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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1894,
entirely. The edition of Rajendrala Mitra will be welcomed as the last, but not the least, of the many services which the illustrious Hindu has rendered to the study of the antiquities of his native land.
The treatises, which we have hitherto been speaking of, are properly manuals. Their aim is, not to explain the texts, but to catalogue and fix certain facts presented by the texts. Further, this aim is still more specialized. Each treats of a single Veda, more strictly of a single súkhá or recension of a single Veda, and they deal with them from the point of view of a single order of facts, of one discipline. Quite different is the Nirukta of Yaska. Under the guise of a simple commentary on an elementary dictionary, and though its immediate object is the etymological explanation of the words, it is really a treatise on general exegesis, where all the resources of interpretation are employed, and these explanations, though the Rigveda occapies the chief place, cover the whole of the Veda. Of all the works of this kind which India has left us, it is the oldest and, at the same time, the most comprehensive. The admirable edition, too, which Prof. von Roth gave us nearly half a century ago, marks one of the great epochs in the history of Vedic studies. The new edition, enriched with the commentaries and all sorts of matter derived from native tradition, which, Pandit Satyavrata Samabramin undertook in 1881 in the Bibliotheca Indica is now, I suppose, completed. 19 The fifth and sixth parts of the last volume contain the index and further a longer pieoe, Niruktálochana or "reflexions on the Nirukta," which is continued in the seventh, and is completed, I sappose, in the eighth, and in which the editor examines in detail all the qnestions which are connected more or less closely with the Nirukta. Satyavrata Såmasramin is a bhattacharya or doctor, and a sámavedin or follower of the Sámaveda by descent and profession. His training is founded, at least in the first instance, on the native tradition, and among living scholars, he is certainly one of the best specimens that the native system of education has produced. But at the same time he has a very open mind, in no way inaccessible to influences from without. It is hard to say how far he has a direct knowledge of the works of Earopean scholars. He mentions only Wilford, Wilson, Goldstücker, and Böhtlingk; for the edition of the Nirukota he bas used that of Roth. Bat we easily see that, directly or indirectly, he has made himself quite familiar with the chief results of their works. His position with regard to them is remarkably free and untrammelled. He criticizes them, adopts their opinions, or more frequently rejects them with complete independence. There is in him no trace of blind hostility, or of a gloomy and stern orthodoxy, even in face of those solutions which shock his most cherished convictions. He has gained a sufficiently clear notion of history and its requirements, and his evident intention is to use & strictly historical method and in this succeeds, but in his own way, though not without some misunderstandings (such as might happen even to European scholars), Lat with singular skill. His manner of explanation, moreover, though it is native, and on occasion uses the peculiar forms of Hindu logic, comes very near onr own methods. These “Considerations" if translated into some generally understood European language would make a very respectable appearance, and were very likely writter in part at least for Western readers. It would be a great pity if they were to remain unread here. They contain, in fact, a complete view of all the sacred literature of India, in broad ontlines (though abounding in details) from the point of view of Hinda, or rather Vedic, orthodoxy, by a native scholar, who is at once conservative and daring; and this summary, however strange its conclusions may sometimes appear, is so noteworthy, both for what it gives up and what it retains, that at the risk of wandering far from the Rigveda, and returning to it only after a long digression, I think it my daty to give at least a short summary of it bere. To save time, I shall confine myself to stating the views of the author without attempting to discuss them. I shall pass quickly over theories, which when stripped of their details are of importance only to Hindus; and even then the digression will be long enough.
11 The Nirukta with Commentaries, Vol. IV. fasc. 1.-VIII., Caloutta, 1888-1800. The eighth part, the last I suppose of the work, has been published, but has not reached me.
