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127000ds456a Sanskrit-English Dictionary

a dictionary of sanskrit english

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Rita Dulanyi
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100% found this document useful (2 votes)
1K views1,366 pages

127000ds456a Sanskrit-English Dictionary

a dictionary of sanskrit english

Uploaded by

Rita Dulanyi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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A SANSKRIT - ENGLISH DICTIONARY ETYMOLOGICALLY AND PHILOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. with special reference to COGNATE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES SIR MONIER MONTER-WILLIAMS, M.A., K.C.LE. Bodden Professor of Sanskrit Hon, D.C.L. Oxon, Hon, LL.D. Calcutta, Hon. Ph.D. Gottingen Hon, Fellow of University College and Sometime Fellow of Balliol College, ‘Oxford NEW EDITION, GREATLY ENLARGED AND IMPROVED with the collaboration of PROFESSOR E, LEUMANN, Ph. D. PROFESSOR C. CAPPELLER, Ph. D. of the University of Strassburg of the University of Jena ‘And Other Scholars MOTILAL BANARSIDASS PUBLISHERS PRIVATE LIMITED - DELHI PREFACE TO TH 2 NEW EDITION. Tae first edition of the Dele; of Stav enjoys y had the advantage of being published by University Press, with the support of the Secretary The present greatly enlarged and improved work The first edition appeared in the summer of 1872. indebtedness to the great seven-volumed Sanskrit-German piled by the two eminent German Sanskritists, Otto Bahtlingk with the assistance of many distinguished scholars, such as ‘or A, Weber of Berlin—then only completed as far as the beginning of the letter | 2—was fully acknowledged by me in the Preface. Having regard, however, to the entire originality of the glax of my own work, I did not venture to describe it as based on the great Sanskrit-German Wérterbuch. For that plan I claimed to be alone responsible. Every particle of its detail was thought out in my own mind, and the whole work was brought to completion by me, with the co-operation of five successive assistants—whose names were duly recorded—in about twelve years from the date of my election to the Boden Professorship in the University of Oxford. The words and the meanings of the words of a Dictionary can scarcely be proved by its compilers to belong exclusively to themselves. It is not the mere aggregation of words and meanings, but the method of dealing with them and arranging them, which gives a Dictionary the best right to be called an original production. In saying this I am not claiming any superiority for my own method over that of the two great German Sanskrit scholars—which, of course, has advantages of its own, Nor am I detracting one whit from the tribute of admiration which I and other lexicographers are always desirous of rendering to the colossal monument of industry and scholarship represented by their work. I am merely repeating my claim to the production of a Sanskrit-English Dictionary on a-wholly unique plan—a plan the utility of which has been now proved by experience. It was not thought desirable to print off more than a thousand copies of the first edition of my book. These—notwithstanding the necessarily high publishing price—were sold off in a few years. It then became a question as to how the continuous demand for the Dictionary was to be met, and the Delegates decided to provide for it by a supplementary facsimile edition, produced by a photo- lithographic process. Copies printed by that process have been procurable ever since. Of course I was well satisfied with the factual evidence thus afforded of the yates of the Oxcor y PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. utility of my Dictionary, and the more so as, along with many eulogistic reviews and notices, it met with some adverse criticism, especially at the hands of German Sanskritists. Not that such criticisms discouraged me. On the contrary, as soon as 1 became aware of the likelihood of my volume becoming out of print, I set about gh with an earnest determination to improve the original work by the light of such critical animadversions as seemed to me to be pertinent, And I must at once acknowledge that in these efforts I received valuable suggestions from Professor Ernst Leaman of the University of Strassburg, who was my first collaborator at an early stage of the new undertaking (see p. xxi). It ought, however, to be put on record that, even before Professor Leumann's co-operation, I had made the discovery that the great increase in the number of printed Sanskrit texts and works bearing on Sanskrit scholarship, since the issue of my first edition, would entirely preclude the idea of my producing a mere ‘réchauffé’ of my former volume, with additions, however numerous, introduced from my own interleaved copy and the contributions of fellow-Sanskritists ginning to end—a formidable task, tantamount to the production of an entirely new Dictionary. This task I began to put in hand alone at least twenty years ago, and it is only due to the authorities at the India Office, under whose auspices this work was inaugurated, and with whose assistance it has been printed, that I should explain the causes which have led to the unexpected delay in its publication. In real truth I am bound to confess that I entered upon my third lexico- graphical career with a little too magnificent audacity, and a little too airy hope- fulness, at a time when my energies were severely tried, not only by my ordinary duties of lecturing in Sanskrit, but by other collateral activities. Amongst the latter it may be mentioned that I had devoted myself to researches into Indian religions and philosophies, for a series of public lectures before the University, which I felt bound to give in my capacity of Boden Professor. And I certainly could not have ventured to carry on these researches —much less to have printed them in various books as trustworthy '—if 1 had not gained a ‘first-hand’ knowledge of my subject by placing my own mind in direct touch with the mind of the learned natives of India in their own country. Tt was for this and other cognate reasons* that—with the consent and approbation of two successive Vice-Chancellors, and at my own expense—I under- took voyages to India on three several occasions (in 1875-6, 1883-4), and extended my travels from Bombay to Caleutta and the confines of Tibet— from Cashmere to Madras and the extreme South, including the chief homes of Buddhism in the island of Ceylon. preparations for a new edition on the very same general plan, althou It would necessitate the re-writing of the whole from be- 1876-7, * Some of these books are referred to in the present Dictionary ; for example, that on *Hindism’ (pab- lished by the S.P.C.K., 13th edition); that on “Brahmanism’ &e. {also called * Religious Thought ‘and Life in India? published by Mr. J. Murray, Albemarle Sireet, 4th ed, referred to as RTL.) that on ‘Indian Wisdom" (published by Messrs. Lusae of Great Russell Steet, qth el, referred to as 1W.); that on “Boddhism' (also published by Mr. Murray, and ed, referred to as MWB). * One of these was the founding of an Indian Institute for the promotion of Indian studies in my ‘own University of Oxford. Another was to induce the Government of India to found six Government scholarships for enabling deserving Indians to finish Lele education at our University. PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. vil ‘On each cecasion I was cordially assisted by the Governor-General and local Governments of the day*, On each occasion, too, I found scattered throughout old fellow-students and pupils of my own administering immense pro- eager to help me in my investigations; and on each occasion I met to ise with learned and thoughtful natives—not only in the cities and towns, Su: even in remote villages—able and willing to converse with me in Sanskrit, as cell as in their own vernaculars, and to explain difficult points in their languages, hiteratures, religions, and philosophies. It may well be believed that these Indian journeys were of great value extending the horizon of my own knowledge, and increasing my power of improving the Dictionary, but it must be confessed that they interrupted its continuous prosecution. And, in very deed, the intermittent character of my latest lexicographical career would have made its completion during my life-time almost hopeless, had I not been ably aided by successive assistants and fellow-workers, whose co-operation is gratefully acknowledged by me subsequently (p. xxxi); that of Professor C. Cappeller having extended over far the larger portion of the work. And this is not all that I have to urge in extenuation of my apparent dilato- riness. A. still more unavoidable cause of delay has been the unlooked-for amount of labour involved. This is fully explained in the Introduction (see p. xvi), but I may briefly mention here that it has consisted in adding about 60,000 Sanskrit words to about 120,000—the probable amount of the first edition; in fitting the new matter into the old according to the same etymological plan; in the veri- fication of meanings, old and new; in their justification by the insertion of references to the literature and to authorities; in the accentuation of nearly every Sanskrit word to which accents are usually applied; in the revision and re-revision of printed proofs; until at length, after the lapse of more than a quarter of a century since the publication of the original volume, a virtually new Dictionary is. sent forth. It would, of course, be unreasonable to look for perfection in the result of our combined efforts. The law of human liability to error is especially applicable to the development of a new method of any kind, Nor are the imperfections of this volume ever likely to become better known to the most keensighted critics than they are to the compilers themselves. It is said of the author of a well-known Dictionary that the number of mistakes which his critics discovered in it, were to him a source of satisfaction rather than annoyance, The larger a work, he affirmed, the more likely it was to include errors; and a hypercritical condemnation of these was often symptomatic of a narrow-mindedness which could not take in the merit of any great per- formance as a whole. Without having recourse to this convenient way of discomfiting critics of the Chidrénveshin type, and without abating one iota of justifiable confidence in the vast * The three Viceroys were Lord Northbrook, the and to Sir Richard Temple for receiving me at late Lord Lytton, and Lord Ripon. I owe a deep Government House, Belvedere, during the Prince of debt of gratitude 10 Lord Ripon for receiving me as Wales’ visit in 1875-6; and to Sir James Fergusson for his guest at Government House, Calcutta, ia 1883-4 receiving me at Government House, Bombay, in 1884 wilt PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION, general trustworthiness of the present Dictionary, its compilers can yet be keenly alive to its thoroughly human character. Speaking for myself I may say that blended with my thankfulness for the longevity that has enabled me to see a protracted undertaking brought to a com- pletion, is a deep consciousness that I am not young enough to consider myself infallible. Indeed it is at once the joy and sorrow of every true scholar that the older he grows the more he has to confess himself a learner rather than a teacher, and the more morbidly conscious he becomes of his own liability to a learner's n From all true scholars I do not fear, but court, criticism, Such critics will understand how a sense of responsibility may increase with advancing age. putting an author out of conceit with his own performances, and filling him with progressively intensified cravings after an impossible perfection. They will make due allowance for the difficulties besetting the production of so many densely printed pages, often comprising column after column of unbroken serried type, and abounding with countless dots and diacritical marks. Nor will they be surprised at cccasional inequalities of execution in a work representing efforts spread over numerous years. Nor will they need to be reminded that occasional distractions, trials of health arid weariness of spirit are unavoidably incident, not only to the responsible head of a prolonged undertaking, but to his several assistants, Indeed it is no disparagement to those who have contributed to the detail of this work to admit that a com- pilation, which is the result of the collaboration of so many different personalities, must, in some degree reflect the idiosyncrasies and infirmities peculiar to each. Yer notwithstanding my desire that due weight should be given to such considerations, I may be pardoned if I express my confident expectation that the volume now offered to students of both Sanskrit and comparative philology, will supply them with the most complete and usefitl one-volumed Sanskrit-English Dictionary ever yet produced—a Dictionary, too, which in its gradual progress has, I trust, kept pace with the advancing knowledge and scholarship of the day. At all events I feel sure that I may affirm for my collaborators, as well as for myself, that we have earnestly striven to secure for this new volume, even more than for the old, the possession of four principal characteristics, namely :— 1, Scholarly accuracy; 2. Practical utility; 3. Lucidity of arrangement, designed to set forth, as clearly as possible, the etymological structure of the language, and its bearing on that of the cognate languages of Europe; 4. Completeness and comprehensiveness, at least to the fullest extent attainable in the latest state of Sanskrit research, and to the utmost limit compatible with compactness and compression into a single volume. And here it is my duty to notify, in justice as much to my assistants as to myself, that I must be held primarily responsible, not only for the plan, but for the general character of the whole Dictionary. This will be understood when I state that I have from the first exercised a strict superintendence over the details of both editions—not only in carefully supervising the manuscript, but in adding new words, in modifying or amplifying meanings, in subjoining explanations from my own literary notes—made during my sojourning at the chief seats of earning in India—in examining and re-examining every proof-sheet. 1 ought to state, however, that during occasional attacks of illness I have been istakes, = neat tee PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. ix compelled to trust more to my collaborators than at other times*; and I must also make an exception in regard to the Additions, the abundance of which is justifiable by the circumstance that many of them are taken from texts and books published quite recently. For although a manuscript list of all the words and meanings in the supplementary pages was submitted for my approval, and although many words in the list have been eliminated by me, while others have been added from my own notes, yet the necessity for passing the worst winter months in a Southern climate has made it impossible for me to have at hand every new book needed for the verification of every addition which I have allowed to be retained With regard to a strictly personal criticism in which [ have for many years been content to acquiesce without comment. I may perhaps advantageously—now that I have nearly arrived at the end of my career—make a brief explanation. Some of my critics and a few candid friends have expressed surprise that I should have devoted so much of my long tenure of the Boden Professorship to the dry, dreary and thankless drudgery of writing Dictionaries and Grammars, and to practical researches carried on among the Pandits of India in their own country, rather than to the duty of proving the profundity of my learning and my fitness to occupy a high Professorial position by editing or translating obscure Sanskrit texts which have never been edited or translated before’, In explanation I must draw attention to the fact that I am only the second occupant of the Boden Chair, and that its Founder, Colonel Boden, stated most explicitly in his will (dated August 15, 1811) that the special object of his munificent bequest was to promote the translation of the Scriptures into Sanskrit, so as ‘to enable his countrymen to proceed in the conversion of the natives of India to the Christian Religion Tt was on this account that, when my distinguished predecessor and teacher, Professor H. H. Wilson, was a candidate for the Chair in 1832, his lexicographical labours were put forward as his principal claim to election. Surely then it need not be thought surprising, if following in the footsteps of my venerated master, I have made it the chief aim of my professorial life to provide facilities for the translation of our sacred Scriptures into Sanskrit‘, and for cannot allow myself to think that the Dictionary has suffered much from this cause, except perhaps during the collaboration of the late Dr. Schonberg, the rapid impairment of whose powers did not at firs strike ‘mesos to make me aware of the necessity for increased vigilance on my part (tee p. xaxi) TT believe it is held thet for an Alpine climber vo cstablish a reputation for mountaineering he must as- cend some peak, however comparatively insignificant, that has never been ascended before. But the appli- cation of such a principle as a sole proof of scholarship in the present day, can no more hold good in Sanskrit than in Greck and Latin. At all events let any one ‘who claims a reputation for superior scholarship on that sole ground associate with Indian Pandits in their ‘own country and be will find out that far severer proofs of his knowledge and acquirements will be required of Dim there > Lieutenant-Cotonel Boden, of the- Bombay Native Infantry, returned to England in 1807 and died at Lisbon, Nov.21,1813. His daughter died Aug, 24,1827, where- ‘upon his bequest passed to the University of Oxford, bt the frst election to the Chair, for come reason tunknown to me, did not take place tll 1832 “Tn his address proposing himself for election to the Boden Elecors, Professor H. H. Wilson laid stress ‘on what he had done for ‘the rendering of Scripture ‘Terms into the Sanskrit language’ It was doubtless fon this account that after he was elected he urged me to compile an English-Sanskrit Dictionary—a work never before attempted, 1 laboured at this for about seven years, and although the result (published in a thick volume by the Dieectors of the East India Com- pany in 1851) cannot I fea, be said to meet the needs ‘of the present day, ye it should be borne in mind that it was pioneering work. Nor can it be said to have ‘been useless seeing that seven years after its publication the following testimony to its utlty was voluntarily tendered by the Rev, J. Wenger, translator of the Bible ito Sanskyit and Editor of Dr. Yates’ Sanskyit Dic- x PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION, the promotion of a better knowledge of the religions and customs of India, as the st key to a knowledge of the religious needs of our great Eastern Dependency. My very first public lecture delivered after my election in 1860 was on ‘The Study of Sanskrit in Relation to Missionary Work in India’ (published in 1861) For the rest, I have already alluded to the advantage which this Dictionary has derived from the support of the Governments of India, and I ought here to acknowledge with gratitude that, without the subsidy granted by successive Secretaries of State in Council, the present volume could not have been sold to the public at the price at which it is now offered. In regard to the Oxford University Press it will be sufficient to say that this volume adds to the countless evidences of its efficiency and of the wealth of its resources. But I may be permitted to congratulate its Delegates and Controller on their good fortune in possessing an unrivalled Oriental Pressreader in Mr. Pembrey. For more than forty years he has read the final proofs of all my books; and I can from my own experience, and without exaggeration, affirm, that I doubt whether any one can surpass him in the perfection to which he has brought the art of detecting errors due to the inadvertence of both authors and printers. It is only necessary for me to add that having been alone responsible for the singularity of the plan of the original Dictionary, I thought it desirable to prefix to the first edition several sections of introductory explanations, In the same way my supremacy in the production of the present new work necessitates my undertaking the responsibility of writing a new series of explanations, in which I have deemed it desirable to pursue the main lines of my previous method, and not to discard any portion of the old matter which could be advantageously retained. MONIER MONIER-WILLIAMS. Ixpiax Ixstrrute, Oxrorn, 1899. POSTSCRIPT. This Dictionary, to which my father devoted so many years of labour, was completed by him a few days before his death, which took place at Cannes, in the south of France, on April 11, 1899. It had been his hope to sce this work published shortly after his return to England, Although this desire was not granted, it was a satisfaction to him to know that the last revise had received his final corrections and that the book would be issued from the University Press within a few weeks of his death, May 4, 1899. M. F, Moxrer-Wittrass. “1 received a copy of Professor Monier and erudidon which his volume displays. The Res. 1 Wiliams’ English and Sanskrit Dictionary at a time Parsons of Benares, who has been engase! when T was about to commence © uanslion into year past in preparing a new Hindee vers Sanskgt of portions of the Old Testament, I have New Testament, has ikewise ¢ used it ally forthe lst seven years, and the more from Professor M. W's work, Indan_ ms Thave consulted it the more exeslent I have found it. generally owe hit a large debs of g 1 feel bound to say that he appears to have succeeded, Let me add 0 not only beyond my previous ideas of what was likely, Dictionary. will but also of what was feasible to be accomplished at the materialsfor the compilation of a far mores present time. The Pundis whom I employ have like- English-Sarakyt Dicionary than that which I & ‘wve expressed their unqualified admiration ofthe labour to comple more than ha wed mater as Thope the present Sazsér INTRODUC ION, SECTION I, Statement of the civenmstances cwhich led to the peculiar System of Sanskyit Lexicography introduced for the first time in the Monier- Williams Sanskyit-English Dictionary of 1872. To enable me to give a clear account of the gradual development of the plan of the present work, 1 mwst go back to its cares origin, and most reterate what T sated in the Preface to the first edition, that my: predecestor in the Boden Chait, Professor H. H, Wilson, once intended to compile a Sanskrit Dictionary in which all the words in the language vere to be scintfealy arranged under about 2,000 roots, and that he actually made some progress in carrying out that project. Such a scientific arangement of the language would, no doubt, have been appreciated to the fall by the highest ca Eventually, however, he’ found himself debarred from its execution, and commended it {0 me as a fing abject for the occupation of my spare time doting the tenure of my office a8 Professor of Sanskrit at the old Fast India Colle, Haleybury. Furthermore, he generously made over to me both the beginnings of his new Levicon and a large MS. volume, containing a copious selection of examples and quotations (inade by Pandis at Caleuta under his direction") with which he bad intended to enrich his own volume Kk was on this account that, 2s soon as I had completed the Englsh-Sanshpt pat of a Dictionary of sy own (published in 1851), I readily addressed myself to the work thus committed to me, and actually tarred it on for some time beiween the intervals of other undertakings, until the abolition of the old Haileybury College on January 1, 1858. ‘One consideration which led my predecessor to pass on to me his project of a rootarranged Lexicon was that, on being elected to the Boden Chair, he fet that the elaboration of such a work would be fncempatible with the practical objects for which the Boden Professorship was founded”. ‘Accordingly be prefered, and I thiok wisely prefered, to turn bis attention to the expansion of the second edition of his first Dictionary’—a task the prosecution of which he eventually inrasted to a vwel-known Sanskpt scholar the late Professor Goldsticker. Unhappily, that eminent Orientalst was singula uupraccal in some of his ideas, and instead of expanding Wilton's Dictionary, began to conver it into a vast cyclopeia of Sanskyt learning, including essays and controversial discussions of all kinds. He finished the printing of 480 pages of bis own work, which only brought him to the word Avinudama (p. 87 of the present volume), when an untimely death

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