INTRODUCTION ध्रुवोपभृज्जुहूर्ना तु स्रुवो भेदाः स्रुचः स्त्रियः । उपाकृतः पशुरसौ योऽभिमन्त्र्य ऋतौ हतः । परंपराकं शसनं प्रोक्षणं च वधार्थकम् । (p. 465 ) xxiii Considering the intimate knowledge he exhibits of the Vedic rites, it is possible that Amara was a Hindu who turned Buddhist in the latter part of his life when the kośa was written. The words in the Ak. are classified and arranged according to topics as in the modern Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. The Amarakośa (Eng. trans. by Colebrooke, Seram- pore 1808) must have influenced P.M. Roget in preparing his Thesaurus, for in his Introduction he refers to the Amera Cosha, or Vocabulary of the Sanscrit Language by Amera Sinha' as the earliest attempt to construct a matic arrangement of ideas with a view to their expression (p. xxvi, 1936 ed.). Amara has managed to put in a little less than 1500 Anuştubh verses a very large number of words, some of them most refractory, giving all the necessary information regarding meaning and gender in the three Kända-s of his work. The first Svarādikāṇḍa has twelve sections or Varga-s, according to Ṣūrin's commentary, on Svar (691), Vyoman (1), Diś (35), Kala (31), Dhi (17), Vac (211), Sabdādi (4), Nāṭya (38), Pātāla (3), Bhogin (8), Naraka (31), and Vāri (45). The second Bhūmyādikaṇḍa has ten Varga-s: Prthvi (18), Pura (20), Saila (8), Vanauṣadhi (1691), Simhādi (43), Manuşya (1391), Brahman (571), Kṣatra (1191), Vaiśya (111) and Sūdra (47). The third Samanyakāṇḍa has five Varga-s: Viśesyanighna inclusion of certain refractory words in the same place, he chooses some of the most musical varieties such as Vidyunmālā here and Pramāṇikā in प्रमापणं निबहणं निकारणं निशारणम् (p. 549), which enliven to some extent such a dry subject as a string of synonyms. दारा:, बल्वजाः (pp. 365, 316). 1
