Hymns from the Rigveda
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Cjjt Jptjrarlment of public $K#trutitoir, Humbug* HYMNS FROM THE RIGVEDA, EDITED WITH SAYANA’S COMMENTARY, NOTES, AND A TRANSLATION, BY PETER PETERSON, M.A., Late Professor cf Sanskrit, Elphinstone College, Bombay; REVISED AND ENLARGED BY S. R. BHANDARKAR, M. Professor of Sanskrit, Elphinstone College, Bombay< Third Edition, 1000 Copies. Registered for Copyright under Act X X V • of 1867. Bombay: GOVERNMENT CENTRAL BOOK DKP6T. 1905. [All Eights Reserved] Price, Two Rupees Four Annas. BOMBAY SANSKRIT SERIES, NO- XXXVh BOMBAY: T^BINHE-D -AT* THE. EDUCATION SOCIETY’S PRESS, BYCULLA. A CORRECTION, The note on pp. 148-9 should be read after the introductory portion (p. 149) of Sayana^ Commentary on iv., 54. PREFACES. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. B eyond a few most necessary corrections, the princi pal change made in this edition, is the use o f diacritical marks (except in the original prefaces). Dr. Peterson seemed to have unnecessarily had a prejudice against them. But surely, if such familiar European names as those of Max Muller and Biihler are not to go without them, such names as Sayana and $ayu, and other ordinary words foreign to Europe stand in need of them much more. The original notes have, however, been supplemented by a few new ones. These have been drawn from Pischel and Geldner's Yedische Studien (3 vols.)*, Vedic Hymns (Parts i. and ii.) in the Sacred Books of the East, Muir’s Sanskrit Texts (5 vols)., Whitney’s Grammar, Lanman’s Noun-inflection in the Veda, and other works. The new notes have been enclosed in square brackets, as is sometimes done, under similar circumstances, in the case o f annotated editions of the English Classics. I have also followed another practice very frequently observed in these editions, and added an index of words and passages explained, in the notes. This index as well as the index o f deities and a list of books in English likely to be useful to the student, these also being now added for the first time, will, I hope, be found to render the book more helpful. * The first two vols. of this work appeared before the publication of the 2nd ecition of this Selection and the third has appeared since. 453473 PREFACES. The English translation I have not interfered with at all. It may not in places be as close to the original as one would wish. But a student who has mastered the the notes does not stand in need of such closeness. The translation is sufficiently well done for its purpose, and by such a writer of very good English, as Dr. Peter son was so well-known to be. I did not, therefore, like to spoil its effect by any changes of mine. The quotations made from Whitney’s Grammar in the previous editions of this selection were from the first edition. Some of the paras, quoted were, however, in the second edition of that book so altered and expanded as to exceed the legitimate limits of quotation. In such cases the first form, which was serviceable enough, has been retained and the edition specified. Lastly, I have to thank very much the Rev. Father A . Hegglin, S.J., Professor of Sanskrit, St. Xavier’s College, Bombay, for very kindly looking over my renderings and abridgments of notes from the German. S. R. B H A X D A R K A R . Bom bay, 28th January 1905. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. T h e Hymns from the Rigveda in this volume are those appointed to be read by candidates for the degree of B. A. in the University of Bombay ; and the book is little more than an attempt to famish students here with the material without which anything like a full study, or commencement of study, of the Rigveda is PREFACES. Ill hardly now practicable. I hope it may be accepted as* a text-book in other Universities, in India or elsewhere, where Sanskrit is studied. But my primary object has been to fulfil a pledge, given I do not like to think how long ago, when I induced the University of Bombay to lead the way in making some knowledge at least of the Rigveda part of the ordinary qualification for a degree in Sanskrit. Editing the text of the Hymns is almost, if not altogether, a matter of correcting printer's proofs. I hope this has been done with due care. I have followed Hillebrandt in printing the hymns in such a way as to bring their true metrical character before the eye. This may occasion some difficulty at the end o f a line, in cases where the original editors of the collection, if I may so speak, have written as one syllable what is really two, of which one belongs metrically to the one line, and the other to the next. But both in such cases and elsewhere the student should be taught, I think, in reading or learning the hymns by heart, to restore to the letters y and v their vocalic character. For the text of Sayana I have had the use of three manuscripts, one of which I have compared throughout with Max Muller’s text, while the other two have been constantly consulted. In a text-book of this kind I should gladly have contented myself with reproducing the text of the editio princeps. But that was not always possible. On the other hand, my manuscripts are as unsatisfactory as most of the manuscripts of Sayana made yet available appear to me to be. I cannot i v PREFACES.. set them up against the weight to be assigned to the text of Sayana as given by Max Muller from a collation of the manuscripts at his disposal. In these circumstances I have followed a middle course. The text of Sayana in this book is that of the editio princeps, except where I have seen reason to deviate from that. A ll such cases are, I believe, carefully noted, and the authorities are cited. But my notes for the most part pass over in silence cases where my manuscripts differ from Max Muller's, but not as seemed to me, for the better. The obligations my book is under to Max Miiller, the St. Petersburg Dictionary, Muir’s Sanskrit Texts, Geldner and Kaegi’s Siebenzig Lieder, Grassmann’s Dictionary and Translation, Ludwig’s Translation, are, I hope, apparent everywhere on the surface. I have given throughout references to Whitney’s Sanskrit Grammar, a book which must be useful to every student of the Rigveda, and which is indispensable to those who are trying to study it without a teacher. I hope that my friend, Professor Whitney, will not find fault with me for thinking that I could not better furnish my students with the main facts o f the accent in the Rigveda than by the extract from his book presented here as ail Appendix to my Notes. PETER PETERSON. 23rd August 1888. PREFACES. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. T h e second edition of this book is, with a few cor rections, merely a re-print of the first edition, tt ought ?to have been stated in the foregoing preface to the first •edition that the manuscript which I compared through out with Professor Max Muller’s text was one from Satara, lent to me by my friend, Mr. Inamdar. My other two manuscripts were one from Ulwar, and one from the Bhao Daji collection in the library of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Of these three manuscripts the last only has been available for occasional refereace in preparing the second edition of m y boob. On the other hand, I have been able to con sult a fourth manuscript, from Kohlapore, which was lent to me by my friend, Mr. Apte. Where it is referred t o in the notes this manuscript is called K. In the preface to the second edition of his Rigveda {V o l. 4, pp. clxxxi— clxxxiv) Muller has made a series o f animadversions on my book, which I propose to notice shortly here. The passages in which, as he has shown, 1 have from want o f sufficient care reproduced from his book a manifestly false reading may be relegated to a mote.1 They are of no critical importance, and I confess 1 I do not possess the third and fourth volumes of the second •edition of . Max Muller’s Rigveda, and I was not aware of these animadversions until pp. 1 to 200 of this second edition of my book had been printed off. Some of the mistakes which Muller notes have •been corrected. Others, and some new readings I note here. - . At p. 87, 1. f* ( p. 90, 1. 3 ) . I would retain I do not know why Mlxller calls it an impossible form. At PREFACES. that I feel flattered at the way in which my honoured antagonist gloats over each of them. My real contro versy with Muller is as to the occasional necessity he has felt himself under of deserting all his manuscripts and1 printing in the text of Sayana an invention of his own. I took the first of the instances he gave (his first edition,. 6, x x x v ; second edition, 4, cxxxviii) of a case in which a change 61 of a bolder character” than usual was “ required! for a restoration of Sayana’s commentary,” and I endeavoured to show, in a letter which appeared in The Academy, June 23, 1888, that the violent altera tions made by Muller in the text of the manuscripts here were absolutely indefensible.