Nirukta Notes (Series 1): A Rare Book

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On the 15th of October 1964 the Deccan College celebrates the centenary of its main Building, and curiously enough this period coincides with the Silver Jubilee of the Postgraduate and Research Institute which, as successor to the Deccan College, started functioning from 17th August 1939 when members of the teaching faculty reported on duty. When I suggested to members of our faculty the novel idea that the centenary should be celebrated by the publication of a hundred monographs representing the research carried on under the auspices of the Deccan College in its several departments they readily accepted the suggestion. These contributions are from present and past faculty members and research scholars of the Deccan College, giving a cross-section of the manifold research that it has sponsored during the past twenty-five years. From small beginnings in 1939 the Deccan College has now grown into a well developed and developing Research Institute and become a national centre in so far as Linguistics, Archaeology and Ancient Indian History, and Anthropology and Sociology are concerned. Its international status is attested by the location of the Indian Institute of German Studies (jointly sponsored by IJeccan College and the Goethe Institute of Munich), the American Institute of Indian Studies and a branch of the Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient in the campus of the Deccan College. The century of monographs not only symbolises the centenary of the original building and the silver jubilee of the Research Institute but also the new spirit of critical enquiry and the promise of more to come.

It gives me great pleasure to bring together my published (8) and unpublished (1) Notes on the Nirukta in the form of a monograph in the Centenary Series of the Deccan College. The published notes have been revised, but most of the revisions are more or less verbal.

When I started writing notes on the Nirukta problems with a detailed treatment of vicakadrkarsa, published in the Chatterji Jubilee Volume of Indian Linguistics (1955), I had not in mind to number my notes serially. This occurred to me later, when I started to write a note on trod— for the Bag chi Memorial Volume of Indian Linguistics (1957). All these numbered notes I—Vu are here printed rest. Next comes one unpublished note as No. VIII. The note on vLcakadrakarsa which was originally not numbered occurs in this monograph as no. IX. All my future notes on the Nirukta would therefore be numbered from X onwards.

I am thankful to the editors of the Journals and the Commemoration Volumes, where my Notes had originally appeared, for giving me permission to include them in the present monograph.