VOLUME XVII SLICE VI Map to Mars (continued 4)

See Lea, loc. cit. and elsewhere; see index s.v. “New Christian”; Graetz, History of the Jews, Eng. trans. see index s.v. “Marranos”; M. Kayserling, in Jewish Encyclopedia, viii. 318 seq.; and for the present day Jewish Quarterly Review, xv. 251 seq.

(I. A.)

MARASH (anc. Germanicia-Marasion), the chief town of a sanjak of the same name in the Aleppo vilayet, altitude 2600 ft. situated E. of the Jihan river, at the foot of Mt Taurus. The sanjak lies almost wholly in Mt Taurus, and includes the Armenian town of Zeitun. Marash is prosperous, and has a large trade in Kurd carpets and embroideries. The climate is good, except in summer. Of the population (50,000) about half are Turkish-speaking Armenians. There are a college, church and schools belonging to the American mission, a native Protestant church and a Jesuit establishment. The site, which lies near the mouths of the three main passes over the eastern Taurus—viz. those descending from Geuksun (Cocysus), Albistan-Yarpuz (Arabissus), and Malatia (Melitene)—is shown to have had early importance, not only by the occurrence of Marasi in Assyrian inscriptions, but by the discovery of several “Hittite” monuments on the spot. These, said to have been unearthed, for the most part, near the Kirk Geuz spring above the modern town, are now in Constantinople and America, and include an inscribed lion, once built into the wall of the citadel known in the middle ages as al-Marwani, and several stelae. No more is known of the place until it appears as Germanicia-Caesarea, striking imperial coins with the head of L. Verus (middle of 2nd cent. A.D.). The identification of Marash with Germanicia has been disputed, but successfully defended by Sir W. M. Ramsay; and it is borne out by the Armenian name Kermanig, which has been given to the place since at least the 12th century. Before the Roman period Marash doubtless shared the fortunes of the Seleucid kingdom of Commagene. Germanicia-Marasion played a great part in Byzantine border warfare: Heraclius was there in A.D. 640; but before 700 it had passed into Saracen hands and been rebuilt by the caliph Moawiya. During the 8th and 9th centuries, when the direct pass from Cocysus came into military use, Marasion (the older name had returned into general use) was often the Byzantine objective and was more than once retaken; but after 770, when Mansur incorporated it in “Palestine” it remained definitely in Moslem power and was refortified by Harun-al-Rashid. It was seized by the crusaders after their march across Mt Taurus, A.D. 1097, became an important town of Lesser Armenia and was taken by the Seljuks in 1147. In the 16th century it was added to the Osmanli Empire by Selim I. Marash passed with the rest of Syria into Egyptian hands in 1832, and in 1839 received fugitives from the defeat of Nizib, among whom was Moltke. Ibrahim Pasha was encamped near it when directed by his father, at the bidding of the powers, to stay his further advance. Since its reversion to Ottoman power (1840) the history of Marash has been varied only by Armenian troubles, largely connected with the fortunes of Zeitun, for the reduction of which place it has more than once been used as a base. There was less disturbance there in 1895-1896 than in other north Syrian towns.

(D. G. H.)

MARAT, JEAN PAUL (1743-1793), French revolutionary leader, eldest child of Jean Paul Marat, a native of Cagliari in Sardinia, and Louise Cabrol of Geneva, was born at Boudry, in the principality of Neuchâtel, on the 24th of May 1743. His father was a designer, who had abandoned his country and his religion, and married a Swiss Protestant. On his mother’s death in 1759 Marat set out on his travels, and spent two years at Bordeaux in the study of medicine, whence he moved to Paris, where he made use of his knowledge of his two favourite sciences, optics and electricity, to subdue an obstinate disease of the eyes. After some years in Paris he went to Holland, and then on to London, where he practised his profession. In 1773 he made his first appearance as an author with a Philosophical Essay on Man. The book shows a wonderful knowledge of English, French, German, Italian and Spanish philosophers, and directly attacks Helvetius, who had in his De l’esprit declared a knowledge of science unnecessary for a philosopher. Marat declares that physiology alone can solve the problems of the connexion between soul and body, and proposes the existence of a nervous fluid as the true solution. In 1774 he published The Chains of Slavery, which was intended to influence constituencies to return popular members, and reject the king’s friends. Its author declared later that it procured him an honorary membership of the patriotic societies of Carlisle, Berwick and Newcastle. He remained devoted to his profession, and in 1775 published in London a little Essay on Gleets, and in Amsterdam a French translation of the first two volumes of his Essay on Man. In this year he visited Edinburgh, and on the recommendation of certain Edinburgh physicians was made an M. D. of St Andrews. On his return to London he published an Enquiry into the Nature, Cause, and Cure of a Singular Disease of the Eyes, with a dedication to the Royal Society. In the same year there appeared the third volume of the French edition of the Essay on Man, which reached Ferney, and exasperated Voltaire, by its onslaught on Helvetius, into a sharp attack which only made the young author more conspicuous. His fame as a clever doctor was now great, and on the 24th of June 1777, the comte d’Artois, afterwards Charles X. of France, made him by brevet physician to his guards with 2000 livres a year and allowances.

Marat was soon in great request as a court doctor among the aristocracy; and even Brissot, in his Mémoires, admits his influence in the scientific world of Paris. The next years were much occupied with scientific work, especially the study of heat, light and electricity, on which he presented memoirs to the Académie des Sciences, but the academicians were horrified at his temerity in differing from Newton, and, though acknowledging his industry, would not receive him among them. His experiments greatly interested Benjamin Franklin, who used to visit him and Goethe always regarded his rejection by the academy as a glaring instance of scientific despotism. In 1780 he had published at Neuchâtel a Plan de législation criminelle, founded on the principles of Beccaria. In April 1786 he resigned his court appointment. The results of his leisure were in 1787 a new translation of Newton’s Optics, and in 1788 his Mémoires académiques, ou nouvelles découvertes sur la lumière.

His scientific life was now over, his political life was to begin; in the notoriety of that political life his great scientific and philosophical knowledge was to be forgotten, the high position he had given up denied, and he himself scoffed at as an ignorant charlatan, who had sold quack medicines about the streets of Paris, and been glad to earn a few sous in the stables of the comte d’Artois. In 1788 the notables had met, and advised the assembling of the states-general. The elections were the cause of a flood of pamphlets, of which one, Offrande à la patrie, was by Marat, and, though now forgotten, dwelt on much the same points as the famous brochure of the Abbé Siéyès: Qu’est-ce que le tiers état? When the states-general met, Marat’s interest was as great as ever, and in June 1789 he published a supplement to his Offrande, followed in July by La constitution, in which he embodies his idea of a constitution for France, and in September by his Tableau des vices de la constitution d’Angleterre, which he presented to the Assembly. The latter alone deserves remark. The Assembly was at this time full of anglomaniacs, who desired to establish in France a constitution similar to that of England. Marat had seen that England was at this time being ruled by an oligarchy using the forms of liberty, which, while pretending to represent the country, was really being gradually mastered by the royal power. His heart was now all in politics; and he decided to start a paper. At first appeared a single number of the Moniteur patriote, followed on the 12th of September by the first number of the Publiciste parisien, which on the 16th of September took the title of L’Ami du peuple and which he edited, with some interruptions, until the 21st of September 1792.

The life of Marat now becomes part of the history of the French Revolution. From the beginning to the end he stood alone. He was never attached to any party; the tone of his mind was to suspect whoever was in power. About his paper, the incarnation of himself, the first thing to be said is that the man always meant what he said; no poverty, no misery or persecution, could keep him quiet; he was perpetually crying, “Nous sommes trahis.” Whoever suspected any one had only to denounce him to the Ami du peuple, and the denounced was never let alone till he was proved innocent or guilty. Marat began by attacking the most powerful bodies in Paris—the Constituent Assembly, the ministers, the corps municipal, and the court of the Châtelet. Denounced and arrested, he was imprisoned from the 8th of October to the 5th of November 1789. A second time, owing to his violent campaign against Lafayette, he narrowly escaped arrest and had to flee to London (Jan. 1790). There he wrote his Dénonciation contre Necker, and in May dared to return to Paris and continue the Ami du peuple. He was embittered by persecution, and continued his vehement attacks against all in power, and at last, after the day of the Champs du Mars (July 17, 1790), against the king himself. All this time he was in hiding in cellars and sewers, where he was attacked by a horrible skin disease, tended only by the woman Simonne Evrard, who remained true to him. The end of the Constituent Assembly he heard of with joy and with bright hopes for the future, soon dashed by the behaviour of the Legislative Assembly. When almost despairing, in December 1791, he fled once more to London, where he wrote his Ecole du citoyen. In April 1792, summoned again by the Cordeliers’ Club, he returned to Paris, and published No. 627 of the Ami. The war was now the question, and Marat saw clearly that it was to serve the purposes of the Royalists and the Girondins, who thought of themselves alone. Again denounced, Marat had to remain in hiding until the 10th of August. The early days of the war being unsuccessful, the proclamation of the duke of Brunswick excited all hearts; who could go to save France on the frontiers and leave Paris in the hands of his enemies? Marat, like Danton, foresaw the massacres of September. After the events of the 10th of August he took his seat at the commune, and demanded a tribunal to try the Royalists in prison. No tribunal was formed, and the massacres in the prisons were the inevitable result. In the elections to the Convention, Marat was elected seventh out of the twenty-four deputies for Paris, and for the first time took his seat in an assembly of the nation. At the declaration of the republic, he closed his Ami du peuple, and commenced, on the 25th, a new paper, the Journal de la république française, which was to contain his sentiments as its predecessor had done, and to be always on the watch. In the Assembly Marat had no party; he would always suspect and oppose the powerful, refuse power for himself. After the battle of Valmy, Dumouriez was the greatest man in France; he could almost have restored the monarchy; yet Marat did not fear to denounce him in placards as a traitor.

His unpopularity in the Assembly was extreme, yet he insisted on speaking on the question of the king’s trial, declared it unfair to accuse Louis for anything anterior to his acceptance of the constitution, and though implacable towards the king, as the one man who must die for the people’s good, he would not allow Malesherbes, the king’s counsel, to be attacked in his paper, and speaks of him as a “sage et respectable vieillard.” The king dead, the months from January to May 1793 were spent in an unrelenting struggle between Marat and the Girondins. Marat despised the ruling party because they had suffered nothing for the republic, because they talked too much of their feelings and their antique virtue, because they had for their own virtues plunged the country into war; while the Girondins hated Marat as representative of that rough red republicanism which would not yield itself to a Roman republic, with themselves for tribunes, orators and generals. The Girondins conquered at first in the Convention, and ordered that Marat should be tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal. But their victory ruined them, for on the 24th of April Marat was acquitted, and returned to the Convention with the people at his back. The fall of the Girondins on the 31st of May was a triumph for Marat. But it was his last. The skin disease he had contracted in the subterranean haunts was rapidly closing his life; he could only ease his pain by sitting in a warm bath, where he wrote his journal, and accused the Girondins, who were trying to raise France against Paris. Sitting thus on the 13th of July he heard in the evening a young woman begging to be admitted to see him, saying that she brought news from Caen, where the escaped Girondins were trying to rouse Normandy. He ordered her to be admitted, asked her the names of the deputies then at Caen, and, after writing their names, said, “They shall be soon guillotined,” when the young girl, whose name was Charlotte Corday (q.v.), stabbed him to the heart.

His death caused a great commotion at Paris. The Convention attended his funeral, and placed his bust in the hall where it held its sessions. Louis David painted “Marat Assassinated,” and a veritable cult was rendered to the Friend of the People, whose ashes were transferred to the Panthéon with great pomp on the 21st of September 1794—to be cast out again in virtue of the decree of the 8th of February 1795.

Marat’s name was long an object of execration on account of his insistence on the death penalty. He stands in history as a bloodthirsty monster, yet in judging him one must remember the persecutions he endured and the terrible disease from which he suffered.

Besides the works mentioned above, Marat wrote: Recherches physiques sur l’électricité, &c. (1782); Recherches sur l’électricité médicale (1783); Notions élémentaires d’optique (1764); Lettres de l’observateur Bon Sens à M. de M. ... sur la fatale catastrophe des infortunés Pilatre de Rozier et Romain, les aéronautes et l’aérostation (1785); Observations de M. l’amateur Avec à M. l’abbé Sans ... &c., (1785); Éloge de Montesquieu (1785), published 1883 by M. de Bresetz; Les Charlatans modernes, ou lettres sur le charlatanisme académique (1791); Les Aventures du comte Potowski (published in 1847 by Paul Lacroix, the “bibliophile Jacob”); Lettres polonaises (unpublished). Marat’s works were published by A. Vermorel, Œuvres de J. P. Marat, l’ami du peuple, recueillies et annotées (1869). Two of his tracts, (1) On Gleets, (2) A Disease of the Eyes, were reprinted, ed. J. B. Bailey, in 1891.

See A. Vermorel, Jean Paul Marat (1880); François Chévremont, Marat: esprit politique, accomp. de sa vie (2 vols., 1880); Auguste Cabanès, Marat inconnu (1891); A. Bougeait, Marat, l’ami du peuple (2 vols., 1865); M. Tourneux, Bibliographie de l’histoire de Paris pendant la révolution française (vol. ii., 1894; vol. iv., 1906), and E. B. Bax, J. P. Marat (1900). The Correspondance de Marat has been edited with notes by C. Villay (1908).

(R. A.*)

MARATHI (properly Marāthī),1 the name of an important Indo-Aryan language spoken in western and central India. In 1901 the number of speakers was 18,237,899, or about the same as the population of Spain. Marathi occupies an irregular triangular area of approximately 100,000 sq.m., having its apex about the district of Balaghat in the Central Provinces, and for its base the western coast of the peninsula from Daman on the Gulf of Cambay in the north to Karwar on the open Arabian Sea in the south. It covers parts of two provinces of British India—Bombay and the Central Provinces (including Berar)—with numerous settlers in Central India and Madras, and is also the principal language of Portuguese India and of the north-western portion of His Highness the Nizam’s dominions. The standard form of speech is that of Poona in Bombay, and, in its various dialects it covers the larger part of that province, in which it is the vernacular of more than eight and a half millions of people.

As explained in the article Indo-Aryan Languages, there were in ancient times two main groups of these forms of speech—one, the language of the Midland, spoken in the country near the Gangetic Doab, and the other, the languages of the so-called “Outer Band,” containing the Midland on three sides, west, east and south. The country to the south of the Midland, in which members of this Outer group of languages were formerly spoken, included the modern Rajputana and Gujarat, and extended to the basin of the river Nerbudda, being bounded on the south by the Vindhya hills. In the course of time the population of the Midland expanded, and gradually occupied this tract, reaching the sea in Gujarat. The language of the Outer Band was thus forced farther afield. Its speakers crossed the Vindhyas and settled in the central plateau of the Deccan and on the Konkan coast. Here they came into contact with speakers of the Dravidian languages of southern India. As happened elsewhere in India, they retained their own Aryan tongue, and gradually through the influence of their superior civilization imposed it upon the aborigines, so that all the inhabitants of this tract became the ancestors of the speakers of modern Marathi.

In Rajputana and Gujarat the language (see Gujarat) is to a certain extent mixed. Near the original Midland there are few traces of the Outer language, but as we go farther and farther away from that centre we find, as might be expected, the influence of the Midland language becoming weaker and weaker, and traces of the Outer language becoming more and more evident, until in Gujarati we recognize several important survivals of the old language once spoken by the earlier Aryan inhabitants.

Dialects.—Besides the standard form of speech, there is only one real dialect of Marathi, viz. Konkani (Kōnkaṇī), spoken in the country near Goa. There are also several local varieties, and we may conveniently distinguish between the Marathi of the Deccan, that of the Central Provinces (including Berar), and that of the northern and central Konkan. In the southern part of the district of Ratnagiri this latter Konkani variety of Marathi gradually merges into the true Konkani dialect through a number of intermediate forms of speech. There are also several broken jargones, based upon Marathi, employed by aboriginal tribes surviving in the hill country.

Relations with other Indo-Aryan Languages.—Marathi has to its north, in order from west to east, Gujarati, Rajasthani, Western Hindi and Eastern Hindi. To its east and south it has the Dravidian languages, Gondi, Telugu and Kanarese. Elsewhere in India Aryan languages gradually fade away into each other, so that it is impossible to fix any definite boundary line between them. But this is not the case with Marathi. It does not merge into any of the cognate neighbouring forms of speech, but possesses a distinct linguistic frontier. A native writer2 says: “The Gujarati language agrees very closely with the languages of the countries lying to the north of it, because the Gujarati people came from the north. If a native of Delhi, Ajmere, Marwar, Mewar, Jaipur, &c., comes into Gujarat, the Gujarati people find no difficulty in understanding his language. But it is very wonderful that when people from countries bordering Gujarat on the south, as the Konkan, Maharashtra, &c. (i.e. people speaking Marathi) come to Gujarat, the Gujarati people do not in the least comprehend what they say.” This isolated character of Marathi is partly due to the barrier of the Vindhya range which lies to its north, and partly to the fact that none of the northern languages belongs now to the Outer Band, but are in more or less close relationship to the language of the Midland. There was no common ground either physical or linguistic, upon which the colliding forms of speech could meet on equal terms. Eastern Hindi is more closely related to Marathi than the others, and in its case, in its bordering dialects, we do find a few traces of the influence of Marathi—traces which are part of the essence of the language, and not mere borrowed waifs floating on the top of a sea of alien speech and not absorbed by it.

Written Character.—Marathi books are generally printed in the well-known Nagari character (see Sanskrit), and this is also used to a great extent in private transactions and correspondence. In the Maratha country it is known as the Bālbōdh (“teachable to children,” i.e. “easy”) character. A cursive form of Nagari called Mōḍī, or “twisted,” is also employed as a handwriting. It is said to have been invented in the 17th century by Balaji Avaji, the secretary of the celebrated Sivaji. Its chief merit is that each word can be written as a whole without lifting the pen from the paper, a feat which is impossible in the case of Nagari.3

Origin of the Language.—The word “Marāṭhī” signifies (the language) of the Maratha country. It is the modern form of the Sanskrit Māhārāṣṭrī, just as “Marāṭhā” represents the old Māhā-rāṣṭra, or Great Kingdom. Māhārāṣṭrī was the name given by Sanskrit writers to the particular form of Prakrit spoken in Māhārāṣṭra, the great Aryan kingdom extending southwards from the Vindhya range to the Kistna, broadly corresponding to the southern part of the Bombay Presidency and to the state of Hyderabad. As pointed out in the article Prakrit this Māhārāṣṭrī early obtained literary pre-eminence in India, and became the form of Prakrit employed as the language not only of lyric poetry but also of the formal epic (kāvya). Dramatic works were composed in it, and it was the vehicle of the non-canonical scriptures of the Jaina religion. The oldest work in the language of which we have any knowledge is the Sattasaī, or Seven Centuries of verses, compiled at Pratiṣṭhāna, on the Gōdāvarī, the capital of King Hāla, at some time between the 3rd and 7th centuries A.D. Pratiṣṭhāna is the modern Paithan in the Aurangabad district of Hyderabad, and that city was for long famous as a centre of literary composition. In later times the political centre of gravity was changed to Poona, the language of which district is now accepted as the standard of the best Marathi.

General Character of the Language.—In the following account of the main features of Marathi, the reader is presumed to be familiar with the leading facts stated in the articles Indo-Aryan Languages and Prakrit. In the Prakrit stage of the Indo-Aryan languages we can divide the Prakrits into two well-defined groups, an Inner, Śaurasēnī and its connected dialects on the one hand, and an Outer, Māhārāṣṭrī, Ardhamāgadhī, and Māgadhī with their connected dialects on the other. These two groups differed in their phonetic laws, in their systems of declension and conjugation, in vocabulary, and in general character.4 In regard to the last point reference may be made to the frequent use of meaningless suffixes, such as -alla, -illa, -ulla, &c., which can be added, almost ad libitum to any noun, adjective or particle in Māhārāṣṭrī and Ardhamāgadhī, but which are hardly ever met in Śaurasēnī. These give rise to numerous secondary forms of words, used, it might be said, in a spirit of playfulness, which give a distinct flavour to the whole language. Similarly the late Mr Beames (Comparative Grammar, i. 103) well describes Marathi as possessing “a very decided individuality, a type quite its own, arising from its comparative isolation for so many centuries.” Elsewhere (p. 38) he uses language which would easily well apply to Māhārāṣṭrī Prakrit when he says, “Marathi is one of those languages which we may call playful—it delights in all sorts of jingling formations, and has struck out a larger quantity of secondary and tertiary words, diminutives, and the like, than any of the cognate tongues,” and again (p. 52):—

“In Marathi we see the results of the Pandit’s file applied to a form of speech originally possessed of much natural wildness and licence. The hedgerows have been pruned and the wild briars and roses trained into order. It is a copious and beautiful language, second only to Hindi. It has three genders, and the same elaborate preparation of the base as Sindhi, and, owing to the great corruption which has taken place in its terminations, the difficulty of determining the gender of nouns is as great in Marathi as in German. In fact, if we were to institute a parallel in this respect, we might appropriately describe Hindi as the English, Marathi as the German of the Indian group—Hindi having cast aside whatever could possibly be dispensed with, Marathi having retained whatever has been spared by the action of time. To an Englishman Hindi commends itself by its absence of form, and the positional structure of its sentences resulting therefrom; to our High-German cousins the Marathi, with its fuller array of genders, terminations, and inflexions, would probably seem the completer and finer language.”

In the article Prakrit it is explained that the literary Prakrits were not the direct parents of the modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars. Each Prakrit had first to pass through an intermediate stage—that of the Apabhramśa—before it took the form current at the present day. While we know a good deal about Māhārāṣṭrī and very little about Śaurasēnī Prakrit, the case is reversed in regard to their respective Apabhramśas. The Śaurasēnā Apabhramśa is the only one concerning which we have definite information. Although it would be quite possible to reason from analogy, and thus to obtain what would be the corresponding forms of Māhārāṣṭra Apabhramśa, we should often be travelling upon insecure ground, and it is therefore advisable to compare Marathi, not with the Apabhramśa from which it is immediately derived, but with its grandmother, Māhārāṣṭrī Prakrit. We shall adopt this course, so far as possible, in the following pages.

Vocabulary.—In the article Indo-Aryan Languages it is explained that, allowing for phonetic development, the vocabulary of Śaurasēnī Prakrit was the same as that of Sanskrit, but that the farther we go from the Midland, the more examples we meet of a new class of words, the so-called dēśyas, descendants of the old Primary Prakrits spoken outside the Midland, and strange to Sanskrit. Māhārāṣṭrī Prakrit, the most independent of the Outer languages, was distinguished by the large proportion of these dēśyas found in its vocabulary, and the same is consequently the case in Marathi. The Brahmins of the Maratha country have always had a great reputation for learning, and their efforts to create a literary language out of their vernacular took, as in other parts of India, the direction of borrowing tatsamas from Sanskrit, to lend what they considered to be dignity to their sentences. But the richness of the language in dēśya words has often rendered such borrowing unnecessary, and has saved Marathi, although the proportion of tatsamas to tadbhavas5 in the language is more than sufficiently high, from the fate of the Pandit-ridden literary Bengali, in which 80 to 90% of the vocabulary is pure Sanskrit. There is indeed a tradition of stylistic chastity in the Maratha country from the earliest times, and even Sanskrit writers contrasted the simple elegance of the Deccan (or Vaidarbhī) style with the flowery complexity of eastern India.

The proportion of Persian and, through Persian, of Arabic words in the Marathi vocabulary is comparatively low, when compared with, say, Hindostani. The reason is, firstly, the predominance in the literary world of these learned Brahmins, and, secondly, the fact that the Maratha country was not conquered by the Mussulmans till a fairly late period, nor was it so thoroughly occupied by them as were Sind, the Punjab, and the Gangetic valley.

Phonetics.6—In the standard dialect the vowels are the same as in Sanskrit, but ṛ and ḷ only appear in words borrowed directly from that language (tatsamas). Final short vowels (a, i and u) have all disappeared in prose pronunciation, except in a few local dialects, and final i and u are not even written. On the other hand, in the Nagari character, the non-pronunciation of a final a is not indicated. After an accented syllable a medial a is pronounced very lightly, even when the accent is not the main accent of the word. Thus, if we indicate the main accent by ’, and subsidiary accents (equivalent to the Hebrew methegh) by `, then the word kárawat, a saw, is pronounced kárawat; and kàḷakáḷaṇễ, to be agitated, is pronounced kàḷakáḷaṇễ. In Konkani the vowel a assumes the sound of o in “hot,” a sound which is also heard in the language of Bengal. In dialectic speech ē is often interchangeable with short or long a, so that the standard sāṅgitalễ, it was said, may appear as sāṅgitalā or sāṅgitalẫ. The vowels ē and ō are apparently always long in the standard dialect, thus following Sanskrit; but in Konkani there is a short and a long form of each vowel. Very probably, although the distinction is not observed in writing, and has not been noticed by native scholars, these vowels are also pronounced short in the standard dialect under the circumstances to be now described. When a long ā, ī or ū precedes an accented syllable it is usually shortened. In the case of ā the shortening is not indicated by the spelling, but the written long ā is pronounced short like the ă in the Italian ballo. Thus, the dative of pīk, a ripe crop, is pikā̇s, and that of hāt, a hand, is hātā̇s, pronounced hătā̇s. Almost the only compound consonants which survived in the Prakrit stage were double letters, and in M. these are usually simplified, the preceding vowel being lengthened in compensation. Thus, the Prakrit kannō becomes kān, an ear; Pr. bhikkhā becomes bhīk, alms; and Pr. puttō becomes pūt, a son. In the Piśāca (see Indo-Aryan Languages) and other languages of north-western India it is not usual to lengthen the vowel in compensation, and the same tendency is observable in Konkani, which, it may be remarked, appears to contain many relics of the old Prakrit (Saurāṣṭrī) spoken in the Gujarat country before the invasion from the Midland. Thus, in Konkani, we have put as well as pūt, while the word corresponding to the Pr. ekkō, one, is ek as well as the standard ēk.

On the whole, the consonantal system is much the same as in other Indian languages. Nasalization of long vowels is very common, especially in Konkani. In this article it is indicated by the sign ~ placed over the affected vowel. The palatals are pronounced as in Skr. in words borrowed from that language or from Hindostani, and also in Marathi tadbhavas before i, ī, ē or y. Thus, caṇḍ (tatsama), fierce; jamā (Hindostani), collected; cikhal (M. tadbhava), mud. In other cases they are pronounced ts, tsh, dz, dzh respectively. Thus tsākar (for cākar), a servant; dzāṇễ (for jāṇễ), to go. There are two s-sounds in the standard dialect which are very similarly distinguished. Ś, pronounced like an English sh, is used before i, ī, ē or y; and s, as in English “sin,” elsewhere. Thus, śimphī, a caste-name; śīl, a stone; śēt, a field; śyām, dark blue; but sāp, a snake; sumār (Persian shumār), an estimate; strī, a woman. In the dialects s is practically the only sibilant used, and that is changed by the vulgar speakers of Konkani to h (again as in north-western India). Aspirated letters show a tendency to lose their aspiration, especially in Konkani. Thus, bhīk (for bhīkh), alms, quoted above; hāt (Pr. hatthō), a hand. In Konkani we have words such as boiṇ, a sister, against standard bhain; gēr, standard gharī̇, in a house; āmī, standard āmhī, we. Here again we have agreement with north-western India. Generally speaking Marathi closely follows Māhārāṣṭrā when that differs from the Prakrits of other parts of India. Thus we have Skr. vrajati, Māhārāṣṭrī vaccai (instead of vajjai), he goes; Konkani votsū, to go; Saurasēnī genhiduim, Māhārāṣṭrī ghettuṁ, to take; Marathi ghētalễ, taken. There is similarly both in Marathi and Māhārāṣṭrī a laxness in distinguishing between cerebral and dental letters (which again reminds us of north-western India). Thus, Skr. daśati, Māhārāṣṭrī ḍasai, he bites; M. ḍāsaṇễ to bite; Skr. dahati, Māhārāṣṭrī ḍahai, he burns; M. ḍādzaṇễ, to be hot; Skr. gardabhas; Śaurasēnī gaddahō; Hindostani gadhā; but Māhārāṣṭrī gaḍḍahō; M. gāḍhav, an ass; and so many others. In Māhārāṣṭrī every n becomes ṇ, but in Jaina MSS. when the n was initial or doubled it remained unchanged. A similar rule is followed regarding l and the cerebral ḷ common in Vedic Sanskrit, in MSS. coming from southern India, and, according to the grammarians, also in the Piśāca dialects of the north-west. In M. a Pr. double nn or ll is simplified, according to the usual rule, to n or l respectively, with lengthening of the preceding vowel in compensation. Both ṇ and ḷ are of frequent occurrence in M., but only as medial letters, and then only when they represent ṇ or ḷ in the Pr. stage. When the letter is initial or represents a double nn or ll of Pr. it is always n or l respectively, thus offering a striking testimony to the accuracy of the Jaina and southern MSS. Thus, ordinary Māhārāṣṭrī ṇa, but Jaina Māhārāṣṭrī na, M. na, not; Māhārāṣṭrī (both kinds) ghaṇō, M. ghaṇ, dense; Māhārāṣṭrī soṇṇaaṁ, Jaina sonnaaṁ, M. sōnē̇, gold; Māhārāṣṭrī kālō, time, southern MSS. of the same kālō, M. kāḷ, time; Māhārāṣṭrī callai, M. tsālē, he goes or used to go. In some of the local dialects, following the Vedic practice, we find ḷ where d is employed elsewhere, as in (Berar) ghōḷā for ghōḍā, a horse; and there are instances of this change occurring even in Māhārāṣṭrī; e.g. Skr. taḍagaṁ, Māhārāṣṭrī taḷāam, M. taḷễ, a pond.

The Skr. compound consonant jñ is pronounced dny in the standard dialect, but gy in the Konkan. Thus, Skr. jñānaṁ becomes dnyān or gyān according to locality.

Declension.—Marathi and Gujarati are the only Indo-Aryan languages which have retained the three genders, masculine, feminine and neuter, of Sanskrit and Prakrit. In rural dialects of Western Hindi and of Rajasthani sporadic instances of the neuter gender have survived, but elsewhere the only example occurs in the interrogative pronoun. In Marathi the neuter denotes not only inanimate things but also animate beings when both sexes are included, or when the sex is left undecided. Thus, ghōḍễ, neut., a horse, without regard to sex. In the Konkan the neuter gender is further employed to denote females below the age of puberty, as in cēḍū, a girl. Numerous masculine and feminine words, however, denote inanimate objects. The rules for distinguishing the gender of such nouns are as complicated as in German, and must be learned from the grammars. For the most part, but not always, words follow the genders of their Skr. originals, and the abrasion of terminations in the modern language renders it impossible to lay down any complete set of rules on the subject. We may, however, say that strong bases (see below) in ā—and these do not include tatsamas—are masculine, and that the corresponding feminine and neuter words end in ī and ễ respectively. Thus, mulagā, a son; mulagī, a daughter; mulagễ, a child of so and so. As a further guide we may say that sex is usually distinguished by the use of the masculine and feminine genders, and that large and powerful inanimate objects are generally masculine, while small, delicate things are generally feminine. In the case of some animals (as in our “horse” and “mare”) sex is distinguished by the use of different words; e.g. bōkaḍ, he-goat, and śēḷī, a nanny-goat.

The nominative form of a tadbhava word is derived from the nominative form in Sanskrit and Prakrit, but tatsama words are generally borrowed in the form of the Sanskrit crude base. Thus, Skr. crude base mālin, nom. sing, mālī; Pr. nom. māliō (māḷiō); M. māḷī (tadbhava), a gardener; Skr. base mati-; nom. matis; M. mati (tatsama). Some tatsamas are, however, borrowed in the nominative form, as in Skr. dhanin, nom. dhanī; M. dhanī, a rich man. In Prakrit the nominative singular of many masculine tatsamas ended in ō. In the Apabhraṁśa stage this ō was weakened to u, and in modern Marathi, under the general rule, this final short u was dropped, the noun thus reverting as stated above to the form of the Sanskrit crude base. But in old Marathi, the short u was still retained. Thus, the Sanskrit īśvaras, lord, became, as a Prakrit tatsama, īśvarō, which in Apabhraṁśa took the form īśvaru. The old Marathi form was also īśvaru, but in modern Marathi we have īśvar. Tadbhavas derived from Sanskrit bases in a are treated very similarly, the termination being dropped in the modern language. Thus, Skr. nom. masc. karṇas, Pr. kannō, M. kān; Skr. nom. sing. fem. khaṭvā, Pr. khaṭṭā, M. khāṭ, a bed; Skr. nom. sing. neut. gṛhaṁ, Pr. gharaṁ, M. ghar, a house. Sometimes the Skr. nom. sing. fem. of these nouns ends in ī, but this makes no difference, as in Skr. and Pr. cullī, M. cūl, a fireplace. There is one important set of exceptions to this rule. In the article Prakrit attention is drawn to the frequent use of pleonastic suffixes, especially of -(a)ka- (masc. and neut.), -(i)kā(fem.). This could in Sanskrit be added to any noun, whatever the termination of the base might be. In Prakrit the k of this suffix, being medial, was elided, so that we get forms like Skr. nom. sing. masc. ghōṭa-kas, Pr. ghōḍa-ō, M. ghōḍā, a horse; Skr. nom. sing. fem. ghōṭi-kā, Pr. ghōḍi-ā, M. ghōḍī, a mare; Skr. ghōṭa-kaṁ, Pr. ghōḍa-(y)am, M. ghōḍe, a horse (without distinction of sex). Such modern forms made with this pleonastic suffix, and ending in ā, ī or ễ are called “strong forms,” while all those made without it are called “weak forms.” As a rule the fact that a noun is in a weak or a strong form does not affect its meaning, but sometimes the use of a masculine strong form indicates clumsiness or hugeness. Thus bhākar (weak form) means “bread,” while bhākarā (strong form) means “a huge loaf of bread.” The other pleonastic suffixes mentioned under Prakrit are also employed in Marathi, but usually with specific senses. Thus the suffix -illa- generally forms adjectives, while -ḍa-ka- (in M. -ḍā, fem. -ḍī, neut. -ḍễ) implies contempt.

The synthetic declension of Sanskrit and Prakrit has been preserved in Marathi more completely than in any other Indo-Aryan language. While Māhārāṣṭrī Prakrit, like all others, passed through the Apabhraṁśa stage in the course of its development, the conservative character of the language retained even in that stage some of the old pure Māhārāṣṭrī forms. In the article Prakrit we have seen how there gradually arose a laxity in distinguishing the cases. In Māhārāṣṭrī the Sanskrit dative fell into almost entire disuse, the genitive being used in its place, while in Apabhraṁśa the case terminations become worn down to -hu, -ho, -hi, -hī and -hā, of which -hi and -hī were employed for several cases, both singular and plural. There was also a marked tendency for these terminations to become confused, so that in the earliest stages of most of the modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars we find -hi freely employed for any oblique case of the singular, and -hī for any oblique case of the plural. Another feature of Prakrit was the simplification of the complicated declensional system of Sanskrit by assimilating it in all cases to the declension of a-bases, corresponding to the first and second declensions in Latin.

In the formation of the plural the Prakrit declensions are very closely followed by Marathi. We shall confine our remarks to a-bases, which may be either weak or strong forms, and of which the feminine ends sometimes in ā, and sometimes in ī. In Prakrit the nom. plur. of these nouns ends masc. ā, fem. āō, īō, neut. āiṁ. We thus get the following:—

Masculine. Feminine. Neuter.

Nom. Sing. Nom. Plur. Nom. Sing. Nom. Plur. Nom. Sing. Nom. Plur. Nom. Sing. Nom. Plur.

Weak form.

Prakrit kannō, kannā khaṭṭā, khaṭṭāō cullī, cullīō gharaṁ, gharāiṁ

an ear. a bed. a fireplace. a house.

Marathi kān kān khāṭ khāṭā cūl cūlī ghar gharễ

Strong form.

Prakrit ghōḍaō, ghōḍayā ghōḍiā, ghōḍiāō — — *ghōḍayaṁ, *ghōḍayāiṁ

a horse. a mare. a horse.

Marathi ghōḍā ghōḍē ghōḍī ghōḍyā — — ghōḍễ ghōḍī

Several of the old synthetic cases have survived in Marathi, especially in the antique form of the language preserved in poetry. Most of them have fallen into disuse in the modern prose language. We may note the following, some of which have preserved the Māhārāṣṭrī forms, while others are directly derived from the Apabhraṁśa stage of the language. We content ourselves with giving some of the synthetic cases of one noun, a weak neuter a-base, ghar, a house.

Māhārāṣṭrī Prakrit. Apabhraṁśa. Marathi.

Sing.

Nominative gharaṁ gharu ghar

Dative gharassa (genitive) gharaho (genitive) gharās (dative)

Locative gharē gharahi (-hī) gharī̃, gharā

General oblique gharassa (genitive) gharaho (genitive) gharās, gharā

Plur.

Nominative gharāiṁ gharaī̃ gharễ

Locative gharēsu gharahi (-hī) gharī̃

General oblique gharāṇa (genitive) gharahā (genitive) gharẫ

As already stated, in Prakrit the genitive is employed instead of the dative, and thus forms the basis of the Marathi dative singular. The genitive plural is not used as a dative plural in Marathi, but it is the basis of the plural general oblique case. The Marathi singular general oblique case is really the same as the Marathi dative singular, but in the standard form of speech when so used the final s is dropped, gharās, as a general oblique case, being only found in dialects. This general oblique case is the result of the confusion of the various oblique cases originally distinguished in Sanskrit and in literary Prakrit. In Apabhraṁśa the genitive began to usurp the function of all the other cases. It is obvious that if it were regularly employed in so indeterminate a sense, it would give rise to great confusion. Hence when it was intended to show clearly what particular case was meant, it became usual to add, to this indeterminate genitive, defining particles corresponding to the English “of,” “to,” “from,” “by,” &c., which, as in all Indo-Aryan languages they follow the main word, are called “postpositions.” Before dealing with these, it will be convenient to give the modern Marathi synthetic declension of the commoner forms of nouns. The only synthetic case which is now employed in prose is the dative, and this can always be formed from the general oblique case by adding an s to the end of the word. It is therefore not given in the following table.

Masculine. Feminine. Neuter.

Meaning. Ear. Horse. Gardener. Bed. Fireplace. Mare. House. Horse. Pearl.

Sing.

Nom. kān ghōḍā māḷī khāṭ cūl ghōḍī ghar ghōḍễ motī

Gen. obl. kānā ghōḍyā māḷyā khāṭē cūlī ghōḍī gharā ghōḍyā mōtyā

Plur.

Nom. kān ghōḍễ māḷī khāṭā cūlī ghōḍyā gharễ ghōḍī̃ mōtyễ

Gen. obl. kānẫ ghōḍyẫ māḷyẫ khāṭẫ cūlī ghōḍyẫ gharẫ ghōḍyẫ mōtyẫ

The usual postpositions are:—

Instrumental: nễ, plural nī̃, by. Dative: lā, plural also nā, to or for. Ablative: hūn, ūn, from. Genitive: tsā, of. Locative: ~t, in. We thus get the following complete modern declension of ghar, a house (neut.):—

Sing. Plur.

Nom. ghar gharễ

Acc. ghar gharễ

Instr. gharānễ gharẫnī̃

Dat. gharās, gharālā gharẫs, gharẫlā, gharẫnā

Abl. gharāhūn, gharūn gharẫhūn

Gen. gharātsā gharẫtsa

Loc. gharẫt gharẫt

The accusative is usually the same as the nominative, but when definiteness is required the dative is employed instead. The termination nễ, with its plural nī̃, is, as explained in the article Gujarati, really the oblique form, by origin a locative, of the nā or nō, employed in Gujarati to form the genitive. The suffix nā of the dative plural is derived from the same word. Here it is probably a corruption of the Apabhraṁśa nāu or naho. The postposition lā is probably a corruption of the Sanskrit lābhē, Apabhraṁśa lahi, for the benefit (of). As regards the ablative, we have in old Marathi poetry a form corresponding to gharāhu-niyẫ, which explains the derivation. Gharāhu is a by-form of the Prakrit synthetic ablative gharāu, to which niyā, another oblique form of nā, is added to define the meaning. The locative termination ~t is a contraction of the Pr. antō, Skr. antar, within.

The genitive gharātsā is really an adjective meaning “belonging to the house,” and agrees in gender, number and case with the noun which is possessed. Thus:

māḷyātsā ghōḍā, the gardener’s horse. māḷyācē ghōḍē, the gardener’s horses.

māḷyācī ghōḍī, the gardener’s mare. māḷyācyā ghōḍyā, the gardener’s mares.

māḷyācễ ghōḍễ, the gardener’s horse (neut.). māḷyācī̃ ghōḍī, the gardener’s horses (neut.).

The suffix tsā, cī, cễ, is derived from the Sanskrit suffix tyakas, Pr. caō, which is used in much the same sense. In Sanskrit it may be added either to the locative or to the unmodified base of the word to which it is attached, thus, ghōṭakē-tyakas or ghōṭaka-tyakas. Similarly in Marathi, while it is usually added to the general oblique base, it may also be added to the unmodified noun, in which case it has a more distinctly adjectival force. The use of tsā has been influenced by the fact that the Sanskrit word kṛtyas, Pr. kiccaō, also takes the same form in Marathi. As explained in the article Hindostani, synonyms of this word are used in other Indo-Aryan languages to form suffixes of the genitive.7

Strong adjectives, including genitives, can be declined like substantives, and agree with the qualified noun in gender, number and case. When the substantive is in an oblique case, the adjective is put into the general oblique form without any defining postposition, which is added to the substantive alone. Weak adjectives are not inflected in modern prose, but are inflected in poetry. As in other Indo-Aryan languages, comparison is effected by putting the noun with which comparison is made in the ablative case.

The pronouns closely follow the Prakrit originals. The origin of all these is discussed in the article Hindostani, and the account need not be repeated here. As usual in these languages, there is no pronoun of the third person, its place being supplied by the demonstratives. The following are the principal pronominal forms:—

mī̃, I, instr. mī̃, myā, dat. malā, obl. madz; āmhī, we, instr. āmhī̃, obl. āmhẫ; mādzhā, my, of me; āmtsā, our, of us.

tū̃, thou, instr. tū̃, twā, dat. tulā, obl. tudz; tumhī, you, instr. tumhī̃, obl. tumhẫ; tudzhā, thy, of thee; tumtsā, your, of you.

āpan, self, obl. āpaṇa, gen. āpalā. This is also employed as an honorific pronoun of the second person, and, in addition, to mean “we including you.”

hā, this, fem., hī, neut. hễ; tō, he, that, fem. tī, neut. tễ; dzō, who, fem., jī, neut. jễ.

kōṇ, who? kāy, what? obl. kāśa; kōṇī, any one; kẫhī, anything.

In all these the plural is employed honorifically instead of the singular.

Conjugation.—In Prakrit (q.v.) the complicated system of Sanskrit conjugation had already disappeared, and all verbs fell into two classes, the first, or a-, conjugation, and the second, or ē-, conjugation, in which the ē represents the aya of the Sanskrit tenth conjugation and of causal and denominative verbs. Marathi follows Prakrit in this respect and has two conjugations. The first, corresponding to the Prakrit a-class, as a rule consists of intransitive verbs, and the second, corresponding to the e- or causal class, of transitive verbs, but there are numerous exceptions. Verbs whose roots end in vowels or in h belong partly to one and partly to the other conjugation. These conjugations differ only in the present and past participles and in the tenses formed from them. Here, in the first conjugation an a, and in the second conjugation an i, is inserted between the base and the termination.

The only original Prakrit tenses which have survived in Marathi are the present and the imperative. The present has lost its original meaning and is now a habitual past. It is also the base of the Marathi future. These three tenses, the habitual past, the imperative and the future, are conjugated as follows. They should be compared with the corresponding forms in the article Prakrit. The verb selected is the root uṭh, rise, of the first conjugation.

Person. Habitual past (old present), I used to rise. Imperative. Let me rise. Future. I shall rise.

Sing. Plural. Sing. Plural. Sing. Plural.

1 uṭhễ uṭhū̃ uṭhū̃ uṭhū̃ uṭhēn uṭhū̃

2 uṭhēs uṭhẫ uṭh uṭhā uṭhaśīl uṭhāl

3 uṭhē uṭhat uṭhō uṭhōt uṭhēl uṭhatīl

As in Rajasthani, Bihari and the Indo-Aryan language of Nepal (see Pahari), the future is formed by adding l, or in the first person singular n, to the old present. In the second person singular the l has been added to a form derived from the Pr. uṭṭhasi, which is also the origin of the old present uṭhēs. Some scholars, however, see in uṭhaśī a derivation of the Prakrit future uṭṭhihisi, thou shalt arise, and a confusion of the Prakrit present and future is quite possible.

The remaining tenses are modern forms derived from the participles. The verbal nouns, participles and infinitives are as follows:—

Prakrit (First Conjugation). Marathi First Conjugation. Marathi Second Conjugation.

Verbal Noun uṭṭhaṇīaṁ uṭhaṇễ, the act of rising. māraṇễ, the act of killing.

Infinitive uṭṭhiuṁ uṭhū̃, to rise. mārū̃, to kill.

Present Participle uṭṭhantō, uṭṭhantaō uṭhat, uṭhatā, rising. mārīt, māritā, killing.

Past Participle uṭṭhiallaō uṭhalā, risen. mārilā, killed.

Future Participle Active uṭṭhaṇaaḍō uṭhaṇār, about to rise. māraṇār, about to kill.

Future Participle Passive uṭṭhiavvaō uṭhāwā, about to be risen. mārāwā, about to be killed.

Conjunctive Participle uṭṭhiu uṭhūn, having risen. mārūn, having killed.

The only form that requires notice is that of the conjunctive participle. It is derived from the Apabhrarṁśa form uṭṭhiu, to which the dative suffix n (old Marathi ni, niyẫ) has been added.

Various tenses are formed by adding personal suffixes to the present, past or future passive participle. When the subject of the verb is in the nominative the tense so formed agrees with it in gender, number and person. We may note four such tenses: a present, uṭhatō̃, I rise; a past, uṭhalō̃, I rose; past conditional, uṭhatō̃, had I risen; and a subjunctive, uṭhāwā, I should rise. In the present, the terminations are relics of the verb substantive, and in the other tenses of the personal pronouns. In these latter, as there is no pronoun of the third person, the third persons have no termination, but are simply the unmodified participle. We thus get the present and the past conjugated as follows, with a masculine subject:—

Present, I rise. Past, I rose.

Singular. Plural. Singular. Plural.

1 uṭhatō̃ uṭhatō uṭhalō̃ uṭhalō̃

2 uṭhatōs uṭhatẫ uṭhalās uṭhalẫ

3 uṭhatō uṭhatāt uṭhalā uṭhalē

The feminine and neuter forms differ from the above: thus, uṭhatēs, thou (fem.) risest; uṭhalīs, thou (fem.) didst rise; and so on for the other persons and for the neuter.

It will be observed that, in the case of transitive verbs, while the present participle is active, the past and future passive participles are passive in meaning. The same is the case with the future passive participle of the intransitive verb. In tenses, therefore, formed from these participles the sentence must be construed passively. The subject must be put into the instrumental case, and the participle inflected to agree with the object. If the object is not expressed, or, as is sometimes the case, is expressed in the guise of a kind of ethic dative, the participle is construed impersonally, and is employed in the neuter form. Thus (present tense) mulagā (nom. masc.) pōthī vācitō, the boy reads a book, but (past tense) mulagyānễ (instrumental pōthī (nom. fem.) vācilī (fem.) the boy read a book, literally, by-the-boy a-book was-read; or mulagyānễ pōthīlā (dative) vācilễ (neuter), the boy read the book, literally, by-the-boy, with-reference-to-the-book, it-(impersonal)-was-read. Similarly in the subjunctive formed from the future passive participle, mulagyānễ pōthī vācāwī, the boy should read a book (by-the-boy a-book is-to-be-read) or mulagyānễ pōthīlā vācāwễ, the boy should read the book [by-the-boy with-reference-to-the-book, it (impersonal)-is-to-be-read]. As an example of the subjunctive of an intransitive verb, we have twā uṭhāwễ, by-thee it-is-to-be-risen, thou shouldst rise. As in intransitive verbs the passive sense is not so strong, in their case the tense may also be used actively, as in tū̃ uṭhāwās, thou shouldst rise, lit., thou (art) to-be-risen. It will be noted that when a participle is used passively it takes no personal suffix.

We have seen that the present tense is formed by compounding the present participle with the verb substantive. Further tenses are similarly made by suffixing, without compounding, various tenses of the verb substantive to the various participles. Thus mī uṭhat āhễ, I am rising; mī uṭhat hōtō̃, I was rising; myā uṭhāvễ hōtễ (impersonal construction), I should have risen. In the case of tenses formed from the past participle, the auxiliary is appended, not to the participle, but to the past tense, as in mī̃ uṭhalō̃ āhē, I have risen; myā mārilā āhē (personal passive construction) or myā mārilễ āhē (impersonal passive construction), I have killed. Similarly mī uṭhalō̃ hōtō̃ (active construction), I had risen. The usual forms of the present and past of the verb substantive are:—

Present, I am. Past, I was (masc).

Singular. Plural. Singular. Plural.

1 āhễ āhễ hōtō̃ hōtō̃

2 āhēs āhẫ hōtās hōtẫ

3 āhē āhēt hōtā hōtē

The past changes for gender, but the present is immutable in this respect. Ahễ is usually considered to be a descendant of the Sanskrit asmi, I am,8 while hōtō̃ is derived from the Pr. hoṁtaō, the present participle of what corresponds to the Skr. root bhū, become.

A potential passive and a causal are formed by adding av to the root of a simple verb. The former follows the first, or intransitive, and the latter the second or transitive conjugation. The potential passive of a neuter verb is necessarily construed impersonally. The causal verb denotes indirect agency; thus, karanễ, to do, karavanễ, to cause a person to do; tyācyā-kaḍūn myā tễ karavilễ, I caused him to do that, literally, by-means-of-him by-me that was-caused-to-be-done. The potential, being passive, has the subject in the dative (cf. Latin mihi est ludendum) or in the instrumental of the genitive, as in malā (dative), or mājhyānễ (instr. of mādzhā, of me), uthavatē̃, I can rise, literally, for-me, or by-my-(action), rising-can-be-done. So, Rāmālā, or Rāmācyānễ, pōthī vācavalī, Rām could read a book (by R. a book could be read).

Several verbs are irregular. These must be learnt from the grammars. Here we may mention hōṇễ, to become, past participle dzhālā; yēṇễ, to come, past participle ālā; and dzāṇễ, to go, past participle gēlā. There are also numerous compound verbs. One of these, making a passive, is formed by conjugating the verb dzāṇễ, to go, with the past participle of the principal verb. Thus, mārilā dzātō, he is being killed, literally, he goes killed.

Literature.—As elsewhere in India, the modern vernacular literature of the Maratha country arose under the influence of the religious reformation inaugurated by Rāmānuja early in the 12th century. He and his followers taught devotion to a personal deity instead of the pantheism hitherto prevalent. The earliest writer of whom we have any record is Nāmdēv (13th century), whose hymns in honour of Vithoba, a personal form of Vishnu, have travelled far beyond the home of their writer, and are even found in the Sikh Àdi Granth. Dnyānōbā, a younger contemporary, wrote a paraphrase of the Sanskrit Bhagavad Gītā, which is still much admired. Passing over several intermediate writers we come to the period of the warrior Sivaji, the opponent of Aurangzeb. He was a disciple of Rāmdās (1608-1681), who exercised great influence over him, and whose Dāsbōdh, a work on religious duty, is a classic. Contemporary with Rāmdās and Sivaji was Tukārām (1608-1649), a Śūdra by caste, and yet the greatest writer in the language. He began life as a petty shopkeeper, and being unsuccessful both in his business and in his family relations, he abandoned the world and became a wandering ascetic. His Abhangs or “unbroken” hymns, probably so called from their indefinite length and loose, flowing metre, are famous in the country of his birth. They are fervent, but though abounding in excellent morality, do not rise to any great height as poetry. Other Marathi poets who may be mentioned are Śrīdhar (1678-1728), the most copious of all, who translated the Bhāgavata Purāna, and the learned Mayūra or Mōrōpant (1729-1794), whose works smell too much of the lamp to satisfy European standards of criticism. Mahīpati (1715-1790) was an imitator of Tukārām, but his chief importance rests on the fact that he collected the popular traditions about national saints, and was thus the author of the Acta sanctorum of the Marathas. Lāvaṇīs, or erotic lyrics, by various writers, are popular, but are often more passionate than decent. Another branch of Marathi literature is composed of Pāwāḍās or war-ballads, mostly by nameless poets, which are sung everywhere throughout the country. There is a small prose literature, consisting of narratives of historical events (the so-called Bakhars), moral maxims and popular tales.

In the 19th century the facilities of the printing press are responsible for a great mass of published matter. Most of the best works have been written in English by learned natives, upon whom the methods of European scholarship have exercised more influence than elsewhere in India, and have given rise to a happy combination of western science with Oriental lore. No vernacular authors of outstanding merit have appeared during the last century.

Konkani once had a literature of its own, which is said to have been destroyed by the Inquisition at Goa. Temples and manuscripts were burnt wholesale. Under Roman Catholic auspices a new literature arose, the earliest writer being an Englishman, Thomas Stephens (Thomaz Estevão), who came to Goa in 1579, wrote the first Konkani grammar, and died there in 1619. Amongst other works, he was the author of a Konkani paraphrase of the New Testament in metrical form, which has been several times reprinted and is still a favourite work with the native Christians. Since his time there has grown up a considerable body of Christian literature from the pens of Portuguese missionaries and native converts.

Authorities.—Marathi is fortunate in possessing the best dictionary of any modern Indian language, J. T. Molesworth’s (2nd ed., Bombay, 1857). Navalkar’s (3rd ed., Bombay, 1894) is the best grammar. The earliest students of Marathi were the Portuguese, who were familiar only with the language as spoken on the coast, i.e. with the standard dialect of the northern Konkan and with Konkani. They have since devoted themselves to these two forms of speech. For the former, reference may be made to the Grammatica da lingua Concani no dialecto do norte, by J. F. da Cunha Rivara (Goa, 1858). For Konkani proper, see A. F. X. Maffei’s Grammar (Mangalore, 1882) and Dictionaries (ibid., 1883). These are in English. Monsenhor S. R. Dalgado is the author of a Konkan-Portuguese Dictionary (Bombay, 1893).

For further information regarding Marathi in general, see the list of authorities under Indo-Aryan Languages. For accounts of Marathi literature, see the preface to Molesworth’s Dictionary; also J. Murray Mitchell’s “The Chief Marathi Poets” in Transactions of the Congress of Orientalists, London, 1892, i. 282 sqq., and ch. viii. of M. G. Ranade’s Rise of the Maratha Power (Bombay, 1900). For Konkani literature, see J. Gerson da Cunha’s “Materials for the History of Oriental Studies among the Portuguese,” in the Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Orientalists, ii. 179 sqq. (Florence, 1881). A full account of Marathi, given in great detail, will be found in vol. vii. of the Linguistic Survey of India (Calcutta, 1905).

(G. A. Gr.)

1 The name is sometimes spelt Mahrāthī, with an h before the r, but, according to a phonetic law of the Aryan languages of western India, this is incorrect. The original h in “Māhārāṣṭrī,” from which the word is derived, is liable to elision on coming between two vowels.

2 Shastri Vrajlal Kalidas, quoted by Beames in Comparative Grammar, i. 102.

3 See B. A. Gupte in Indian Antiquary (1905), xxxiv. 27.

4 For details see Dr Sten Konow’s article on Māhārāṣṭrī and Marāṭhī in Indian Antiquary (1903), xxxii. 180 seq.

5 For the explanation of these terms see Indo-Aryan Languages.

6 Abbreviations: Skr. = Sanskrit. Pr. = Māhārāṣṭrī Prakrit. M. = Marathi.

7 Fuller information regarding all the above postpositions will be found in G. A. Grierson’s article “On Certain Suffixes in the Modern Indo-Aryan Vernaculars,” on pp. 473 seq. of the Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung for 1903.

8 See, however, Hoernle, Comparative Grammar, p. 364.

MARATHON,, a plain on the N.E. coast of Attica, divided from the plain of Athens by the range of Pentelicus; it contained four villages—Marathon, Probalinthos, Tricorythos and Oenoe—which originally formed an independent tetrapolis and in historical times still upheld peculiar rites and legendary associations, chiefly connected with Heracles and Theseus. In the 6th century B.C. it served as a base for Peisistratus (q.v.), who owned much property in that district, for securing the rest of Attica. The plain derives its fame mainly from the battle in which the Athenians and Plataeans defeated the Persians (490 B.C.). The Persian force had been sent by King Darius to punish the Athenians for previous interferences in Asia and to restore their tyrant Hippias. It was probably by advice of the latter that the generals Datis and Artaphernes landed their troops, numbering perhaps 50,000, at Marathon. The Athenians, on the recommendation of their strategus Miltiades, resolved to meet this force in the open field, and sent out their full levy of 9000 heavy infantry under the polemarch Callimachus. They were joined on the way by 1000 Plataeans, but were disappointed of the assistance which they expected from Sparta. From their station at the head of the Vrana valley, which slopes down to Marathon plain, the Athenians for some days observed the Persian army, which gave no sign of proceeding to attack. After some waiting, Miltiades, who seems throughout to have played a more prominent part than his superior Callimachus, drew up the Athenian army for battle and charged down upon the enemy, whose line was formed on the level about a mile distant. The Athenian wings, whose formation had been made specially deep, broke the opposing divisions by their impact; the centre was at first overborne by the superior weight of the native Persians, but ultimately was relieved by the victorious wings, which closed in upon the Persian centre. The Persians were thereupon driven back into the sea all along the line, and, although the majority regained their ships, no less than 6400 were left dead, as against 192 Athenians. The Persian fleet, of which perhaps a detachment had been sent on before the battle, now sailed round Cape Sunium in order to effect a landing at Phalerum, close by Athens, and with the help of traitors within the walls to take the city by surprise. But Miltiades, who had suspected some plot all along, and had lately been warned by a signal on Mt Pentelicus which he interpreted as a message to the Persians, marched back the victorious army in time to defend Athens. The enemy, upon noticing his presence, did not venture a second disembarcation and retired straightway out of Greek waters. The details of the battle, and the Persian plan of campaign, are not made clear by our ancient sources, but reconstructions have been attempted by numerous modern authorities.

(M. O. B. C.)

The tumulus or “Soros” was excavated by M. Stais in 1891 and 1892. A slight previous excavation had brought to light some prehistoric implements, and it was supposed that the mound had no connexion with the battle; but it has now been discovered that the presence of those prehistoric objects was accidental. Underlying the mound was found a stratum about 85 ft. long by 20 broad, consisting of a layer of sand, above which lay the ashes and bones of many corpses; together with these were the remains of many lecythi and other vases, some of them contemporary with the Persian wars, some of them of much earlier style, and probably taken in the emergency from neighbouring cemeteries. It is conjectured with some probability that a large vase containing ashes may have been used as the burial urn of one of the Athenian generals who fell. There was also, in the middle of the stratum, a trench for funeral offerings about 30 ft. by 3; it contained bones of beasts, with ashes and fragments of vases. There can therefore be no doubt that the tumulus was piled up to commemorate the Athenians who fell in the battle, and that it marks the place where the carnage was thickest. A selection from the contents of the tumulus has been placed in the National Museum at Athens.

(E. Gr.)

See Herodotus vi. 102-117; W. M. Leake, The Topography of Athens (London, 1841), ii. 203-227; R. W. Macan, Herodotus, iv.-vi. (London, 1895), ii. 149-248; G. B. Grundy, The Great Persian War (London, 1901), pp. 145-194; J. A. Munro in Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1899, pp. 186-197. For the tumulus, Ἀρχαιολογικὸν Δελτίον 1891, pp. 67 sqq. See also Miltiades.

MARAZION, a small seaport in the St Ives parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, on the shore of Mount’s Bay, 2 m. E. of Penzance, served by the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901), 1251. A causeway of boulders and pebbles, thrown up by the sea and passable at low tide, unites Marazion with the insular St Michael’s Mount (q.v.). The church of St Hilary, destroyed by fire in 1853, had a very fine spire, which has been faithfully reproduced in the restored building. Unusual archaeological interest attaches to the churchyard. Its inscribed stones date from the 4th century, one being in honour of Constantine the Great. Another has Cornish lettering, which can no longer be deciphered; and there are British and Roman crosses. Market gardening and fishing are the main industries.

The charter attributed to Robert count of Mortain, granting lands and liberties to St Michael’s Mount, opposite Marazion, included a market on Thursdays. This appears to have been held from the first on the mainland. From it is probably derived the Marghasbigan (Parvum Forum) of the earlier and the Marghasyewe or Marketjew (Forum Jovis) of the later charters. It may be added that a Jewish origin has been ascribed to the place from the name Marketjew. It is certain that Richard king of the Romans provided that the three fairs, on the two feasts of St Michael and at Mid-Lent, and the three markets which had hitherto been held by the priors of St Michael’s Mount on land not their own at Marghasbighan, should in future be held on their own land at Marchadyou. He transferred in fact the fairs and markets from the demesne lands of the Bloyous in Marazion to those of the prior. To remedy the loss incurred by this measure Ralph Bloyou in 1331 procured for himself and his heirs a market on Mondays and a fair on the vigil, feast and morrow of St Andrew at Marghasyon. In Leland’s time the market was held at Marhasdeythyow (Forum Jovis), and both Norden (1582) and Carew (1602) tell us that Marcajewe signifies the Thursday’s market, which, whether etymologically sound or not, shows that the prior’s market had prevailed over its rival. In 1595 Queen Elizabeth granted to Marazion a charter of incorporation. This ratified the grant of St Andrew’s fair, provided for another on the Feast of St Barnabas and established a market on Saturdays. The corporation was to consist of a mayor, 8 aldermen and 12 capital burgesses. This corporation continued to administer the affairs of the borough until it was dissolved under the Municipal Corporations Act in 1835, when the property belonging to it was vested in charity commissioners. The chairman of the commissioners retains possession of the regalia. Of the fairs only the Michaelmas fair has survived and all the markets have gone. It is frequently stated that Marazion had formerly the right of returning two members to parliament, but that owing to its inability to pay the members’ expenses the right was lost. Under the Commonwealth an attempt was made to secure or recover the right, and two members are said to have been returned, but they were not allowed to take their seats. Remains of an ancient bronze furnace, discovered near the town, tend to prove that tin-smelting was practised here at an early period. Marazion was once a flourishing town, and owed its prosperity to the throng of pilgrims who came to visit St Michael’s Mount. During the first half of the 16th century it was twice plundered; first by the French, and later by the Cornish rebels. The rise and progress of the neighbouring borough of Penzance in the 17th century was the undoing of Marazion.

MARBLE (from Lat. marmar, Gr. μάρμαρος, shining stone), a term applied to any limestone or dolomite which is sufficiently close in texture to admit of being polished. Many other ornamental stones—such as serpentine, alabaster and even granite—are sometimes loosely designated marble, but by accurate writers the term is invariably restricted to those crystalline and compact varieties of carbonate of lime (occasionally with carbonate of magnesia) which, when polished, are applicable to purposes of decoration. The crystalline structure is typically shown in statuary marble. A fractured surface of this stone displays a multitude of sparkling facets, which are the rhombohedral cleavage-planes of the component grains. The beautiful lustre of polished statuary marble is due to the light penetrating for a short distance into the rock and then suffering reflection at the surfaces of the deeper-lying crystals. The durability of marble in a dry atmosphere or when protected from rain renders it a valuable building stone (q.v.); on the other hand, when exposed to the weather or the acid atmosphere of large cities, its surface readily crumbles.

Statuary and Economic Marbles.—Among statuary marbles the first place may be assigned to the famous Pentelic marble, the material in which Pheidias, Praxiteles, and other Greek sculptors executed their principal works. The characteristics of this stone are well seen in the Elgin marbles, which were removed from the Parthenon at Athens, and are now at the British Museum. The marble was derived from the quarries of Mount Pentelicus in Attica. Several large buildings have recently been constructed with this marble in London. The neighbouring mountain of Hymettus likewise yielded marbles, but these were neither so pure in colour nor so fine in texture as those of Pentelicus. Parian marble, another stone much used by Greek sculptors and architects, was quarried in the isle of Paros, chiefly at Mount Marpessa. It is called by ancient writers lychnites (from the Gr. λύχνος, a lamp) in allusion to the fact that the quarries were worked by the light of lamps. The Venus de’ Medici is a notable example of work in this material. Carrara marble is better known than any of the Greek marbles, inasmuch as it constitutes the stone invariably employed by the best sculptors of the present day. This marble occurs abundantly in the Apuan Alps, an offshoot of the Apennines, and is largely worked in the neighbourhood of Carrara, Massa and Serravezza. Stone from this district was employed in Rome for architectural purposes in the time of Augustus, but the finer varieties, adapted to the needs of the sculptor, were not discovered until some time later. It is in Carrara marble that the finest works of Michelangelo and of Canova are executed. The purest varieties of this stone are of snow-white colour and of fine saccharoidal texture. Silica is disseminated through some of the marble, becoming a source of annoyance to the workman; while occasionally it separates as beautifully pellucid crystals of quartz known as “Carrara diamonds.” The geological age of the marbles of the Apuan Alps has been a subject of much dispute, some geologists regarding them as metamorphosed Triassic, Liassic or Rhaetic rocks. Much of the common marble is of a bluish colour, and therefore unfit for statuary purposes; when streaked with blue and grey veins the stone is known as bardiglio. Curiously enough, the common white marble of Tuscany comes to England as Sicilian marble—a name probably due to its having been formerly re-shipped from some port in Sicily.

Although crystalline marbles fit for statuary work are not found to any extent in Great Britain, the limestones of the Palaeozoic formations yield a great variety of marbles well suited for architectural purposes. The Devonian rocks of south Devon are rich in handsome marbles, presenting great diversity of tint and pattern. Plymouth, Torquay, Ipplepen, Babbacombe and Chudleigh may be named as the principal localities. Many of these limestones owe their beauty to the fossil corals which they contain, and are hence known as “madrepore marbles.”

Of far greater importance than the marbles of the Devonian system are those of Carboniferous age. It is from the Carboniferous or Mountain Limestone that British marbles are mainly derived. Marbles of this age are worked in Derbyshire and Yorkshire, in the neighbourhood of Bristol, in North Wales, in the Isle of Man, and in various parts of Ireland. One of the most beautiful of these stones is the “encrinital marble,” a material which owes its peculiarities to the presence of numerous encrinites, or stone-lilies. These fossils, when cut in various directions, give a characteristic pattern to the stone. The joints of the stems and arms are known from their shape as “wheel-stones,” and the rock itself has been called “entrochal marble.” The most beautiful varieties are those in which the calcareous fossils appear as white markings on a ground of grey limestone. In Belgium a black marble with small sections of crinoid stems is known as petit granit, while in Derbyshire a similar rock, crowded with fragments of minute encrinites, is termed “bird’s-eye marble.”

Perhaps the most generally useful marbles yielded by the Carboniferous system are the black varieties, which are largely employed for chimney-pieces, vases, and other ornamental objects. The colour of most black limestone is due to the presence of bituminous matter. Such limestone commonly emits a fetid odour when struck; and the colour, being of organic origin, is discharged on calcination. Black marbles, more or less dense in colour, are quarried in various parts of Ireland, especially at Kilkenny and near Galway, but the finest kind is obtained from near Ashford in Derbyshire. From Ashford is also derived a very beautiful stone known as “rosewood marble.” This is a dense brown laminated limestone, displaying when polished a handsome pattern somewhat resembling the grain of rosewood; it occurs in very limited quantity, and is used chiefly for inlaid work. The black marble of Frosterley, Yorkshire, is another Carboniferous example which owes its “figure” or pattern to the presence of large corals.

With the rosewood marble may be compared the well-known “landscape marble” or Cotham stone, an argillaceous limestone with peculiar dendritic markings, due probably to the infiltration of water containing oxide of manganese. This limestone occurs in irregular masses near the base of the White Lias, or uppermost division of the Rhaetic series. It is found principally in the neighbourhood of Bristol. The arborescent forms depicted in bluish-grey upon this landscape marble form a marked contrast to the angular markings of warm brown colour which are seen on slabs of “ruin marble” from Florence—a stone occasionally known also as landscape stone, or pietra paesina.

British limestones of Secondary and Tertiary age are not generally compact enough to be used as marbles, but some of the shelly beds are employed to a limited extent for decorative purposes. “Ammonite marble” is a dark brown limestone from the Lower Lias of Somersetshire, crowded with ammonites, principally A. planicostata. Under the name of Forest marble, geologists recognize a local division of the Lower Oolitic series, so named by W. Smith from Wychwood Forest in Oxfordshire, where shelly limestones occur; and these, though of little economic value, are capable of being used as rough marbles. But the most important marbles of the Secondary series are the shelly limestones of the Purbeck formation. Purbeck marble was a favourite material with medieval architects, who used it freely for slender clustered columns and for sepulchral monuments. It consists of a mass of the shells of a fresh-water snail, Paludina carinifera, embedded in a blue, grey or greenish limestone, and is found in the Upper Purbeck beds of Swanage in Dorsetshire. Excellent examples of its use may be seen in Westminster Abbey and in the Temple Church, as well as in the cathedrals of Salisbury, Winchester, Worcester and Lincoln. Sussex marble is a very similar stone, occurring in thin beds in the Weald clay, and consisting largely of the shells of Paludina, principally P. sussexiensis and P. fluviorum. The altar stones and the episcopal chair in Canterbury Cathedral are of this material.

Certain calcareous metamorphic rocks frequently form stones which are sufficiently beautiful to be used for ornamental purposes, and are generally classed as marbles. Such serpentinous limestones are included by petrologists under the term “ophicalcite.” The famous verde antico is a rock of this character. Mona marble is an ophicalcite from the metamorphic series of the Isle of Anglesey, while the “Irish green” of architects is a similar rock from Connemara in western Galway. It is notable that some of the “white marble” of Connemara has been found by W. King and T. H. Rowney to consist almost wholly of malacolite, a silicate of calcium and magnesium.

A beautiful marble has been worked to a limited extent in the island of Tiree, one of the Hebrides, but the quarry appears to be now exhausted. This Tiree marble is a limestone having a delicate carnelian colour diffused through it in irregular patches, and containing rounded crystals of sahlite, a green augitic mineral resembling malacolite in composition.

Many marbles which are prized for the variegated patterns they display owe these patterns to their formation in concentric zones—such marbles being in fact stalagmitic deposits of carbonate of lime, sometimes consisting of aragonite. One of the most beautiful stalagmitic rocks is the so-called onyx marble of Algeria. This stone was largely used in the buildings of Carthage and Rome, but the quarries which yielded it were not known to modern sculptors until 1849, when it was rediscovered near Oued-Abdallah. The stone is a beautifully translucent material, delicately clouded with yellow and brown, and is greatly prized by French workmen. Large deposits of a very fine onyx-like marble, similar to the Algerian stone, have been worked at Técali, about 35 miles from the city of Mexico. Among other stalagmitic marbles, mention may be made of the well-known Gibraltar stone, which is often worked into models of cannon and other ornamental objects. This stalagmite is much deeper in colour and less translucent than the onyx marbles of Algeria and Mexico. A richly tinted stalagmitic stone worked in California is known as Californian marble. It is worth noting that the “alabaster” of the ancients was stalagmitic carbonate of lime, and that this stone is therefore called by mineralogists “Oriental alabaster” in order to distinguish it from our modern “alabaster,” which is a sulphate, and not a carbonate, of lime. Gypsum capable of taking a polish is found at Fauld in Staffordshire and in Italy and Spain.

The brown and yellow colours which stalagmitic marbles usually present are due to the presence of oxide of iron. This colouring matter gives special characters to certain stones, such as the giallo antico, or antique yellow marble of the Italian antiquaries. Siena marble is a reddish mottled stone obtained from the neighbourhood of Siena in Tuscany; and a somewhat similar stone is found in King’s County, Ireland. True red marble is by no means common, but it does occur, of bright and uniform colour, though in very small quantity, in the Carboniferous limestone of Derbyshire and north-east Staffordshire. The red marble called rosso antico is often confounded with the porfiro rosso antico, which is really a mica-hornblende porphyrite owing its red colour to the mineral withamite.

Fire marble is the name given to a brown shelly limestone containing ammonites and other fossil shells, which present a brilliant display of iridescent colours, like those of precious opal. It occurs in rocks of Liassic age at the lead-mines of Bleiberg in Carinthia, and is worked into snuff-boxes and other small objects. By mineralogists it is often termed lumachella, an Italian name which may, however, be appropriately applied to any marble which contains small shells.

The quarries of France, Belgium, Italy and Spain, not to mention less important localities, yield a great diversity of marbles, and almost each stone bears a distinctive name, often of trivial meaning; but in this article it is impossible to enumerate the local names used by marble-workers in different countries to distinguish the various stones which pass under their hands.

America possesses some valuable deposits of marble, which in the eastern States have been extensively worked. The crystalline limestones of western New England furnish an abundance of white and grey marble, while a beautiful material fit for statuary work has been quarried near Rutland in Vermont. A grey bird’s-eye marble is obtained from central New York, and the greyish clouded limestones of Thomaston in Maine have been extensively quarried. Of the variegated and coloured marbles, perhaps the most beautiful are those from the northern part of Vermont, in the neighbourhood of Lake Champlain. A fine brecciated marble is found on the Maryland side of the Potomac, below Point of Rocks. Among the principal localities for black marble may be mentioned Shoreham in Vermont and Glen Falls in New York. In 1908 the American States producing marble were, in order of value, Vermont, Georgia, Tennessee, New York, Massachusetts, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Maryland, California, Colorado, Alaska, N. Carolina, Kentucky, New Mexico, Utah, Missouri and Idaho. In Canada the crystalline limestones of the pre-Cambrian series yield beautiful marbles.

In India we find important quarries at Makrana in Rajputana,—a locality which is said to have yielded the marble for the famous Taj Mahal at Agra. In the valley of the Nerbudda, near Jabalpur, there is a large development of marble. The white marble which is used for the delicately pierced screens called jalee work is obtained from near Raialo, in Ulwar.

(F. W. R.*)

Petrography.—Marbles are uniformly crystalline, and hence have no bedding or schistosity which would tend to make them fissile, but are entirely massive and free from grain. The microstructure of pure marble is comparatively simple. In thin sections they are seen to be built up of somewhat rounded grains of calcite, fitting closely together in a mosaic; very rarely do any grains show traces of crystalline form. They are colourless and transparent, and are usually traversed by a lattice-work of sharply defined cleavage cracks, which correspond to the rhombohedral faces. In polarized light the colours are pinkish or greenish white, or in very thin sections iridescent because the mineral has a very strong double refraction. They may also be crossed by bars or stripes, each of which indicates a twin plate, for the crystals are usually polysynthetic. This twinning may be produced by pressure acting either during the crystallization of the rock or at a later period.

The purest marbles generally contain some accessory minerals, and in many of these rocks they form a considerable proportion of the whole mass. The commonest are quartz in small rounded grains, scales of colourless or pale yellow mica (muscovite and phlogopite), dark shining flakes of graphite and small crystals of pyrites or iron oxides. Even fine Carrara marble leaves a residue of this sort when dissolved in acid. Many marbles contain other minerals which are usually silicates of lime or magnesia. The list of these accessories is a very large one. Augite is very frequent and may be white (malacolite) or pale green (coccolite, sahlite, diopside); hornblende occurs as white bladed tremolite or pale green actinolite; feldspars may be present also, such as orthoclase, or more frequently some plagioclase such as albite, labradorite and anorthite; scapolite (or wernerite); various kinds of garnet; vesuvianite, spinel, forsterite, periclase, brucite, talc, zoisite and epidote, chondrodite, biotite, datolite, sphene and apatite may be mentioned as typical accessory minerals. The presence of metalliferous minerals such as galena, grey or red silver ores, zinc blende, antimonite, chalcopyrite, molybdenite, cassiterite, usually indicates impregnation by ore-bearing solutions, especially if these substances occur in workable quantities. The rubies of Burma are found in crystalline limestones and are constantly accompanied by precious spinel (or balas-ruby).

These minerals represent impurities in the original limestone which crystallized at the time that the marble became crystalline. The silicates derive their silica mainly from sand or infiltrated siliceous deposits; the alumina represents an admixture of clay; the iron came from limonite or hematite in the original state of the rock. Where the silicates bulk largely because the original limestone was highly impure, all the carbonic acid may be driven out and replaced by silica during the process of recrystallization. The rock is then a calc-silicate rock, hard, tough, flinty and no longer readily soluble in acids. They are sometimes fine-grained hornstones (known as calc-silicate hornfelses). Where white minerals predominate (wollastonite, tremolite, feldspar) these rocks may have a close resemblance to marbles, but often they are green from the abundance of green augites and amphiboles, or brown (when garnet and vesuvianite are present in quantity) or yellow (with epidote, chondrodite or sphene). Decomposition induces further changes in colour owing to the formation of green or yellow serpentine, pale green talc, red hematite, and brown limonite. Most of the coloured or variegated crystalline marbles have originated in this manner. Often bands of calc-silicate rock alternate with bands of marble, and they may be folded or bent; in other cases, nodules and patches of silicates occur in a matrix of pure marble. Earth movements may shatter the rocks, producing fissures afterwards filled with veins of calcite; in this way the beautiful brecciated or veined marbles are produced. Sometimes the broken fragments are rolled and rounded by the flow of the marble under pressure and pseudo-conglomerates or “crush conglomerates” result. In other cases the banding of the marble indicates the original bedding of the calcareous sediments. Crystalline limestones which contain much mica may be called cipollins; in them quartz, garnet and hornblende often also occur. The ophicalcites are marbles containing much serpentine, which has been formed by the decomposition of forsterite, olivine or augite. The much-discussed Eozoon, at one time supposed to be the earliest known fossil and found in Archaean limestones in Canada, is now known to be inorganic and to belong to the ophicalcites.

Many marbles, probably all of them, are metamorphosed limestones. The passage of limestones rich in fossils into true marbles as they approach great crystalline intrusions of granite is a phenomenon seen in many parts of the world; occasionally the recrystallization of the rock has not completely obliterated the organic structures (e.g. at Carrara and at Bergen in Norway). The agencies which have induced the metamorphism are heat and pressure, the heat arising from the granite and the pressure from overlying masses of rock, for these changes took place before the granite cooled and while it was still deeply buried beneath the surface. In 1806 Sir James Hall described a series of experiments proving this. He enclosed chalk in a gun-barrel securely plugged and heated it to a high temperature in a furnace. Carbonic acid was given off by the chalk and produced a great pressure in the interior of the tube. After slow cooling the mass was found to have become converted into granular crystalline marble. As rocks which have undergone changes of this kind are commonest in the oldest and deepest layers of the earth’s crust, most marbles are Palaeozoic or pre-Cambrian. They occur very often with mica schists, phyllites, &c., which were beds of clay alternating with the original limestone. Formerly it was supposed that some of these marbles were crystalline sediments or even igneous rocks, but the tendency of modern geology is to assume that they were ordinary limestones, many of which may have been fossiliferous. In regions where the sedimentary rocks have been converted into schists, gneisses and granulites, the limestones are represented by calc schists, cipollins and marbles. Often no granite or other intrusive rock is present which may be regarded as the cause of the metamorphism. The marbles are often banded or schistose, and under the microscope show crushing and deformation of the component crystals, such as would have been produced by the earth pressures which accompany rock-folding. These crush structures have been obtained experimentally in marbles subjected to great pressures in steel cylinders. In the recrystallization of these limestones the direct heating action of igneous intrusions may have played no part, but the rise of temperature and increase of pressure due to the folding of great rock masses have probably been the operating causes. This type of metamorphism has been distinguished by the name marmarosis (Sir A. Geikie, Text Book of Geology, 1882).

For descriptions of ancient marbles see F. Corsi, Delle pietre antiche (Rome, 1845); M. W. Porter, What Rome was built with (Oxford, 1907), and for marbles in general consult E. Hull, Building and Ornamental Stones (1872); G. P. Merrill, Stones for Building and Decoration (3rd ed., 1905, New York).

(J. S. F.)

MARBLEHEAD, a township of Essex county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., occupying a rocky promontory on Massachusetts Bay, about 16 m. N. of Boston. Pop. (1890), 8202; (1900), 7582; (1905), 7209; (1910), 7338. Area, about 4 sq. m. Marblehead is served by the Boston & Maine railroad, and by electric railways connecting with Salem, Lynn and Boston. It is a quaint old town, with a number of houses dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Among the older buildings are the Lee mansion (1768), St Michael’s church (P. E., 1714), and the old town-hall (1727), sometimes called Marblehead’s “Cradle of Liberty.” Abbot Hall (1877), the municipal building, also contains the public library and several noteworthy paintings, including “The Spirit of ’76” or “Yankee Doodle” by Archibald M. Willard. The post office and custom-house was completed in 1904. There are several parks (Crocker, Fort Sewall, Seaside, and Fountain), and an old burying-ground, in which many of the early settlers and a number of soldiers of the War of Independence (including General John Glover) are buried; and a granite monument near the railway station commemorates the taking of the British supply and powder ship “Hope” off Marblehead in 1776 by Captain James Mugford, who was killed during the fight. The commodious harbour, nearly landlocked, is formed by a rocky peninsula known as Marblehead Neck. On this are the club-houses of the Eastern and Corinthian Yacht clubs; and Marblehead is a popular yachting centre. The manufacture of children’s shoes is the principal industry. Shipbuilding, once important, has been superseded by yacht and launch construction.

Marblehead, originally a part of Salem, known as Marble Harbor, was settled about 1629 by English emigrants (probably mostly from Lincolnshire and Devonshire); later (after about 1700) many emigrants from the Channel Islands settled here, and to them the dialectical peculiarities of Marblehead have often (perhaps mistakenly) been attributed. Marblehead was separately incorporated as a town in 1649. In the colonial period Marblehead was an important commercial port, and at one time was one of the most populous places in Massachusetts. After the passage of the Boston Port Bill (1774) it was made the port of entry instead of Boston, but its merchants refused to take advantage of this opportunity and patriotically invited the Boston merchants to use their wharves and warehouses. During the War of Independence many “state cruisers” (chartered at the Continental expense) set out from this port, the most famous being the “Lee,” commanded by John Manley1 (1733-93); in November 1775 this cruiser captured the “Nancy” with military stores valued at £20,541, which were taken to the American army at Cambridge. The “Lee” was manned by fifty men of the “amphibious regiment,” which under General John Glover (1732-1797) rendered invaluable services to Washington in conveying his troops across the East River after the battle of Long Island, and later in ferrying them across the Delaware before the battle of Trenton. Marblehead furnished more than 1000 men to the Continental army. During the war of 1812 the sea fight between the “Chesapeake” and the “Shannon” took place (June 1, 1813) off the adjacent coast. Marblehead was the scene of Benjamin (nicknamed “Flood”) Ireson’s ride, immortalized by J. G. Whittier.

See Samuel Roads, jun., The History and Traditions of Marblehead (Boston, 1880; 3rd ed., Marblehead, 1897).

1 See Robert E. Peabody, “Naval Career of Captain John Manley of Marblehead”, in Essex Institute Historical Collections (Salem, Mass.) for January 1909.

MARBLES, a children’s game of great antiquity, wide distribution, and uncertain origin, played with small spheres of stone, glass, baked clay or other material, from one-third of an inch to two inches in diameter. The game was once popular with all classes. Tradition, both at Oxford and Cambridge, attests that the game was formerly prohibited among undergraduates on the steps of the Bodleian or the Senate House. There is a similar tradition at Westminster School that the boys were forbidden to play marbles in Westminster Hall on account of the complaints made by members of parliament and lawyers. An anonymous poem of the 17th century speaks of a boy about to leave Eton as

“A dunce at syntax, but a dab at taw.”

Rogers, in The Pleasures of Memory, recalls how

“On yon grey stone that fronts the chancel-door, Worn smooth by busy feet, now seen no more, Each eve we shot the marble through the ring.”

Defoe (1720) writes of the seer Duncan Campbell: “Marbles, which he used to call children’s playing at bowls, yielded him mighty diversion; and he was so dexterous an artist at shooting that little alabaster globe from between the end of his forefinger and the knuckle of his thumb, that he seldom missed hitting plumb, as the boys call it, the marble he aimed at, though at the distance of two or three yards.” The locus classicus on marbles in the 19th century is in the trial in Pickwick, where Serjeant Buzfuz pathetically says of Master Bardell that “his ‘alley tors’ and his ‘commoneys’ are alike neglected; he forgets the long familiar cry of ‘knuckle down,’ and at tip-cheese, or odd and even, his hand is out.” Many similar passages might be adduced to prove the former popularity of marbles with the young of all classes. In some rural parts of Sussex Good Friday was known as “marble-day” till late in the 19th century, since on that day both old and young, including many who would never have thought of playing marbles at other times, took part in the game. There was some traditional reason for regarding marbles as a Lenten sport—perhaps, as the Rev. W. D. Parish suggests, “to keep people from more boisterous and mischievous enjoyments.”