Yak is the auspicious name of the new Bulletin which formally launches the great enterprise on which the Deccan College Post-graduate and Research Institute of Poona has embarked. Suggestions that a Dictionary of Sanskrit on historical principles, comparable to the great Oxford English Dictionary and embodying the latest advances in scientific and historical lexicography, which is very badly needed should be compiled have been made by Sanskrit scholars since a very long time. But the task is so gigantic that no practical scheme to undertake it was forthcoming until the Deccan College Post-graduate and Research Institute, Poona, made bold to initiate its present scheme in the year 1946. It is true that European scholars have rendered very great service in promoting Sanskrit studies both in the field of linguistics and that of lexicography and yet for obvious reasons it is in India that a monumental undertaking like that could be most satisfactorily and successfully carried to completion. There cannot be two opinions about the necessity and the usefulness of this work. Not only will it facilitate the study of Sanskrit---one of the most ancient languages of culture in the world-but it is also bound to provide means for deeper insight into the numerous dialects prevalent in India which constitute its variegated linguistic pattern. The Deccan College Institute is ideally situated for work of this type to do which it has some special advantages. It employs a full-time research staff whose main function is the conducting of coordinated schemes of research in linguistics and history. It has unique library facilities. Poona is specially suited for this kind of work also because of the presence of a number of scholars who are already trained in research methods. Other factors are its easy accessibility, climatic conditions and academic atmosphere. Voluntary co-operation by numerous scholars of international reputation from different countries has already been secured and the ground is thus well-prepared to carry the scheme to successful fruition.
As has been observed by Sir William JONES, " the Sanskrit language whatever be its antiquity is of a wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar than could possibly have been produced by accident: so strong indeed that no philologer could examine them all without believing them to have sprung from some common source which perhaps no longer exists," Although the history of Sanskrit extends over a long period of over four thousand years and we have so much literature, so many Koshas, we have as yet no dictionary on historical principles, no attempts at arrangement of meanings, citations, etc. which characterise a modern lexicographical work. A large number of ancient texts has been discovered and is now available for study and analysis. Sanskrit manuscripts of unpublished sources have come to notice, methods of research and critical studies have made a great advance and it is, therefore, time that with the collaboration of Sanskrit scholars all over the world the Sanskrit Thesaurus should be prepared.
The publication of a Bulletin which will initiate the work of the department organised for compiling this great work is now an absolute necessity. We have not only to secure the active co-operation of all Sanskrit scholars in the world, we have also to get much needed financial assistance from all possible sources. It is necessary to keep in touch with all collaborators living in different parts of the world, to acquaint them with the progress of the work on the dictionary and to invite contributions from all scholars. So Yak is being started by the Dictionary Department of the Deccan College. Readers of (vaak) will find in it the programme of work for 1951-53. It is formidable and the names of those who have undertaken the work is such as will inspire confidence.
The Central Government as also the State Governments of Bombay, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Mysore have already evinced their interest and made grants for this work. I have no doubt other State Governments will also realise the necessity of helping this great international undertaking. Orientalists all over the world will welcome this new journal and I commend it for their support. The completion of this Dictionary will help research workers and Oriental scholars to do their work more efficiently, will enable them to throw light on the development of human civilization and to trace the progress of human evolution. The name of the Bulletin is most appropriate. In the beginning was the" word."
The present compilation of Sanskrit lexicographical materials from Sanskrit contexts preserved in Indonesia was undertaken, about ten years ago, at the invitation of Dr S. M. KATRE, Editor-in-Chief of the Sanskrit Dictionary on Historical Principles. It is in the first place intended as a contribution to Sanskrit Lexicography. It is not necessary to emphasize here the tremendous importance of Sanskrit and of the literature of which Sanskrit was the vehicle for the development of culture in those regions of Southeast Asia which in recent years have been studied in relation to the Indian sub-continent as "Greater India." But it may still be necessary to stress the importance to the Indian culture of the remnants of Sanskrit literature that survive outside India proper.
The importance for the literary history of India, and especially from the point of view of textual criticism, has been recognized inter alia by SUKTHANKAR who, in his critical edition of the Mahabharata text, took into account the testimony of the fragments that survive in the Old-Javanese adaptations of the great Indian epic; and by GONDA who was able to draw significant conclusions relating to the textual tradition of the Puranas from a comparative study of the Old-Javanese Brahmanda-Purana with its Indian prototypes. It is the compilers' hope that this inventory of Sanskrit preserved in Indonesia will stimulate in India more interest in the Indonesian sanskritizing literature and its importance for Indian cultural history that it has so far found.
The sources from which materials have been extracted for this compilation may be divided into three classes. First, also chronologically, there are the Indonesian inscriptions composed in Sanskrit; secondly, those extant Sanskrit texts which, like the Sanskrit texts from Bali, may have, in part at least, been composed in Indonesia; and thirdly the Sanskrit materials that have been incorporated in the Old-Javanese adaptations of epic and purana.
The compilers have had to rely on published materials. It is clear, however, that much more material is extant in manuscript; the huge editorial labour involved in the extraction of materials from these manuscripts could not at this point be undertaken. A beginning had to be made; fortunately the available texts in published form are copious enough to provide a sufficiently broad basis, so that future editors will find a great deal of help in the present inventory. The compilers expect and hope that continued editorial work will, in return, help to correct whatever errors of omission and commission attach to this first attempt.
In still another field this glossary will prove to be useful: that of the study, and eventually the inventory, of Sanskrit words that have been borrowed by the languages of Indonesia. Originally it was the compilers' intention to add to this volume relating to Sanskrit lexicography a companion volume relating to the lexicography of the Indonesian languages and attempt a glossary of Sanskrit loans in Indonesia. The plan for such a glossary is not abandoned, but its realization had to be postponed.
The compilers are grateful to Dr. S. M. KATRE for undertaking the publication of this work; and they welcome his decision to publish it separately in Yak. Being available in this non-definitive form the glossary can be added to and improved upon before materials from it are eventually incorporated in the Sanskrit Dictionary on Historical Principles, and further contributions, also from materials which could not be entered into this glossary, will be very welcome. The compilers are very much aware of the many problems that relate to the establishing of the Sanskrit readings in, 10r example, the Parwas, and of the problems of textual criticism not entirely met by Sylvain LEVI in his edition of Sanskrit texts preserved in Bali. Much work still needs to be done; it is the compilers' hope that the high degree of completeness of the material extracted from those texts which they have included will facilitate such work yet to be done.
The collecting of the materials was done under the general direction of Professor Dr. J. GONDA, but the responsibility for the compilation must go to Dr. J. A. B. VAN BUITENEN and Dr. J. ENSINK. The former collected materials from the Inscriptions, the Adi-Parwa, Bhisma-Parwa, and the Brahmanda-Purana, the latter from the Sang Hyang Kamahayanikan, Wiliata- Parwa, Agastya-Parwa and the Sanskrit Texts from Bali. The former was also responsible for the preparation of the manuscript.
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