ignores the unity of the group of individual parydyas and throws previous citations into confusion.⌋
⌊Books xv. and xvi. consist wholly of paryāyas. Here, therefore, the case is not complicated by the mingling of paryāyas and artha-sūktas, and the Berlin text ignores the grouping[1] of the paryāyas, and treats and numbers each paryāya as if coördinate with artha-sūktas, and numbers the verses beginning anew with 1 for each paryāya (cf. p. 770, line 30).⌋
Whitney's criticism of the numbering of the Bombay edition.—⌊Whitney condemned, at p. 625, the procedure of the Bombay edition. In his material for this Introduction, I now find a few additional words on the matter, which may well be given.⌋
Each paryāya is reckoned, in the summations, as on the same plane as a real hymn or artha-sūkta. Hence SPP. is externally justified in counting, for example, the nine artha-sūktas and three paryāyas of book xi. as twelve hymns, numbering the verses of each separately; at the same time, such a deviation from the method pursued in our edition, throwing into confusion all older references to book xi. after 3. 31, was very much to be deprecated, and has no real and internal justification, since each body or group of paryāyas is obviously and undeniably a unitary one (see, for example, our viii. 10, and note the relation especially of its third and fourth and fifth subdivisions or paryāyas). In such matters we are not to allow the mss. to guide us in a manner clearly opposed to the rights of the case.
⌊Suggestion of a preferable method of numbering and citing.—It is plain, I think, that both editions are at fault: the Berlin edition, in ignoring the individual paryāyas in books viii.-xiii. and in ignoring the paryāya-groups in xv.-xvi.; and the Bombay edition, in ignoring the paryāya-groups everywhere. Moreover, the procedure of the Berlin text is inconsistent (p. 770, line 27) as between books viii.-xiii. and books xv.-xvi., the unity of the groups in xv.-xvi. being no less "obvious and undeniable" than in the example just cited by Whitney.⌋
⌊The purpose underlying the procedure of the Berlin edition was that all references should be homogeneous for all parts of the Atharvan text, not only for the metrical parts but also for the prose paryāyas, and consist of three numbers only. But, as between the paryāyas and the rest, it is precisely this homogeneity that we do not want; for the lack of it serves the useful purpose of showing at a glance whether any given citation refers to a passage in prose or in verse.⌋
⌊For a future edition, I recommend that all paryāya-passages be so numbered as to make it natural to cite them by book, paryāya-group paryāya, and verse. The verse-number would then be written as an exponent or superior; and, for example, instead of the now usual ix. 6. 31,
- ↑ As to what this grouping should be, see the discussion at p. cxxx, near end.
