IREEGULAEITIES
i,t giving
IREEGELAEITIEH
I have not aimed at supplying an elaborate commentary, but ot enough to explain the text and facilitate its use as a tiustw for further research. As the translation is for the use of scholars only, it is meant to be a close one in which every wmrd is accounted for. I have endeavoured to make it as clear and serviceable as pos.sible by the employment of parenthetical additions. Wherever I have been doubtful in difficult passages as to the interpretation, I have stated this in a note, leaving it to others to improve upon what I have been abh
13. Irregularities in the text of the
Metre. The Brhaddevata is composed for the most part in the aniistiibh metre ; but, like the other versified works attributed to Satmaka, it contains an admixture of tristubh stanzas, forty-three of which occur in different parts of the work.
It is to be noted that about ico instances of hiatus are found between the first and second pada of anustubh lines, or al)out one case in every ten slokas. Thus even initial a must somcjtimes be read after e and o (e. g. ii. 129 ; iv. 3 : but i. 54). The vowels are iiere for the most part run together in the MSS., and have to be separated in order to restore the metre, as in the case of the Yeclic Sarnhitas. Occasionally some of the MSS. remove the hiatus by the insertion of a particle. In such cases I have always preferred the reading with the hiatus. O wing to this loose connexion between the padas, I have separated the two luilves the line throughout the text (even in i. 30, 1 1 5).
There are several instances of anustubh padas, when they form t first half of the line, consisting of nine syllables In these cases the Ii always begins with two short syllables. There is one instance of second pada containing seven syllables only, but this is accounted lb: the line consisting of a pratika of the Kg-veda, which has to 'lie read with'vyuha^. Tristubh padas not infrequently have one Byllahle too many while others sometimes end iambically. This irregularity . is doubtless due to the fact that jagatl padas occasionally interchan
tristubh verses.
• •
Grammar. With regard to euphonic combination^, the Brlmddevata very usually does not contract a final a ot d with a following f ^ ; hiatus is not avoided even in the case of i®.
^ BB. ii. 25 ; iv. 102 ; viii. 68, 70 ; and one or two other instances as various readings.
® EJram uJcsanyam^e ; EV. viii. 25. 22.
® e.g. iii. 126, 127 ; viii. 99.
- I have followed the regular practice of the
MSS. in dropping vieai^ga hefore a sihlliiiit plus a hard consonant.
e.g
i. 18.
6
n.
- nmm tm
f K A A /
rn. m
