Dhammapada

SR No.: 007674
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Max Muller
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1881
Total Pages: 2540
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 45 MB

Page 831

INTRODUCTION.
xlvii
I need hardly say that I am fully aware of its shortcomings. My chief endeavour has been to translate as literally as seemed at all compatible with the English idiom. If, in consequence of this, many passages should be found to read somewhat awkwardly, I hope at least that the wish to follow the original as closely as possible, has not rendered them unintelligible. Those who have given any attention to the Brâhmanas and the sacrificial system of the Hindus, know how difficult the task is, and how easy it is to commit mistakes regarding the intricate minutiae of the ceremonial. The Brahmanas presuppose a full knowledge of the course of sacrificial performance, and notice only such points as afford an opportunity for dogmatic and symbolic explanations, or seem to call for some authoritative decision to guard them against what were considered as heretical practices. In order to enable the reader to follow the course of the performance with something like completeness, I have supplied in my notes the chief details from Katyâyana's Kalpa-sůtras. That not a few of these details did not belong to the sacrificial ceremonial of the Satapatha, but were the result of later development, or of an adaptation of sacrificial practices of other schools, can scarcely be doubted. Dr. Hillebrandt' is of opinion that sacrificial manuals, somewhat similar to the later Prayogas, must have existed as early as the time of the composition of the Brâhmanas. In the absence of any direct evidence, speculation on this point can scarcely lead to any definite results. I may say, however, that it seems to me quite sufficient to assume that the performance of sacrifices was taught as a practical art, and that the theoretic instruction, supplied by the Brahmanas, was conveyed orally in connection with such practical performances. That the latter was the case, is sufficiently evident from the constant occurrence in the Brahmanas of demonstrative pronouns and particles of a 'deictic' force 2.
I have occasionally referred to corresponding passages of the Taittiriyas: an exhaustive comparison of the two branches of the Yagur-veda, however interesting this might be, lay outside the scope of my notes. A general view of
Das Altindische Neu- und Vollmondsopfer. p. xv. * See, for instance, Sat. Br. 1, 3, 1, 7; 8, 2, 14.
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