Art. IX.—On the Interpretation of the Veda

303 ART. IX.—On, the Interpretation of the Veda. BY J. MUIR, Esq. I AM led to make some remarks on the subject of this paper by a passage in Mr. Cowell'3 preface to the fourth volume of the late Professor Wilson's translation of the Big- veda, which appears to me unduly to depreciate the services which have already been rendered by those eminent scholars both in Germany and in England who have begun to apply the scientific processes of modern philology to the explanation of this ancient hymn-collection. Mr. Cowell admits (p. vi.),— " As Vaidik studies progress, and more texts are published and studied, fresh light will be thrown on these records of the ancient world; and we may gradually attain a deeper insight into their meaning than the mediaeval Hindus could possess, just as a modern scholar may understand Homer more thoroughly than the Byzantine scholiasts." But he goes on to say :— "It is easy to depreciate native commentators, but it is not so easy to supersede them; and while I would by no means uphold Sayana as infallible, I confess that, in the present early stage of Vaidik studies in Europe, it seems to me the safer course to follow native tradition rather than to accept too readily the arbitrary con- jectures which continental scholars so often hazard." Without considering it necessary to examine, or defend, all the explanations of particular words proposed by the foreign lexicographers alluded to by Mr. Cowell, I yet venture to think that those scholars have been perfectly justified in com- mencing at once the arduous task of expounding the Veda on the principles of interpretation which they have adopted and enunciated. This task is, no doubt—(as those who undertake it themselves confess)—one which will only be properly accomplished by the critical labours of many scholars, I may even say, of several successive generations. This is clear, if any proof were wanted, from the parallel case of the Old Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Biblio Université Pierre et Marie Curie, on 15 May 2018 at 07:19:29, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X0016112X 304 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THE VEDA. Testament; on the interpretation of which Hebraists, after all the studies of many centuries, are yet far from having said their last word. But what are those texts, and additional materials and appliances which Mr. Cowell desires to have within reach before we are to suffer ourselves to distrust the authority of native commentators, and to make any efforts to attain that deeper insight into the meaning of the Vedas which he feels to be desirable ? The Rig-veda, as every one admits, stands alone in its antiquity, and in the character of its contents, and must therefore, as regards its more peculiar and difficult portions, be interpreted mainly through itself. To apply in another sense the words of its commentator, it shines by its own light, and is self-demon- strating.1 But the whole text of the Big-veda Sanhita, has been already published with the commentary on the first eight books. The texts of the Sama-veda (which contains only a few verses which are not in the Eig-veda) and of the White Yajur-veda, have also been printed. It is true that only a part of the Black Yajur-veda has yet been given to the world, but there is no reason to suppose that it contains any very large amount of matter which will throw light on the real sense of the older hymns. Besides, we already possess in print the texts of the two most important Brah- manas, and a portion of a third, so that any aid which can be derived from them is also at our command. But even if additional materials of greater value than are ever likely to be brought to light were still inaccessible, why should not competent scholars proceed at once, with the very considerable means which they already possess, to lay the foundation of a true interpretation of the Rig-veda, leaving the mistakes which they may now commit to be corrected by their own future researches, or by those of their successors, when further helps shall have become available ? Ars longa vita brevis. I propose in the course of this paper to show, by a selec tion of instances from the Nirukta, and from Sayana's commentary, the unsatisfactory character of the assistance which those works afford for explaining many of the most difficult 1 See Miiller'sf Eig-veda, vol. i., p. 4, lines 21ff. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Biblio Université Pierre et Marie Curie, on 15 May 2018 at 07:19:29, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X0016112X ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THE VEDA. 305 passages of the hymns, and the consequent necessity which exists that all the other available resources of philology should be called into requisition to supply their deficiencies. But before proceeding to this part of my task, I wish to allow the representatives of the different schools of Yedic interpretation to state their own opinions on the subject under consideration. Professor Wilson professes to have based his translation of the hymns of the Rig-veda on the commentary of Sayana Acharya, who lived in the fourteenth century of the Chris- tian era, and on whose work he remarks that— "Although the interpretation of Sayana may he occasionally questioned, he undoubtedly had a knowledge of his text far beyond the pretensions of any European scholar, and must have been in possession, either through his own learning or that of his assistants, of all the interpretations which had been perpetuated by traditional teaching from the earliest times."—Introduction to Translation of Rig-veda Sanhita (published in 1850), vol. i., p. xlix. And in a note to his translation of the 10th hymn of the 1st Book {vol. i., p. 25) he observes, on certain proposed renderings of Prof. Roth and M. Langlois, that " Sayana, no doubt, knew much better than either of the European inter- preters what the expression intended." In the introduction to his second vol., p. xix. (published in 1854), Prof. Wilson returns to the subject, and. remarks, among other things, as follows:— "With respect to unusual words, there are no doubt a great number employed in the Veda, and it is possible that the lexico- graphic significations given by the commentators may be sometimes questionable, sometimes contradictory; but from what other authority can a satisfactory interpretation be derived ? It has been sup- posed that a careful collation of all the passages in which such words occur might lead to a consistent and indisputable interpretation; but this assumes that they have always been employed with pre- cision and uniformity by the original authors, a conclusion that would scarcely be tenable even if the author were one individual, and utterly untenable when, as is the case with the Suktas, the authors are indefinitely numerous : it is very improbable, therefore, that even such collation would remove all perplexity on this account, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Biblio Université Pierre et Marie Curie, on 15 May 2018 at 07:19:29VOL. II.—[NE, subjectW to SERIES.the Cambridge! Core terms of use, available at 20 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X0016112X 306 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THE VEDA. although it might occasionally do so ; at any rate such a concord- ance has still to be established, and until it is effected we may be satisfied with the interpretation given us by the most distinguished native scholars, availing themselves of all the Yaidik learning that had preceded tkem," etc. etc. Again in p. xxii. he says :— "The more unmanageable difficulties are those which are utterly insuperable except by guess: they are not the perplexities of com- mission, but of omission : not the words or phrases that are given, but those that are left out: the constant recurrence of the abuse of ellipsis and metonymy, requiring not only words, but sometimes sentences, to be supplied by comment or conjecture, before any definite meaning can be given to the expressions that occur It may not always require extraordinary ingenuity to hit upon what is intended by such elliptical expressions from correlative terms or context; but such a mode of interpretation by European scholars, whose ordinary train, of thinking runs in a very different channel from , that of Indian scholarship, can scarcely claim equal authority with the latter," etc. In regard to one of these elliptical texts, Prof. Wilson expresses himself very unhesitatingly when he says (p. xxiii.): " The original author alone could say with confidence that he meant ' rivers? which thenceforward became the traditional and admitted explanation, and is, accordingly, so supplied by the scholiast." In the following passage (p. xxv.), however, Prof. Wilson admits that it is doubtful whether these explanations had always actually come down from the age of the authors of the hymns:— "How far his" {i.e. the author's) "lecture and amplification may have been preserved uncorrupted through successive generations, until they reached Yaska, and eventually Sayana, may be reasonably liable to question; but that the explanations of these scholiasts were not arbitrary, but were such as had been established by the practice of preceding schools, and were generally current at their several eras, can admit of no doubt.

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