CHAPTER XII.
ON ETYMOLOGY.
Motto—Woodhouses Trigonometry, page 216.
The exact formulas with which the foreign treatises abound are formulce of curiosity. They are tools liner than is required for the work to be done.
Some points remain to be considered, which are interesting only to those learned natives who write in the poetical dialect. These rules are of small advantage to foreigners. In modern days even poets, as already noticed have relaxed in regard to them: but they will now be given entire without regarding whether some have already been explained or otherwise.
The ancient Telugu grammarians place these abstruse subjects immediately after remarks on the Alphabet. For they wrote only on a few disputed points to aid the judgment of poets already familiar with Sanskrit and Telugu. And as these topics can be understood only after we know every part of the grammar, and have made some progress in reading the Poems, it seems reasonable to place this chapter merely as a supplement to the Grammar.
Among living native grammarians many rely confidently on the brief rules regarding Cala and Druta, framed by Nannaya Bhatt. More learned men are less confident. Indeed Appa Cavi the Aristarchus of the language says (Book 5, 43.) "To determine regarding some words whether they are Druta or not, is an arduous task : if indeed it be at all possible (Literally, arduous even to Brauiha). In the Cavi Siro Bhushanam (see printed Essays on Telugu Literature) the critic remarks that " deviations from the rules of Cala are allowable only if poetical authority be discovered." Let this form an apology for any obscurity that may rest on the subject.
This discussion is restricted to poets alone: even those natives who read and enjoy the poems, safely neglect the abstruse rules of Cala and Druta "Andhra—Sandhi" and saral-adesam. Few will own their ignorance of these superfluous matters, but still fewer can prove their acquaintance with the principles now to be described.
