Volume 1 - Sanskrit Web

XXX
Editor s Preface
form, and expansion, — a work which I have carried out with free use of
the pertinent matter in Whitney's Prati^akhyas (cf. p. cxxiii, note).
To revert to chapters 9 and 10 (on the divisions of the text, and on its
extent and structure), they are the longest of all, and, next after chapter
I (on the mss.), perhaps the most important, and they contain the
most of what is new. After putting them once into what I thought was
a final form, I found that, from the point of view thus gained, I could, by
further study, discover a good many new facts and relations, and attain to
greater certainty on matters already set forth, and, by rewriting freely,
put very many of the results in a clearer light and state them more convincingly.
The ell-brackets distinguish in general the editor's part from
the author's. If, in these two chapters, the latter seems relatively small,
one must not forget its large importance and value as a basis for the
editor's further studies.
With the exceptions noted (chapters 2 and 3), it has seemed best, in
elaborating this part of the General Introduction, to restrict it to the
topics indicated by Whitney's material, and not (in an attempt at systematic
completeness) to duplicate
the treatise which forms Bloomfield's
part of the Grundriss. Bloomfield's plan is quite different ; but since a
considerable number of the topics are indeed common to both, it seemed
better that the treatment of them in
this work should proceed as far as
possible independently of the treatment in the Grundriss.
The editor's special introductions to the eighteen books, ii.-xix. — Since
Whitney's manuscript contained a brief special introduction to the first
book, it was probably his intention to write one for each of the remaining
eighteen. At all events, certain general statements concerning each
book as a whole are plainly called for, and should properly be cast into
the form of a special introduction and be prefixed, one to each of the several
books. These eighteen special introductions have accordingly been
written by the editor, and are, with some trifling exceptions (cf. pages
471-2, 739, 792, 794, 814) entirely from his hand. The faryaya-\\ymx\s
(cf. p. 471) and the divisions of the fatyaya-maXenaX (pages 628, 770, 793)
called for considerable detail of treatment ; similarly the discrepancies
between the two editions as respects hymn-numeration (pages 389, 610)
and the /a;7a)'«-divisions (pages 771, 793) ;
likewise the subject-matter of
book xviii. (p. 813)
; while the supplementary book xix., on account of its
peculiar relations to the rest of the text and to the ancillary treatises,
called for the most elaborate treatment of all (p. 895).
The special introductions to the hymns :
editor's bibliography of previous
translations and discussions.—These are contained in the paragraphs beginning
with the word " Translated." — In the introduction to each hymn, in
a paragraph immediately following the Anukramani-excerpts, and usually