Page:Atharva-Veda samhita.djvu/36

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xxx
Editor's Preface

form, and expansion,—a work which I have carried out with free use of the pertinent matter in Whitney's Prātiçākhyas (cf. p. cxxiii, note).

To revert to chapters 9 and 10 (on the divisions of the text, and on its extent and structure), they are the longest of all, and, next after chapter 1 (on the mss.), perhaps the most important, and they contain the most of what is new. After putting them once into what I thought was a final form, I found that, from the point of view thus gained, I could, by further study, discover a good many new facts and relations, and attain to greater certainty on matters already set forth, and, by rewriting freely, put very many of the results in a clearer light and state them more convincingly. The ell-brackets distinguish in general the editor's part from the author's. If, in these two chapters, the latter seems relatively small, one must not forget its large importance and value as a basis for the editor's further studies.

With the exceptions noted (chapters 2 and 3), it has seemed best, in elaborating this part of the General Introduction, to restrict it to the topics indicated by Whitney's material, and not (in an attempt at systematic completeness) to duplicate the treatise which forms Bloomfield's part of the Grundriss. Bloomfield's plan is quite different; but since a considerable number of the topics are indeed common to both, it seemed better that the treatment of them in this work should proceed as far as possible independently of the treatment in the Grundriss.

The editor's special introductions to the eighteen books, ii.-xix.—Since Whitney's manuscript contained a brief special introduction to the first book, it was probably his intention to write one for each of the remaining eighteen. At all events, certain general statements concerning each book as a whole are plainly called for, and should properly be cast into the form of a special introduction and be prefixed, one to each of the several books. These eighteen special introductions have accordingly been written by the editor, and are, with some trifling exceptions (cf. pages 471-2, 739, 792, 794, 814) entirely from his hand. The paryāya-hymns (cf. p. 471) and the divisions of the paryāya-material (pages 628, 770, 793) called for considerable detail of treatment; similarly the discrepancies between the two editions as respects hymn-numeration (pages 389, 610) and the paryāya-divisions (pages 771, 793); likewise the subject-matter of book xviii. (p. 813); while the supplementary book xix., on account of its peculiar relations to the rest of the text and to the ancillary treatises, called for the most elaborate treatment of all (p. 895).

The special introductions to the hymns: editor's bibliography of previous translations and discussions.—These are contained in the paragraphs beginning with the word "Translated."—In the introduction to each hymn, in a paragraph immediately following the Anukramaṇī-excerpts, and usually