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lxxii
UPANISHADS.
of the Rig-veda, which is presupposed by Sayana's commentary and even by earlier works, is in many places palpably corrupt, we cannot resist the same conviction with regard to the text of the Upanishads. In some cases the metre, in others grammar, in others again the collation of analogous passages enable us to detect errors, and probably very ancient errors, that had crept into the text long before Sankara composed his commentaries.
Some questions connected with the metres of the Upanishads have been very learnedly treated by Professor Gildemeister in his essay, 'Zur Theorie des Sloka.' The lesson to be derived from that essay, and from a study of the Upanishads, is certainly to abstain for the present from conjectural emendations. In the old Upanishads the same metrical freedom prevails as in the hymns; in the later Upanishads, much may be tolerated as the result of conscious or unconscious imitation. The metrical emendations that suggest themselves are generally so easy and so obvious that, for that very reason, we should hesitate before correcting what native scholars would have corrected long ago, if they had thought that there was any real necessity for correction.
It is easy to suggest, for instance, that in the Vågasaneyisamhità-upanishad, verse 5, instead of tad antar asya sarvasya tadu sarvasyåsya bahyatah, the original text may have been tad antar asya sarvasya tadu sarvasya bâhyatah; yet Sankara evidently read sarvasyasya, and as the same reading is found in the text of the Vagasaneyi-samhità, who would venture to correct so old a mistake?
Again, if in verse 8, we left out yâthậtathyatah, we should get a much more regular metre,
Kavir manishi paribhah svyambhah
arthân vyadădhāk khāsvătībhyah sămābhyah. Here vyada forms one syllable by what I have proposed to call synizesis ", which is allowed in the Upanishads as well as in the hymns. All would then seem right, except
Rig-veda, translated by M. M., vol. i, Preface, p. cxliii.
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| SR No. | 007670 |
| Book Title | Upnishad |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Max Muller |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1879 |
| Total Pages | 1835 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 35 MB |