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131 ART. IV.—Notes on the Sinhalese Language. by R. C. OHILDEES

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131 ART. IV.—Notes on the Sinhalese Language. By R. C. OHILDEES, late of the Ceylon Civil Service. No. II. Proofs of the Sanshritic Origin of Sinhalese. SINCE I published my first Note on the Sinhalese Language, I have heard that two eminent Orientalists dispute the truth of my conclusions, and still hold to the old view, originating with Rask, that Sinhalese belongs to the Dravidian group of languages. It is true that in my paper I dealt in any detail only with one grammatical form: but if, as I venture to think, I have proved beyond doubt that the Sinhalese neuter plural is formed by compounding the noun with a vocable val, which is the Sanskrit vana used in the sense of multitude, I have gone far to demonstrate the Sanskritic origin of Sinha- lese. But in addition to this I have adduced a great number of Sinhalese nouns, all of which I have traced direct to their Sanskrit equivalents. And it gives me great pleasure to find that so eminent a scholar as Dr. Max Muller has recently ex- pressed himself clearly and unmistakably in favour of my Aryan theory.1 I am, however, perfectly willing to make allowance for scholars who decline to accept my theory without evi- dence of a more extended character than I have yet given in its favour, and I propose to continue the publication of these Notes until I have overcome the scepticism of my 1 In his Address to the first meeting of the Aryan Section of the Oriental Congress of 1874 he said, " More than half the words used by the Veddahs are, like Sinhalese itself, mere corruption of Sanskrit." The correct spelling of the word Veddah is Vseddst (ae pronounced exactly like our a in cat). Now in composition we find not vaddd but vcedi, e.g. vmdiminissu, " Veddah people," and this form vtedi is the original one, v<sdd& being one of the curious nominatives with a doubled consonant which I spoke of at p. 12 of my first Note. The termi- nation A 1 shall speak of further on ; it is a late grammatical outgrowth, used to distinguish animate from inanimate nouns. The <s of vtedi points to an original a or k, and this brings us to vyadhah, (not veddha which would give veda). The name V&ddd, therefore strictly means "archer," or " sportsman." Mr. Hartshorne informs me that Vsedda' is not only the name given to these savages by the Sinha- lese, but is also the name by which they call themselves,—a strong additional proof that the Veddahs are what I have always held them to be, wild Sinhalese. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Newcastle University, on 15 May 2018 at 04:43:50, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00016646 132 NOTES ON THE SINHALESE LANGUAGE. No. 2. opponents, and established on the widest grammatical basis the Sanskritic origin of the Sinhalese language. Instead of dealing in detail with a single grammatical form, I propose in the present Note to touch briefly upon several different points, and I may as well say at once that it is not part of my plan in these Notes to show that Sinhalese is not Dra- vidian. This has been already done by Mr. James D'Alwis, who, in his paper " On the Origin of the Sinhalese Lan- guage" (Journal Ceylon Br. E..A.S. 1867-70), has shown that, whether we compare the vocabulary or the grammar, we find absolutely no resemblance between Sinhalese and the Dravidian languages. To me this course appears superfluous, and my own plan will be to let alone the Dravidian languages, and show that Sinhalese is Sanskritic. Of course, however, the proof of the Sanskritic theory carries with it necessarily the disproof of the Dravidian theory. I may add that the words and forms I have adduced throughout this Note are invariably those which are in uni- versal use in ordinary conversation, even among the illiterate, and I have carefully abstained from instancing forms that could possibly be called literary or artificial. THE NUMERALS. The first ten are—1. eha. 2. deha. 3. tuna. 4. hatara (sometimes satara). 5. paha. 6. saya or haya. 7. hata (sometimes sata). 8. ata. 9. nava and nama. 10. daha. The first requires no comment: it is the Sanskrit eka with the e shortened. Delta is the S. dvika. Tuna points to the neut. plural trini, in Pali tini. Hatara, of which satara is an older form, is the S. chatvaras (Pali chattaro), a Sanskrit ch passing in Sinhalese into s. Paha is panchan. Saya is the Sanskrit shash, Pali chha, with the syllable ya added to strengthen it. This ya is the same that is usually added to tatsamas in Sinhalese, of which I hope to speak in a future Note: it is sometimes also added to the numerals nama and daha, so that Lambrick gives namaya and dahaya for 9 and 10. In composition the ya disappears, e.g. we have sa-dena, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Newcastle University, on 15 May 2018 at 04:43:50, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00016646 PROOFS OF THE SANSKRITIC ORIGIN OF SINHALESE. 133 " six people," Pali chhajana. Sata (or sata) and ata require no comment. The form nama for the older nava (nine) is the usual one, at least in conversation, and is interesting as an example of the interchange of v and m.1 Baha is S. da§an, and an older form dasa is sometimes met with. The next ten numerals are— 11. ekolaha=$. ekadacan. 12. dolaha=S. dvadac,an. 13. dahatuna } these are formed differently, by com- 14. dahahatara ) pounding daha with tuna and hatara. 15. pahaloha=S. panchadacan. 16. dahasaya 17. dahahata 18. daha-ata formed like dahatuna. 19. dahanava or dahanama 20. vissa This last numeral vissa is one of those curious secondary forms like ginna, dunna, etc., explained at p. 12 of my first Note. I propose to call them "reinforced nouns." As ginna points to an older form gini, so vissa points to an older form visi (Pali visa) which is still used in composition. Instead of the late form for " nineteen," dahanava, we sometimes meet with a more primitive form ekunvisi=&. &kunavirhcati. The next decad is visi-eka (21), visideka (22), visituna (23), and so on. These numerals are dvandva compounds, in which the larger numeral is placed first, instead of last as in Sanskrit. In the same way we say indifferently " one-and-twenty," or " twenty(and)-one." Twenty-nine is ekuntiha=8. ekuna- trirhcat. Thirty is tiha=&. trirhcat. Forty hataliha=$. chatva- riihcat. Fifty panaha=$. pafichacat, Pali panfiasa. Sixty 1 In Pali we have Damila=Sansk. Dravida: bhamu, "eyebrow," is perhaps bhram+u, but may it not be for a form bhrayu ? vimamsa is an instance of dissimilation, not of phonetic change, but the choice of v rather than of any other consonant is significant. Mr. Grose, in his article on the Etymology of Local Names in Northern India (Journal As. Soc. Bengal, part i. 1874), says, " dhtmar is the recognized literary form of the Sanskrit dhivara, and at the present day villagers generally write Bham&ni for Bhaw&ni, though the latter form only is admitted in printed books," Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Newcastle University, on 15 May 2018 at 04:43:50, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00016646 134 NOTES ON THE SINHALESE LANGUAGE. No. 2. hceta, S. shashti, Pali satthi; seventy hcettm, or scettce. Asu " eighty" is S. aeiti. Anu " ninety " is I think a curious metathesis for navu (navu, na-u, anu), representing the Pali navuti. Siya "a hundred" is regularly corrupted from cata. The numeral for " a thousand" is dahasd, where we should expect sahasa=S. sahasra. I believe the d to be the result of dissimilation. Sahasra would first become sahasa, then the s would, as is almost always the case, pass into h; and as hahasa is extremely harsh, the h was replaced by d, the re- collection of dasa "ten," having a determining influence. Besides dahasa a form ddha, compressed from dahaha, is used in conversation. The ordinals are— 1st palamuveni 6th haveni 2nd deveni 7th hatveni 3rd tunveni 8th ataveni 4th hataraveni 9th namaveni 5th pasveni 10th dahaveni and so on. Here we see that the ordinal is formed by com- pounding a word veni with the crude base of the numeral. The only relic of the original Sanskrit ordinals is to be found in palamuveni "first." In his grammar D'Alwis says, " The ordinals in the Singhalese are expressed with the addi- tion of vceni or rent to the numerals, except the first, which undergoes a slight change in its formation" (!). Now on analyzing palamuveni, we find that it consists of two words, palamu and veni, compounded together. Originally palamu by itself meant " first," and in words like palamukota " first time," the simple form still survives. We have no diffi- culty in identifying palamu with S. prathama, the Pali pathama being the link of connexion. Veni, I think, must be S. guna, g between two vowels generally passing in Sinhalese into v. If I am right, deveni is equivalent to dviguna, ataveni to ashtaguna, and so on. In later times, when veni came to be looked on as a termination giving an ordinal sense, it was thought necessary to add it to palamu for the sake of uni- formity, and thus we have a curious double ordinal, the ordinal Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core.
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  • Literary Cultures in History Reconstructions from South Asia

    Literary Cultures in History Reconstructions from South Asia

    Literary Cultures in History Reconstructions from South Asia EDITED BY Sheldon Pollock UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles London 8 The Two Histories of Literary Culture in Bengal Sudipta Kaviraj INTRODUCTION A general reading of the history of a particular literature requires, first of all, a principle of organization. Histories of Bangla literature usually offer a narrative of continuity: they seek to show, quite legitimately, how the liter- ary culture develops through successive stages—how literary works of one period become the stock on which later stages carry out their productive op- erations. These studies are less interested in asking how literary mentalities come to be transformed or how a continuing tradition can be interrupted, or in speculating on possible reasons behind these significant literary turns. In an attempt to move away from these conventional histories, which record unproblematically the sequential narrative of the production of texts and their authors, this essay gives attention primarily to two questions. The first is: What were the major historical “literary cultures,” that is, the sensibilities or mentalities constructed around a common core of tastes, methods of tex- tual production, paratextual activities (like performance, recitation, or other use in religious, nonliterary contexts), reception, and the social composition of audiences? The second question, closely related to the first, is: How do literary cultures, especially deeply entrenched literary cultures, change? The treatment of Bangla literary history in this essay, therefore, focuses more on textualities or text types than on individual texts, and it offers hardly any literary-critical analysis of major canonical works. A figure like Rabin- dranath Tagore is treated with relative neglect, since he does not represent a phase of serious interpretative contention or rupture in literary production I thank Sheldon Pollock for detailed comments on this paper at different stages of its prepa- ration.