Chapter SANGUICEL to SANSKRIT of S by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

the event of 1584 related by Linschoten); also Dec. X. vi. 4: “Of the things that happened to D. Jeronymo Mascarenhas in Malabar, and how he had a meeting with the Zamorin, and swore peace with him; and how he brought destruction on the Naique of Sanguicer.”

1727.—“There is an excellent Harbour for Shipping 8 Leagues to the Southward of Dabul, called Sanguseer, but the Country about being inhabited by Raparees, it is not frequented.”—A. Hamilton, [ed. 1744] i. 244.

SANSKRIT, s. The name of the classical language of the Brahmans, Samskrita, meaning in that language ‘purified’ or ‘perfected.’ This was obviously at first only an epithet, and it is not of very ancient use in this specific application. To the Brahmans Sanskrit was the bhasha, or language, and had no particular name. The word Sanskrit is used by the protogrammarian Panini (some centuries before Christ), but not as a denomination of the language. In the latter sense, however, both ‘Sanskrit’ and ‘Prakrit’ (Pracrit) are used in the Brihat Samhita of Varahamihira, c. A.D. 504, in a chapter on omens (lxxxvi. 3),’ to which Prof. Kern’s translation does not extend. It occurs also in the Mrichch’hakatika, translated by Prof. H. H. Wilson in his Hindu Theatre, under the name of the ‘Toy-cart’; in the works of Kumarila Bhatta, a writer of the 7th century; and in the Paniniya Siksha, a met rical treatise ascribed by the Hindus to Panini, but really of comparatively modern origin.

There is a curiously early mention of Sanskrit by the Mahommedan poet Amir Khusru of Delhi, which is quoted below. The first mention (to our knowledge) of the word in any European writing is in an Italian letter of Sassetti’s, addressed from Malabar to Bernardo Davanzati in Florence, and dating from 1586. The few words on the subject, of this writer, show much acumen.

) i.e. a book of the classical Indian literature. The term Sanskrit came into familiar use after the investigations into this language by the English in Bengal (viz. by Wilkins, Jones, &c.) in the last quarter of the 18th century. [See Macdonell, Hist. of Sanskrit Lit. ch. i.]

A.D. x ?—“Maitreya. Now, to me, there are two things at which I cannot choose but laugh, a woman reading Sanskrit, and a man singing a song: the woman snuffles like a young cow when the rope is first passed through her nostrils; and the man wheezes like an old Pandit repeating his bead-roll.”—The Toy-Cart, E.T. in Wilson’s Works, xi. 60.

A.D. y ?—“Three-and-sixty or four-and-sixty sounds are there originally in Prakrit (PRACRIT) even as in Sanskrit, as taught by the Svayambhu.”—Paniniya Siksha, quoted in Weber’s Ind. Studien (1858), iv. 348. But see also Weber’s Akadem. Vorlesungen (1876), p. 194.

1318.—“But there is another language, more select than the other, which all the Brahmans use. Its name from of old is Sahaskrit, and the common people know nothing of it.”—Amir Khusru, in Elliot, iii. 563.

1586.—“Sono scritte le loro scienze tutte in una lingua che dimandano Samscruta, che vuol dire ‘bene articolata’: della quale non si ha memoria quando fusse parlata, con avere (com’ io dico) memorie antichissime. Imparanla come noi la greca e la latina, e vi pongono molto maggior tempo, si che in 6 anni o 7 sene fanno padroni: et ha la lingua d’oggi molte cose comuni con quella, nella quale sono molti de’ nostri nomi, e particularmente de numeri il 6, 7, 8, e 9, Dio, serpe, et altri assai.”—Sassetti, extracted in De Gubernatis, Storia, &c., Livorno, 1875, p. 221.

c. 1590.—“ Although this country (Kashmir) has a peculiar tongue, the books of knowledge are Sanskrit (or Sahanskrit). They also have a written character of their own, with which they write their books. The substance which they chiefly write upon is Tus, which is the bark of a tree,¹ which with a little pains they make into leaves, and it lasts for years. In this way ancient books have been written thereon, and the ink is such that it cannot be washed out.”—Ain (orig.), i. p. 563; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 351].

1623.—“The Jesuites conceive that the Bramenes are of the dispersion of the Israelites, and their Bookes (called Samescretan) doe somewhat agree with the Scriptures, but that they understand them not.”—Purchas, Pilgrimage, 559.

1651.—“… Souri signifies the Sun in Samscortam, which is a language in which all the mysteries of Heathendom are written, and which is held in esteem by the Bramines just as Latin is among the Learned in Europe.”—Rogerius, 4.

In some of the following quotations we have a form which it is difficult to account for:

c. 1666.—“Their first study is in the Hanscrit, which is a language entirely different from the common Indian, and which is only known by the Pendets. And this is that Tongue, of which Father Kircher hath published the Alphabet received from Father Roa. It is called Hanscrit, that is, a pure Language; and because they believe this to be the Tongue in which God, by means of Brahma, gave them the four Beths (see VEDA), which they esteem Sacred Books, they call it a Holy and Divine Language.”— Bernier, E.T. 107; [ed. Constable, 335].

1673.—“… who founded these, their Annals nor their Sanscript deliver