The text, as deduced from the best MSS. of the Sanhitâ text, can be controlled by four independent checks. The first is, of course, a collation of the best MSS. of the Sanhitâ text. The second check to be applied to the Sanhitâ text is a comparison with the Pada text, of which, again, I possessed at least one excellent MS., and several more modern copies. am aware, repeats this blunder. In ix. 86, 34, the writer of the same MS. puts ragasi instead of dhâvasi, because his eye was caught by râgâ in the preceding line. x. 16, 5, the same MS. reads sám gakkhasva instead of gakkhatâm, which is supported by S. 1, S. 2, P. 1, while S. 3. has a peculiar and more important reading, gakkhatật. X. 67, 6, the same MS. P. 2. has ví kakartha instead of ví kakarta. A number of various readings which have been gleaned from Pandit Târânâtha's Tulâdânâdipaddhati (see Trübner's American and Oriental Literary Record, July 31, 1868) belong to the same class. They may be due either to the copyists of the MSS. which Pandit Târânâtha used while compiling his work, or they may by accident have crept into his own MS. Anyhow, not one of them is supported either by the best MSS. accessible in Europe, or by any passage in the Prâtisâkhya. The third check was a comparison of this text with Sâyana's commentary, or rather with the text which is presupposed by that commentary. In the few cases where the Pada text seemed to differ from the Sanhitâ text, a note was added to that effect, in the various readings of my edition; and the same was done, at least in all important cases, where Sâyana clearly followed a text at variance with our own. The fourth check was a comparison of any doubtful passage with the numerous passages quoted in the Prâtisâkhya. These were the principles by which I was guided in the critical restoration of the text of the Rigveda, and I believe I may say that the text as printed by me is more correct than any MS. now accessible, more trustworthy than the text followed by Sâyana, and in all important points identically the same with that text which the authors of the Prâtisâkhya followed in their critical researches in the fifth or sixth century before our era. I believe that starting from that date our text of the Veda is better authenticated, and supported by a more perfect apparatus criticus, than the text of any Greek or Latin author, and I do not think that diplomatic criticism can ever go beyond what has been achieved in the constitution of the text of the Vedic hymns. Far be it from me to say that the editio princeps of the text thus constituted was printed without mistakes. But most of these mistakes are mistakes which no attentive reader could fail to detect. Cases like ii. 35, 1, where gógishat instead of góshishat was printed three times, so as to perplex even Professor Roth, or ii. 12, 14, where sasamânám occurs three times instead of sasamânám, are, I believe, of rare occurrence. Nor do I think that, unless some quite unexpected discoveries are made, there ever will be a new critical edition, or, as we call it in Germany, a new recension of the hymns of the Rig-veda. If by collating new MSS., or by a careful study of the Prâtisâkhya, or by conjectural emendations, a more correct text could have been produced, we may be certain that a critical scholar like Professor Aufrecht would have given us such a text. But after carefully collating several MSS. of Professor Wilson's collection, and after enjoying the advantage of Professor Weber's assistance in collating the MSS. of the Royal Library at Berlin, and after a minute study of the Prâtisâkhya, he frankly states that in the text of the Rig-veda, transcribed in Roman letters, which he printed at Berlin, he followed my edition, and that he had to correct but a small number of misprints. For the two Mandalas which I had not yet published, I lent him the very MSS. on which my edition is founded; and there will be accordingly but few passages in these two concluding Mandalas, which I have still to publish, where the text will materially differ from that of his Romanised transcript. No one, I should think, who is at all acquainted with the rules of diplomatic criticism, would easily bring himself to touch a text resting on such authorities as the text of the Rig-veda. What would a Greek scholar give, if he could say of Homer that his text was in every word, in every syllable, in every vowel, in every accent, the same as the text used by Peisistratos in the sixth century B.C.! A text thus preserved in its integrity for so many centuries, must remain for ever the authoritative text of the Veda. To remove, for instance, the hymns 49-59 in the eighth Mandala from their proper place, or count them by themselves as Vâlakhilya* hymns, seems to me little short of a critical sacrilege. Why Sâyana does not explain these hymns, I con *The earliest interpretation of the name Vâlakhilya is found in the Taittirîya-âranyaka i. 23. We are told that Pragâpati created the world, and in the process of creation the following interlude occurs: sa tapo 'tapyata. sa tapas taptvâ sarîram adhûnuta. tasya yan mâmsam âsît tato 'runâh ketavo vâtarasanâ rishaya udatishthan. ye nakhâh, te vaikhânasâh. ye bâlâh, te bâlakhilyâh. He burned with emotion. Having burnt with emotion, he shook his body. From what was his flesh, the Rishis, called Arunas, Ketus, and Vâtarasanas, sprang forth. His nails became the Vaikhânasas, his hairs the Bâlakhilyas. The author of this allegory therefore took bâla or vâla in vâlakhilya, not in the sense of child, but identified it with bâla, hair. The commentator remarks with regard to tapas: nâtra tapa upavâsâdirûpam, kimtu srashtavyam vastu kîdrisam iti paryâlokanarûpam. fess I do not know*; but whatever the reason was, it was not because they did not exist at his time, or because he thought them spurious. They are regularly counted in Kâtyâyana's Sarvânukrama, though here the same accident has happened. One commentator, Shadgurusishya, the one most commonly used, does not explain them; but another commentator, Gagannâtha, does explain them, exactly as they occur in the Sarvânukrama, only leaving out hymn 58. That these hymns had something peculiar in the eyes of native scholars, is clear enough. They may for a time have formed a separate collection, they may have been considered of more modern origin. I shall go even further than those who remove these hymns from the place which they have occupied for more than two thousand years. I admit they disturb the regularity both of the Mandala and the Ashtaka divisions, and I have pointed out myself that they are not counted in the ancient Anukramanis ascribed to Saunaka; (History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 220.) But, on the other hand, verses taken from these hymns occur in all the other Vedast; the hymns * A similar omission was pointed out by Professor Roth. Verses 21-24 of the 53rd hymn of the third Mandala, which contain imprecations against Vasishtha, are left out by the writer of a Pada MS., and by a copyist of Sâyana's commentary, probably because they both belonged to the family of Vasishtha. See my edition of the Rig-veda, vol. ii. p. lvi, Notes. + This is a criterion of some importance, and it might have VOL. I. C |