Page:The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás.djvu/659

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MATHURÁ.
11

maintains is that 'local names in Upper India are, as a rule, of no very remote antiquity, and are, primá facie, referable to Sanskrit and Hindi rather than to any other language.' Mr. Growse very clearly proves this; and there can be no doubt that his view is perfectly correct. One thing impresses itself very clearly upon the mind in reading this chapter—that no one is competent to pronounce an opinion on the subject unless he possesses an intimate and minute knowledge of the history of the locality, added to thorough acquaintance with the phonetic laws that regulate the development of the modern Indian languages from the Prakrit and Sanskrit. Mr. Growse is one of the few that possess both these qualifications.

"It would be impossible within the space of a short review to do justice to the great mass of information distributed in the various chapters. The Memoir is a large quarto volume of upwards of 500 pages, and its external 'get up' is creditable to the Government Press of Allahabad, where it has been printed. Altogether the work is a model of what a district memoir ought to be, and Mr. Growse is to be congratulated on the success which he has achieved."—Calcutta Review.

"Mr. Growse modestly informs us, in the preface to the first edition, that this is one of the uniform series of local histories compiled by the order of the Government. It would, however, be a very fortunate Government that could obtain a series of district memoirs all prepared with the same accuracy and fulness of detail and in the same scientific spirit as this one. Mr. Growse has brought to his task an amount of general and special scholarship and of enthusiasm which few district officers possess, and he has produced a work which, take it altogether, stands without rival among local Indian histories."—Calcutta Review.

"हमने मिस्तर ग्राऊस साहब की बनाई हुई मथुरा मैमायर (Mathurá Memoir) नाम पुस्तक जिसका द्वितीय संस्कार हो चुका है अवलोकन की ब्रज का प्राचीन और नवीन बृत्तान्त इस पुस्तक के अवलेकन से भली भांति बिदित होता है अब तक हम जिस ब्रज भूमि के प्राचीन चिन्हों के बिना समझे देख कर चले आते थे और स्वार्थशील तीर्थबासियों से कुछ इतिहाास संबन्धी पता नहीं लगता था—अब उक्त पुस्तक के अवलोकन करने से वेही स्थान विशेष आनन्ददायक होंगे—प्रत्येक स्थान की रचना और महिमा का सबिस्तर बृत्तान्त इस पुस्तक में मिलता हैे—ब्रज के बन बन भ्रमण करने में जो आनन्द्र मिलता है सो इस पुस्तक के पढ़ने से प्राप्त होता है—