Volume 1 - Sanskrit Web

xxxii
Editor s Preface
a statement for each of them, grouping the verses into " Parts " according
to their provenience or their ritual use or both. An analysis of the
structure of the single hymn of book xvii. also seemed to me to be worth
giving. Moreover, the peculiar contents of the hymn entitled " Homage
to parts of the Atharva-Veda " (xix. 23) challenged me to try at least to
identify its intended references ; and although I have not succeeded
entirely, I hope I have stated the questionable matters with clearness.
I
have ventured to disagree with the author's view of the general significance
of hymn iii. 26 as expressed in the caption, and have given my
reasons in a couple of paragraphs. The hymn for use with a pearl-shell
amulet (iv. 10) and the hymn to the lunar asterisms (xix. 7) also gave
occasion for additions which I
hope may prove not unacceptable.
Other editorial additions at the beginning and end of hymns. — Whitney's
last illness put an end to his revision of his work before he reached the
eighth book, and reports of the ritual uses of the hymns of that book
from his hand are insufficient or lacking. I have accordingly supplied
these reports for book viii., and further also for x. S and xi. 2 and 6, and
in a form as nearly like that used by Whitney as I could; but for viii. 8
("army rites") and x. 5 ("water-thunderbolts "), the conditions warranted
greater fulness. ^ Whitney doubtless intended to give, throughout his
entire work, at the end of amivakas and books and prapatliakas, certain
statements, in part summations of hymns and verses and in part quotations
from the Old Anukramanl. In default of his final revision, these
stop at the end of book vii. (cf. p. 470), and from that point on to the
end I have supplied them (cf.
pages 475, 481, 516, 737, and so on).
Other additions of considerable extent.—Of the additions in ell-brackets,
the most numerous are the brief ones ;
but the great difficulties of books
xviii. and xix. have tempted me to give, in the last two hundred pages,
occasional excursuses, the considerable length of which will, I hope, prove
warranted by their interest or value. The notes on the following topics
or words or verses may serve as instances : twin consonants, p. 832 ;
aiijoydnais, p. 844; sit-^dhsa, p. 853 ; ditat, p. 860; dva ciksipan, p. 875 ;
the pitrnidhdna ("eleven dishes"), p. 876 ; vdnyd etc., p. ^^lO; sai'nqritya,
p. 886; on xviii. 4. 86-87; xix. 7. 4 ; 8. 4 ; 26. 3 ; 44. 7; 45. 2 (su/idr
etc.); 47. 8; 55. i, 5.
The seven tables appended to the latter volume of this work. — The list of
non-metrical passages is taken from the introduction to Whitney's Index
Verborum, p. 5. — The list of hymns ignored by Kaugika, p. loii, is
taken from memoranda in Whitney's hand-copy of Kau9ika. — The
1 It may here be noted that, for the short hymns (books i.-vii.), the ritual uses are given in
the prefi.\ed introductions ; but that, for the subsequent long hymns, they are usually and more
conveniently given under the verses concerned.