MacDonnell II - Wilbourhall.org

viPREFACEa practical work ;IduI the exact source of any particularform can always be ascertained by reference to the largeVcdic Grammar. The grammatical usage of the other Vedas,when it differs from that of the Eigveda, is regularly explained.The reference isgiven with precise figures whensyntactical examples are taken from the Rigveda, but withabbreviations only (as TS. for Taittirlya Samhita or SB. forSatapatha Brfihmana) when they come from elsewhere.Syntactical citations are not always metrically intact becausewords that are unnecessary to illustrate the usage in questionare often omitted. The accent in verbal forms that happento occur in Vedic texts without it, is nevertheless givenif its position is undoubted, but when there is any uncertaintyit is left out. In the list of verbs (Appendix I) thethird pex'son singular is often given as the typical form evenwhen only other persons actually occur. Otherwise onlyforms that have been positively noted are enumerated.I ought to mention that in inflected words final s, r, and dof endings are givenin their historical form,not accordingto the law of allowable finals (§ 27) ; e.g. dutas, not dutah ;tasmad, not tasmat ; pitur, not ;pituh but when usedsyntactically they appear in accordance with the rules ofSandhi e. ; g. devanam dutah ; vrtrasya vadhat.The present book is to a great extent based on my largeVedic Grammar. It is, howevei-, by no means simply anabridgement of that work. For besides being differentlyarranged, so as to agree with the scheme of the SanskritGrammar, it contains much matter excluded from the VedicGrammar by the limitations imposed on the latter work asone of the volumes of Biihler's Enc//cloj)aedia of Indo-AryanBesearch. Thus it adds a full treatment of Vedic Syntaxand an account of the Vedic metres. Appendix I, aiioreover,contains a list of Vedic verbs (similar to that in the SanslritGrammar), which though all their forms appear in their