paraphrase and expand, and partly in the hope of preserving, however imperfectly, something of the form of the Hymns, I have translated each verse by a verse syllabically commensurate with the original and generally divided into corresponding hemistichs.
The verses consisting of three or four octosyllabic lines are tolerably well represented by the common octosyllabic or dimeter iambic metre which I have employed. In other verses I have not attempted to reproduce or imitate the rhythm or metre of the original: such a task, supposing its satisfactory completion to be possible, would require more time and labour than I could spare for the purpose. All that I have done, or tried to do, is to show to some extent the original external form of the Hymns by rendering them in syllabically commensurate hemistichs and verses, as Benfey and the translators of the Seventy Hymns have done for a portion of the Ṛigveda, and Grassmann for nearly the whole of the Collection.
For further information regarding the Ṛigveda the English reader is referred to Max Müller's History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts, and Weber's History of Indian Literature; or if a simpler and more popular exposition be required, to Mrs. Manning's India, Ancient and Mediæval, or to Kaegi's Der Rigveda, of which an English translation has recently appeared. The student who reads German and French will, as a matter of course, consult Ludwig's great work Der Rigveda and Bergaigne's Etudes sur la Religion Védique.
To conclude, my reasons for publishing this work are chiefly these there is at present no complete translation of the Ṛigveda in English, Professor Wilson’s version—of which the last two volumes have only lately appeared—being “only a faithful image of that particular phase of its interpretation which the medieval Hindus, as represented by Sâyaṇa, have preserved,” and, moreover, the price of Wilson's six volumes—upwards of ninety rupees —puts the work beyond the reach of the great majority of readers in India.
