Satapatha Bramhana Part 03

SR No.: 007679
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 2382
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 45 MB

Page 540

INTRODUCTION.
1xxiii
after they have been stripped of certain adaptive modifications, imparted to them to meet the immediate purpose of the Atharvavedin. Not infrequently a stanza has to be rendered in some measure of harmony with its connection, when, in fact, a more original meaning, not at all applicable to its present environment, is but scantily covered up by the secondary modifications of the text. This garbled tradition of the ancient texts partakes of the character of popular etymology in the course of the transmission of words. New meaning is read into the mantras, and any little stubbornness on their part is met with modifications of their wording. The critic encounters here a very difficult situation : searching investigation of the remaining Vedic collections is necessary before a bridge can be built from the more original meaning to the meaning implied and required by the situation in a given Atharvan hymn. Necdless to say the only correct and useful way to translate a mantra in the Atharvan, is to reproduce it with the bent which it has received in the Atharvan. The other Vedic collections are by no means free from the same taint. The entire Vedic tradition, the Rig-veda not excepted, presents rather the conclusion than the beginning of a long period of literary activity. Conventionality of subject-matter, style, form (metre), &c., betray themselves at every step : the earliest ' books of the RV. are not exempt from the same processes of secondary grouping and adaptation of their mantras, though these are less frequent and less obvious than is the case in the Atharva-veda.
Obligations to previous translators: Weber, Muir, Ludwig, Zimmer, Grill?, Henry, &c., are acknowledged in the introduction to each hymn. I regret that the work was in the hands of the printer prior to the appearance of Professor Henry's excellent version of books X-XII? The late lamented Professor Whitney kindly furnished me with the
Grill's work, entitled, Hundert Lieder des Atharva-veda, second edition (1888), is cited as Grill?' My own six series of Contributions to the Interpretation of the Veda, are cited for the sake of brevity as Contributions.
* Les livres X, XI, et XII de l'Atharva-véda. Paris, 1896.
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