On the present state of Indian learning, by A. W. v. Schlegel, in the Jahrbuche der Preuss. RheinUniversität, Bonn, 1819, I Bd. 2tes Heft. This is also printed separately. In French: in the Bibliothèque Universelle, 1819, Décembre, p. 349-370; and in the Revue Encyclop. 1820. The same essay is likewise inserted in A. W. v. Schlegel's Indischer Bibliothek, St. i, s. 1-28.

On encouraging the cultivation of the Sungskrita language among the natives, in The Friend of India, 1822, Serampore, No. v, p. 5.

On the Sanscrit language, in Alex. Murray's History of the European Languages, Edinburgh, 1823, Svo. vol. ii, p. 220.

Ant. Theod. Hartmann's biblisch-asiatischer Wegweiser u. s. w. Bremen, 1823, 8vo. s. clxx-clxxvii.

Viasa. Upon the Philosophy, Mythology, Literature, and Language of the Hindoos, by Dr. Othmar Frank, München, 1826, 4to.

Die Urwelt, von Link, s. 162-172.

Among the Sanscrit writers the Suraseni is considered as a refined sort of Sanscrit, which, according to Dr. Leyden, may be identified with the Zend. See Vater's Proben deutscher Volksmundarten u. s. W. s. 216*.

The Sanscrit language is now publicly taught in many of the first universities of Europe, namely, in Germany, at Berlin, Breslau, Bonn, etc. At Cambridge it is expounded by professor Sam. Lee, one of the most distinguished linguists of the present day. He is acquainted with Arabic, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic, Samaritan, Æthiopic, Coptic, Persian, Hindostan, Malay, Sanscrit, Bengalee, French, German, and Italian, altogether seventeen languages! The Abbé Mezzofante of Bologna speaks or understands thirty-three.

ON THE SANSCRIT ALPHABET AND CHARACTER.

THE Sanscrit differs from all other languages in its alphabet and its structure.

There is no trace in history of the origin of the Sanscrit alphabet; and all that can be said of it is, that the Hindoos having succeeded at a very early period in raising the Sanscrit, their classical and written language, to the highest pinnacle of perfection, wrote it, with an alphabet equally perfect, and so admirable, that they attribute it to divine origin, and call it Deva-nâgari, or, the writing of the gods. We are equally uninformed whether those people who brought into India the basis of this language had a written character or not. Colonel Vans Kennedy remarks, that the Sanscrit alphabet is too artificial to have been original and unimproved, and believes that the Brahmins migrating to India probably adapted it to the sounds there in use.

The square character of Hindoostan, which is used in preference to all others for writing the sacred language, the Sanscrit, still retains the name of Devanagari. It is composed of fourteen vowels and diphthongs, and thirty-four consonants. Some authors increase the number of letters to fifty, and make sixteen vowels. The compounds of these letters, called phala, form above eight hundred characters. The Devanagari is also called, Baulobund".

y Klaproth on the origin of the different written characters of the Ancient World. In Asiat. Journ. N. S. vol. vii, p. 265. April, 1832.

2 See Asiatic Journal for April, 1822, p. 317. Professor Schleiermacher laid before the Asiatic Society of Paris a treatise upon the Semitic origin of the Devanagari alphabet, and some other subjects connected with Sanscrit literature. Volney much earlier had derived the

Sanscrit is also written in the Telinga and Malabar character, each of which has fifty-three letters. The Sanscrit is said to be most perfectly expressed by the latter, which is also called Grundrum (Grandam?). See above, p. 7, and Asiatic Journal, April, 1822, p. 317.

Besides these, the variety of characters used in the inscriptions, still partly unexplained, in the temple grottos at Salsette, Kennery, Mavalipuram, etc., show that in India various alphabets were in use at a very early period. See Heeren's Ideen, Th. ii, p. 383— 386.

All the inscriptions hitherto deciphered are read from left to right, and contain particular signs for the vowels as well as the consonants.

The Sanscrit alphabet is found in the following works:

Athan. Kircheri China illustrata, Amstelod. 1661, folio, P. iii, cap. vii, p. 162.

Millii Diss. de Lingua Hindustanica, in his Dissertatt. sel. Lugd. Batav. 1743, 4to. p. 455-288.

Th. Siegfr. Bayer's treatise in the Commentatt. Petropol. tom. iii, p. 389.

Sanscrit alphabet from the Phoenician. "If in modern India," says he, "the eighteen or twenty existing alphabets derived from the ancient Sanscrit, are all, like their model, constructed on the syllabical principle, in which the consonant alone expresses the vowel sound necessary to its pronunciation, shall we not be led to believe that the Sanscrit had originally a Phoenician type; and especially as the Sanscrit itself is as indisputably constructed syllabically as the Arabico-Phoenician?" See Lettre de Comte Volney sur l'Antiquité de l'Alphabet Phénicien, in Revue Encyclop. 1819, Août, p. 334. The origin of the Sanscrit alphabet is also traced to the Chaldaic. See Alex. Murray's Hist. of the Europ. Languages, vol. ii, p. 392; and Ulr. Friedr. Kopp in his Bilder und Schriften der Vorzeit, Bd. ii, p. 367-375.

a Here also deserves notice that Devanagari which the Tibetians and Mongols call Landscha, and with which are written, in Sanscrit (not in Pali) the sacred records of the Tibetian and Mongol Bauddhas. It is older and far more cursive than the Devanagari character now in use,

A Code of Gentoo Laws, etc., published by Nath. Brassey Halhed, London, 1777, 8vo.

Alex Dow's History of Hindoostan, translated from the Persian of Casim Ferishta, pref. p. xxx.

Crabb's Technological Dictionary.

Sam

Alphabetum Grandonico-Malabaricum seu scrudonicum, auctore Clemente Peanio Alexandrino, Roma, 1772, 8vo.

Alphabeta Indica, i. e. Granthamicum, seu Samscrudamico-Malabaricum, Indostanicum s. Varanense (Benares), Nagaricum vulgare et Talenganicum, Romæ, 1791, 8vo.; with a preface by Frá Paolino a S. Bartholomæo.

Sir William Jones's Dissertation on the Orthography of Asiatic words in Roman letters, in Asiatic Researches, vol. i, and Works.

Mémoire sur les Alphabets et sur les écritures des Indous du Sanscrit, par le Comte Lanjuinais. Lû à l'Institut. in the Mag. Encyclop. 1812, Sept. p. 30.

Sur la Valeur des Lettres Sanscrites, in Yadjnadattabada, ou la mort de Yadjnadatta, épisode extrait du Ramâyana, traduit par A. L. Chézy, Paris, 1826, 4to. Préface, p. v—xviii.

An Essay upon the best manner of expressing the Indian Language in European characters, by Rask. though it is evident they are essentially the same. A specimen of it may be found in J. J. Schmidt's Forschungen im Gebiete der Bildungsgeschichte der Völker Mittel-Asiens; and in the Asiatic Museum of Petersburgh there is the Lord's prayer very elegantly written in it, exactly conformable with Dr. Schmidt's interpretation, but which has erroneously been taken for Multan.

b The author divides the Indian forms of writing into the northern and southern. The former are distinguished by their square and angular shape, the latter by their curve lines. This variety is explained by the difference of the instruments made use of, and the materials written upon. Lanjuinais cites, in his Mémoire, two treatises in the Chinese language, upon the origin of the Indian character. One of these was written in the eleventh century, the other in the year 1749.

Written in English for the first volume of the Acts of the Literary Society at Colombo. See also the preliminary note to Mrichchakati, or, the Toy Cart, in professor Wilson's Hindoo Theatre, vol. i.

The Sanscrit alphabet in the Bengalee character, in Chézy's Yadjnadattabada.

Rudimenta lectionis literarum quæ Devanagaricæ dicuntur, in Othm. Frankii Chrestomathia Sanskrita, Monaci, 1820, vol. i.

Cognatio literarum Sanskritarum, ibid.

Orthoepia vocalium Sanskritarum, ibid.

Specimen novæ typographicæ Indicæ. Litterarum figuras ad Codd. Bibliothecæ R. Paris. exemplaria delineavit, cœlandas curavit Aug. Guil. Schlegel. Lut. Par. 1821, 8vo.

Besides these, the Sanscrit characters are to be found in the modern grammars of this language already mentioned; and particularly beautiful in that of Wilkins, which have been copied in G. H. Bernstein's Hitopadesi particula, Breslau, 1823, 4to. The most beautiful alphabet of the Bengalee language is to be found in Haughton's Grammar, and Chrestomathie.

Respecting the division of certain Sanscrit words, which W. v. Humboldt first brought into notice in the Asiatic Journal, 1827, and which became the subject of much dispute, but was adopted by Bopp and others, the arguments for and against it will be found collected by that ingenious philologist in the Jahrb. für wissenschaftl. Kritik, 1829, No. lxxiii, p. 581592; No. lxxv, p. 593–595.

The best account of the writing materials of the Hindoos, will be found in the enquiry of Frà Paolino, in his Institutio Linguæ Samscrdamicæ, p. 327, etc.