5. Readings of the Pada-pāṭha
These were reported in the Index, and have since been published in full.— As elsewhere noted, these have been reported in the Index Verborum in such wise (see Index, p. 4) as to enable us to determine the pada-form of every item of the Atharvan vocabulary. An index, however, is an inconvenient vehicle for such information, and the complete pada-pāṭha, as published by S. P. Pandit, is accordingly most welcome. Some of his occasional errors of judgment in the establishment of that text are pointed out by Whitney in the places concerned; but the pada-pāṭha has deeper-seated faults, faults which are doubtless original with its author and not simple errors of transmission.[1] Here again I may make a suggestion, namely, that a critical and systematic study of the palpable blunders of the pada-pāṭha would be an interesting and fruitful task. Even the pada-text of books i.-xviii. stands on a very different plane from that of the RV. (cf. Geldner, Ved. Stud., iii. 144). A critical discussion of its character is not called for here; but several illustrative examples may be given.
Illustrations of the defects of the Pada-pāṭha.—Verb-compounds give occasion for several varieties of errors. Thus, first, as respects accentuation, we find, on the one hand, incorrect attribution of accent to the verbal element (cf. v. 22. 11); and, on the other, denials of accent which are quite intolerable, as at xiv. 2. 73 (yé: ā́: agaman instead of ā॰ágaman) and xiv. 1. 9 (yát: savitā́: adadāt: where Çākalya resolves aright savitā́: ádadāt).[2]
Secondly, as respects details of division, we find gross violation of the rule. The rule (a very natural one) for compounds with finite verb-forms is that the preposition, if accented, is treated as an independent word and has the vertical mark of interpunction (here represented by a colon) after it; but that, if accentless (proclitic), it is treated, not as an independent word, but as making a word-unit with the verb-form, and is accordingly separated therefrom only by the minor mark of separation or avagraha (here represented by a circle). Thus in AV. i. 1, we have ní: ramaya and pari॰yánti. Such a division as ní॰ramaya or pari: yánti would be wholly erroneous; and yet we find errors of the first type at vi. 74. 2 (sám॰jñapayāmi), 114. 2 (úpa॰çekima), xiii. 3. 17 (ví॰bhāti), xviii. 2. 58 (pári॰īn̄khayātāi), 4. 53 (ví॰dadhat).[3]
- ↑ The pada-text of book xix., which swarms with blunders (cf. p. 895, end, 896, top), is clearly very different both in character and origin from the pada-text of books i.-xviii.
- ↑ If Whitney is right in supposing that vi. 1. 3 is a spoiled gāyatrī the first pāda of which ends with savitā́, then I believe that the accentlessness of sāviṣat is to be regarded as pointing to a false resolution and that the pada-text should be amended to ā́॰sāviṣat; but cf. vii. 73. 7 c and Çākalya's resolution of its RV. parallel.
- ↑ In some of these cases, the rationale of the error is discernible: cf. the notes, especially the note to xiii. 3. 17.
