Researches Concerning the Laws, Theology, Learning, Commerce, Etc. of Ancient and Modern India, Volume 2

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T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1817 - 378 pages
 

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Page 162 - The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more 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 three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists...
Page 117 - No other effectual duty is known for virtuous women, at any time after the death of their lords, except casting themselves into the same fire. As long as a woman (in her successive transmigrations) shall decline burning herself, like a faithful wife, on the same fire with her deceased l"rd, so long shall she be not exempted from springing again to life in the body of some female animal.
Page 61 - It is a received and well grounded opinion of the learned in India, that no book is altogether safe from changes and interpolations until it have been commented : but when once a gloss has been published, no fabrication could afterwards succeed; because the perpetual commentary notices every passage, and, in general, explains every word.
Page 67 - Sanskrit), its difficulties must long continue to prevent such an examination of the whole Vedas, as would be requisite for extracting all that is remarkable and important in those voluminous works. But they well deserve to be occasionally consulted by the Oriental scholar.
Page 86 - Bast of the village, and washed by the sea, is a temple containing a Lingam, and dedicated to Siva. In this temple, besides other figures, there is one of a gigantic size stretched on the ground, and fastened to it. The Brahmins say that it represents a prince, who was conquered and thus secured by Vishnu. The waves now wash the door of the innermost apartment of this temple where the Lingam is placed, but before which Mr. Chambers supposes there were several spacious courts, such as are frequently...
Page 61 - Bailli a cherché à établir, dans son Traité de l'astronomie indienne , que cette première époque était fondée sur les observations. Malgré ses preuves , exposées avec la clarté qu'il a su répandre sur les matières les plus abstraites, je regarde comme très-vraisemblable qu'elle a été imaginée pour donner dans le zodiaque une commune origine aux mouvements des corps célestes. Nos dernières tables astronomiques, considérablement perfectionnées par la comparaison de la théorie...
Page 66 - Complete translation of the whole,' adding that' what they contain would hardly reward the labour of the reader; much less that of the translator 1 .' The former went still further in the condemnation which he pronounced on Anquetil Duperron's translation of the Zend-avesta.
Page 163 - ... ground-work of language, in monosyllables, in the names of numbers, and the appellations of such things as would be first discriminated on the immediate dawn of civilization.
Page 163 - Bramins, and appropriated solely to the records of their religion, appears to have been current over most part of the Oriental world ; and traces of its original extent may still be discovered in almost every district of Asia."* Mr. Colebrooke is equally decisive, and still more precise in his statement.
Page 61 - Mars, sont très-différents dans les tables indiennes de ce qu'ils devaient être à leur première époque; l'ensemble de ces tables, et surtout l'impossibilité de la conjonction générale qu'elles supposent, prouvent qu'elles ont été construites, ou du moins rectifiées dans des temps modernes. C'est ce qui résulte encore des moyens...

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