Page:An introduction to Dravidian philology.djvu/86

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76

fragmentary as it was ages ago.

We need not be ashamed to acknowledge that this criticism is highly just and well-merited It should have stimulated us to a study of the problem so ably begun by Caldwell. He worked under very serious disabilities. There did not exist in his time most of the materials that are now available to scholars. I do not mean to say that much is not still wanting in the shape of materials. We have yet to study the dialects, we have yet to study the inscriptions from a linguistic standpoint, we have yet to collate manuscripts and bring out good and authoritative editions of South Indian classics, based on the modern principles of textual criticism, we have to construct the histories of the individual languages, we have yet to go cut among the hill and forest tribes and not only verify the fragmentary results arrived at by scholars of a