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SEPTEMBER, 1882.]
of the most naturally suggested figures for the Chaos; but its inconsistency with the first verse is manifest. "A void covered (literally, as a vessel is covered with its lid) with emptiness" is a not particularly unsuccessful attempt to express the inconceivable; about as good as the old popular definition of Chaos, "a great pile of nothing, and nowhere to put it." Whether "fervor" (tapas), in the last quarter-verse, means physical heat or devotional ardor, penance, according to the later prevalent meaning of the word, admits of a question; but it is doubtless to be understood in the latter sense. For no such physical element as heat plays any part in the Hindu cosmogonies, while penance, the practice of religious austerities, is a constant factor in their theories. In the stories of their Brahmanas, it is told times innumerable how the Creator, desiring to accomplish or attain something, performed penance (tapo 'tapyata), and so succeeded. It is a grossly anthropomorphic trait; yet hardly more so than that with which the next verse begins: 4. "Desire arose in the beginning upon It, which was the first seed of mind (thought, intention)." That is, since desire precedes and leads to action in man, it must have done so in the creation likewise; 80 *kamayata, he felt desire,' is the introduction to most of the acts of Prajapati, the Creator, in the Brahmanas and Upanishads. The remaining line of the verse is obseure: "The sages (or poets) by devotion, found the tie of the existent in the nonexistent, seeking it in the heart." The verb here is in the same tense with those used in describing the processes of creation above; and so the verse seems to project, without any preparation, certain wise persons into the midst of the nonentity or its development; if something later, within our period, were intended, the tense should be the aorist. And wherever sat and asat, existence and non-existence,' are brought together, it is a mere juggle of words, an affectation of profundity.
4
MISCELLANEA.
THE DATE OF SAMKARACHARYA. With reference to Mr. Pathak's paper (ante, p. 174) on the date of Samkaracharya, I had sent a footnote-which however was too late to be printed with the paper-pointing out that, whilst Prof. Weber (Hist. Ind. Lit. p. 51, note) places the great philosophical reformer in the 8th century, it is to be noted that Prof. Teile (Outlines of the Hist. of Ane. Religions, p. 140) had, in 1877, given A.D. 788 as the date of the birth of Samkara. If he died in S. 742 or A.D. 820-21, he could only have been 32 years of age: an exceed. ingly short life for the work ascribed to him;may it not be that the one date or other is in
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But the next verse is still more unintelligible; no one has ever succeeded in putting any sense into it, and it seems so unconnected with the rest of the hymn that its absence is heartily to be wished. A mechanical translation runs as follows: 5, "Crosswise [was] stretched out the ray (line) of them was it forsooth below? was it forsooth above? impregnators were, greatnesses were; svadhd below, offering beyond." The word rendered 'offering' is literally 'forth-reaching,' and has sometimes also, as perhaps here, the signification 'straining, intentness;' which of its senses svadha has in the line, I have not ventured to determine. Who the 'they' are, unless the sages of the preceding verse, it is hard to guess. The second quarter-verse gives an indication of lateness, much more important than any other in the hymn; it has protraction (pluti) of the final syllable of each of the two clauses, signifying a balancing of the mind between two alternatives (mimáned). There is no other case of it in the Rig-Veda; but half-a-dozen occur in the Atharvan, and it is by no means uncommon in the Brahmanas.
MISCELLANEA.
The general character and value of the hymn are very clear. It is of the highest historical interest as the earliest known beginning of such speculation in India, or probably anywhere among Indo-European races. The attitude of its author and the audacity of his attempt are exceedingly noteworthy. But nothing is to be said in absolute commendation of the success of the attempt. On the contrary, it exhibits the characteristic weaknesses of all Hindu theosophy; a disposition to deal with words as if they were things, to put forth paradox and insoluble contradiction as profundity, and to get rid of anthropomorphic divinities by attributing an anthropomorphic personality to the universe itself. The unlimited praises which have been bestowed upon it, as philosophy and as poetry, are well-nigh nauseating.
error, or else that they do not relate to his birth and death, but to the commencement and end of his active career ?
EDITOR.
ON THE TRANSLITERATION OF SANSṚKIT. BY PROF. WHITNEY.
In this paper, the subject was presented substantially as below.
The question of the transliteration of Sanskrit is not merely a part of the vast and difficult one of representing alphabetic sounds in general by Roman letters; it has a quite specific and practical aspect: namely, how are the native Indian char
