Amarkosh

Amarkosh a famous Sanskrit dictionary written by Amar or Amarasingh, a pundit of the sixth century AD. He was one of the Navaratnas (nine gems) in the court of Maharaja Vikramaditya of Ujjayini. There are differences of opinion about his religious affiliation. Some believe that he was a follower of Buddhism; while others he was a Jain. The dictionary of Amarasingh met an acute need of the time. Hence, he is included in the kirtigatha (glorious accounts) of Vikramaditya as one of the Ratnas (gem) of Navaratnamala.

Amarkosh is the oldest and most outstanding dictionary of the Sanskrit language. Although its actual name is Namlinganushasan, it is popularly of known as Amarkosh. It is not a dictionary in the conventional sense of the tem. Its synonyms are arranged in the order gender. It has one thousand five hundred couplets written in simple prose. Various pundits wrote its notes, such as: Linga Vatta (10 notes), Subhuti Chandra (note on the mythological wishing-cow), Sarbananda (entire notes, 1159-60), Khirswami and others. Henry Thomas Colebrook (1775-1837) published an edition of Amarkosh in 1808 and 1825. Later on, in 1877, Chintamoni Shastri Thatte and Keyon Horn published a new edition.

This dictionary is also called a trikando or trikandi, as it is divided into three kando or parts. Trikandoshesh (in 1050 couplets) by Purushottam (11th century) was written as an appendix of trikando. It added words that were not included in Amarkosh. All the dictionaries in the Sanskrit language until the nineteenth century were written in imitation of Amarkosh.

After Prosanno Kumar Shastri';s translation of Amarkosh into Bangla, Jibanananda Vidyasagar, Trailokya Nath Datta, Bhuban Chandra Basak, Hargobind Raxmit and others brought out its various editions. Amarkosh has been translated into English, French, German and other European languages. [Muhammad Saiful Islam]