scripts :
A - This is a transcript from the palf-leaf MS. belonging to the collection of MSS. deposited at the Adyar library. It is a paper MS. in Devanagari script and numbered as 991. It contains 72 folios, each folio containing 14 lines. It is 8 X 6 1/2 inches in size. The condition of the MS. is good but it is quite modem. The original MS. from which the Devanagari transcript is made, is a palm-leaf MS. and has 32 folios. Each folio contains 7 lines on an average. It is very old and injured and is written in Telugu script. It is complete.
B - Another MS. utilized for editing the present work, belongs to the Government Oriental Institute, Baroda, bearing the number 10307 (a). It is a palm-leaf MS. having 24 leaves. It is titled as sabdaratna. It is written in Telugu script. It is also complete.
M1- The third MS. which is cited here as M, belongs to the Government Collection of MSS. located at the Oriental Research Institute, Madras and is numbered as D 1736. It has 74 folios and is written in Telugu characters. It is complete.
M2 - This MS. named here as M2, also belongs to the Oriental Research Institute, Madras and is numbered as D 1738. It has 88 folios and it written in Telugu characters. It is complete.
Owing to the difficulties of getting the MSS. on loan from the Institute, I had to satisfy myself with Devanagari transcripts of M1 and M2 prepared by the Pandits of the Institute. The Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute had already arranged to take the micro-films of these two MSS. along with the micro-films of the other lexical works at the Oriental Research Institute, Madras. Pt. M. C. Dikshit in whose collaboration I have edited the present text could compare the Devanagari transcripts with the original MSS. in Telugu characters.
M3 - This MS. which is cited here as M3 is an incomplete MS. It also belongs to the Oriental Research Institute, Madras. It is numbered as D 1737. It consists of 20 palm- leaves and contains only the first chapter out of three chapters. It is written in Telugu characters. Pt. M. C. Dikshit did the collation work of the MSS. in Devanagari characters.
Besides the above-named four MSS. I had the advantage of consulting a Sanskrit-Sanskrit Dictionary titled as sobdartha- kalpataru compiled by Venkataraya, who was the son of Venkatavarya and Vijayalaksmi and the grandson of Suryanarayana and Bhadramamba. The compiler of this Dictionary also states at the beginning of the work that he was a disciple of Mallikarjuna of Mamidivamsa, Among the numerous lexicons quoted by Venkataraya, Paryayasabdaratna of Dhanarnjayabhatta is quoted copiously. During my stay in United Kingdom in the year 1966, I had an opportunity to visit the Oxford University and the Bodlein Library. While working in the Bodlein Library for one month, I happened to get the MS. of this work there and I spared no pains in recording all the references to Parydyasabdaratna from this magnanimous work. The collection of this material has served to some extent the purpose of an additional MS.
I have consulted also with great profit the collated text of Paryayaratnamala of srlkara, the text collected for the use of the Dictionary of Sanskrit on historical principles at the Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute, Poona. It bears the number 1735 of the MSS. library at Madras. It contains a large number of vocables which are recorded in Paryayasabdatatna but not found in any published lexicon.
Contents
For privacy concerns, please view our Privacy Policy
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist