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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1880.
varasri-HariharamahArijasAmrajyadhurandharena again what I said the other day, when I had to Sayanacharyeņa virachite madhaviye Atharva- announce the discovery of Sanskrit texts in Japan, vedasamhitâbhâshye vedårthaprakåbe, &c., &c.). “It never rains but it pours." After we had been
The MS. is not very old, but may have been looking for years for a single MS. of Sayana's written within the present century. This justifies Commentary on the so-called Fourth Veda, the us in hoping that the missing portions of the same week brings us tidings of the discovery of Commentary may yet be found. But the portions two MSS. That a Commentary by Sayana or in hand being on the most important parts of the Madhava on that Veda had once existed could Atharva collection, I propose editing the Com- hardly be doubted, but in reply to repeated enmentary, incomplete as it is.
quiries addressed by me to my friends in India I From Sayana's introductory verses already always received the same answer, Non est inventum. quoted it also appears that he was different from The reason why I did not give up my belief in the Vidyaranya. Popularly SAyana and Vidyaranya
existence of such a Commentary was because, 80 are believed to be one and the same individual, far back as 1846, in some statistic accounts of Vedic and Sayana's Commentary on whatever work is literature sent to Mr. J. Muir, and published by called Vidydranya-bhashya. Sayana's respectful him in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, mention of Vidyaranya made in these verses now not only the name of the author of the Commenshows that the latter was a different individual tary, scil. Madhava, but the number of lines of his from Sâyana, and different again from Sayana's Commentary on the Sanhita and on the Brahmana Guru or Teacher, whom Sâyaņa constantly men- was mentioned-viz., 80,000 for the former, 20,000 tions and refers to in language worthy of the for the latter. That information seemed to me Divine Being only, under the name of Vidyâtîrtha- so important that I thought it right to call the Mahesvara.
attention of Sanskrit scholars to it afresh, parSHANKAR PANDURANG PANDIT.
ticularly of those who were exploring India in
search of MSS., and had it published therefore With reference to the above, we have received
once more in my Introduction to the Science of the following communication from Mr. S. P.
Religion, 1873, p. 109. But though my friends Pandit:
Dr. Bühler, Kielhorn, Burnell, and others have Since I wrote to The Academy, I have been follow
kept a keen look out for "S&yana on the Atharvaing various lines of search after the missing
Veda," and though rumours of its existence portions of Sayana's Commentary on the Atharva
reached them from time to time, nothing tangible Veda Samhitd, but regret that I have not yet
has ever come to light. So late as March 10, 1874, succeeded in obtaining any of the portions which
Dr. Burnell, that most indefatigable explorer of are missing in the MSS. already in my possession,
the ancient literature of India, wrote to me from except that on Kánda xi. This was obtained from
Mangalore :-"For the same reason I doubt the one of the sources which yielded the fragments
report of the Benares Brahmans to Dr. Muir about described in the letter given above. Further
an Atharva-Veda Commentary. I have so often search in the same places, thongh made with care
had tales told me quite as precise which I have as. and attention, has only made the hope of getting the
certained afterwards to be untrue that I am very needed portions of the Commentary less than ever
little inclined to believe mere assertions." (See likely to be immediately fulfilled. "It appears,"
Preface to the sixth volume of my edition of Rigsays my esteemed friend Mr. Narasimaiyengar,
Veda, p. xvii. note.) Now, at almost the same of the Mysore Commission, to whom I owe the dis
time that Mr. V. N. Narasimaiyengar discovered covery of the Commentary," heaps of Cadjan MSS.
the MS. in Nandi Nagari described by Prof. get spoiled and are thrown away into the Tunga
Shankar Pandurang Pandit, Dr. Bühler writes to bhadra river periodically! It is possible the
me that he had an offer from a learned Brahman missing parts were lost in the same way." I am
at Madras of a copy of Sayana's long-sought-for nevertheless hopeful that my enquiries in other
Commentary on the Atharva-Veda, written in the quarters may yet succeed, and we may some day come into possession of the whole Commentary.
Grantha alphabet. While the copy in Nandi SHANKAR P. PANDIT.
Någari is incomplete, that in Grantha is said to be Poona, 27th August 1880.
complete, so that Dr. Bühler hopes we may at last
obtain, not only the missing Kunt&pa hymns, but I have just read Prof. Shankar Pandurang also a more readable text of the nineteenth book of Pandit's able and interesting letter on the dis- the Atharva-Veda than that hitherto buccessible. covery of a MS. of Sayana's Commentary on the In the same letter (dated Ahmedabad, May 7, Atharva-Veda-sanhitd, and I feel tempted to say 1880) in which Dr Bübler informs me of the dis
The Academy, 5th June 1880.
