their purport, but he will not therefore be able to render it equally comprehensible to others, from the want of equivalents in his own language, or from those which are available failing to convey the same ideas: kavi, vipra, vidvat, medhávin, chikitwah, and many others, mean wise, intelligent, knowing; but we cannot make use of these adjectives in the way in which the original terms are employed, more frequently without substantives than with them; becoming appellative titles, or names: still more difficult is it to devise equivalents for compound terms, and especially those which it is sometimes doubtful how to deal with, and whether to consider them as epithets or proper names, more particularly when they may, in the opinion of the Scholiasts, be variously explained: thus, Satakratu is an appellative epithet of INDRA, implying either, one to whom many sacrifices are offered; one who is the instigator of many sacred rites; or one by whom many great actions have been performed. Again, Játavedas is sometimes a name, sometimes an epithet of AGNI; it may mean, according to the commentators, he by whom knowledge was acquired at his birth; he by whom all that has been born is known; he who is known to be one with all beings; or he from or by whom all wealth is generated: these are awkward terms to encounter, not because they cannot be comprehended, but because, unless given untranslated as proper names, they can only be parenthetically rendered, at least in English and in French; the facility of forming compounds in

German, and the hardihood of German translators, give that language an advantage in these respects.

Still, however, these are but slight obstacles, and will be overcome in proportion to the skill of the translator, and his command of his own language, as well as of that from which he translates: it may not be always possible to devise unexceptionable and felicitous equivalents for such expressions, but they may be so rendered as to convey with some degree of accuracy the substance of the text: the more unmanageable difficulties are those which are utterly insuperable except by guess they are not the perplexities of commission, but of omission: not the words or phrases that are given, but those that are left out the constant recurrence of the abuse of ellipsis and metonymy, requiring not only words, but sometimes sentences, to be supplied by comment or conjecture, before any definite meaning can be given to the expressions that occur:-thus, as already observed, the substantive is very often omitted and the adjective does double duty: the first verse of the second Ashtaka offers an example: it beginsraghu-manyavah-"Oh ye of little wrath;" "Ye who are gentle, mild-tempered;" but who they are that are so saluted, does not appear. The Scholiast says, mild-tempered priests, and it would not be easy to suggest a preferable application of the epithet, although if not traditional it is only conjectural. It may not always require extraordinary ingenuity to hit upon what is intended by such elliptical expressions from correlative terms or context; but

such a mode of interpretation by European scholars, whose ordinary train of thinking runs in a very different channel from that of Indian scholarship, can scarcely claim equal authority with the latter: it may be happier; it may be more rational:-still it is not that which has been accepted for centuries by critics of indisputable learning in their own department of knowledge.

As many instances of this elliptical construction have been given in the notes of both this and the former volume, a few additional instances will here be sufficient :-thus, (p. 301, v. 9) we have "the grandson of the waters has ascended above the crooked ;""the broad and golden spread around." What would the European scholar do here without the Scholiast? He might, perhaps, suspect that the term crooked, curved, or bent, or, as here explained, crooked-going, tortuous, might apply to the clouds, but he would hesitate as to what he should attach the other epithets to, and the original author alone could say with confidence that he meant rivers,' which thenceforward became the traditional and admitted explanation, and is, accordingly, so supplied by the Scholiast.

The object as well as the subject is very frequently omitted. Thus we have (p. 29, v. 5), "thou removest all of men;" according to the Scholiast, "the sins of men:" again (p. 33, v. 4), "thou to pieces;" where something like 'enemies' has to be supplied: and (in p. 2, v. 3) INDRA and PARVATA are solicited "to whet or

cuttest

sharpen our a European commentator would most probably fill up the blank with 'spears or swords' we are indebted to the native Scholiast for the mooe appropriate accusative, intellects.'

An equally frequent ellipse is that of the verb, as (p. 6, v. 14) "may our offerings be acceptable to the gods, and with both," that is, according to Sayaña, "may they be pleased or propitiated" by both "our offerings and praises." Again (p. 20, v. 2), “with by the priests thee" requires

prayers something like 'recited' and 'adore' to make any sense at all again (p. 25, v. 3), "AGNI having his abode on high places to pious rites," obviously requires comes;' and "those, who, desiring his friendship the lord of a city with good government" (p. 165, v. 10), is made intelligible by the commentator's adding, 'conciliate' the lord of a city who administers' good government; instances of this kind are innumerable.

Another source of perplexity which is not uncommon, and which is also a sort of ellipse, is the abuse of metonymy: thus, we have (p. 303, v. 1) "This libation consists of the cow, and has been

filtered by the sheep." A European translator might suspect that for cow, we should read, the products of the cow-milk and butter, but he ought to be thankful to the commentator for explaining to him that the Soma juice was cleansed by being passed through a filter made of the wool of the sheep, the animal being here put for his skin.

To these sources of difficulty others less peculiar,

but for the elucidation of which an authentic gloss is no less desirable, are to be added; such as those of involved and complex construction, such as is common in all metrical compositions; and the use of terms of a figurative and allegorical import. In this class of words, the cow makes a great figure, and we have typified by her a variety of persons and things bestowing benefits, in like manner as she yields milk; as the earth, the institutor of a sacrifice with his wife, and especially the clouds, that shed rain withholding which, they are fabled, as the cows of the saintly Angirasas, to have been stolen by an Asura and rescued by Indra. These, however, are nothing more than usual in mythological writings, and are by no means so embarrassing as the elliptical omission of words indispensable to a complete sentence and perfect signification, originating, no doubt, in the method by which the hymus of the Veda were first communicated to the disciples of the teacher, and were afterwards transmitted, -oral communication; it being easy for the author himself to supply the deficient words or sentences, and convey to his auditors all that he would have them understand. How far his lecture and amplification may have been preserved uncorrupted through successive generations until they reached Yáska, and eventually Sáyaña, may be reasonably liable to question, but that the explanations of these Scholiasts were not arbitrary, but were such as had been established by the practice of preceding schools and were generally current at their several eras,