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. 5 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.[1] Whitney doubtless intended to give, throughout his entire work, at the end of anuvākas and books and prapāṭhakas, certain statements, in part summations of hymns and verses and in part quotations from the Old Anukramaṇī. 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; añjoyā́nāis, p. 844; su-çáṅsa, p. 853; āitat, p. 860; áva cikṣipan, p. 875; the pitṛnidhāna ("eleven dishes"), p. 876; vānyà etc., p. 88O; saṁçritya, p. 886; on xviii. 4. 86-87; xix. 7. 4; 8. 4; 26. 3; 44. 7; 45. 2 (suhā́r etc.); 47. 8; 55. 1, 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 Kāuçika, p. 1011, is taken from memoranda in Whitney's hand-copy of Kāuçika.—The
- ↑ It may here be noted that, for the short hymns (books i.-vii.), the ritual uses are given in the prefixed introductions; but that, for the subsequent long hymns, they are usually and more conveniently given under the verses concerned.
