Art. XI. —Account of the Sabda Kalpa Druma; a Sanskrit Encyclopœdical Lexicon, published in Calcutta

Extract

Three volumes of this valuable work, comprising each nearly 1000 pages in large 4to, are now in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society, presented to it by the learned author. This portion perfectly justifies the high character which Professor Wilson gave the work in the first edition of his Dictionary in 1819; anticipating only from a few sheets, then printed, how inestimable a store of authentic information on a variety of subjects connected with Sanskrit literature, would be laid open by this admirable undertaking, the extensiveness of which did not, however, admit a hope of its speedy accomplishment. Rádhákanta's work is very distinctly and, generally speaking, accurately printed in the Bengal character; and derives, certainly, not the least part of its superior character to the generality of Indian printings, from being alphabetically arranged in the European method. A great part of its articles have, indeed, become comparatively of inferior importance since the appearance of the second edition of Mr. Wilson's Dictionary, where every additional information, supplied by the learned Hindú on the different meanings of words, has, of course, been carefully reproduced by the celebrated lexicographer, who was then already in possession of the three volumes before us, excepting a few sheets at the end of the last.