________________
DECEMBER, 189)
BULLETIN OF THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA.
365
and trying to find out, for example, in the midst of Vedic surroundings, fully developed moon festivals. For those who composed these songs, Soma and Agni had long ceased to be the moon or the fire and had become aniversal principles of life, just as Indra and Varuņa had ceased to be the sky, and had become celestial kings, to be in turn drawn into and lost in the eddies of mystical speculation. The incoherences of the language of the hymns would have no meaning, if not this.
Here I could close the list of works on the Rigveda, the least pretentious of which serve some purpose. But, however, unwillingly I find myself compelled to return to the works of M. Regnaud and speak of them at some length. M. Regnand, like many others, feels very keenly the imperfection of the state of Vedic studies, and cherishes the very praise worthy desire of finding a remedy. But I must confess that he seems to me to be on a completely wrong track. In the previous Report (T. XIX. p. 127) I mentioned two of these essays, which have appeared in this Review, and tried to say in a few words all the good I could say of them, perhaps a little too much. I also took exception to some things, to which M. Regnaud replied on p. 318. In these criticisms of mine he imagined he saw the effect of advancing age, and from a motive of kindliness, for which I tender him my thanks, he expresses his regret that I have passed the age of fifty. This I regret I feel as keenly, perhaps more even than he, but I do not think that my years have at all affected my criticism of his work. Bat if I had any doubt on this point, M. Regnaud himself. would have removed it. On this same page 348 he has given us again a specimen of his method. He asks how the epithet hotri, the name of a class of priests, could have been given to Agni. The best means of learning this would surely be to investigate the functions of the hotri, to examine, with this end in view, the innumerable passages in which the word is found, to find out also if Agni has not other similar epithets, such as neshtri, potri, adhvaryu, etc. M. Regnand's method is more expeditious; he is content with knowing that the word "rests on two roots originally identical both in sense and form, meaning - (burn, shine, manifest) make to understand, 3 pour ont, scatter, etc.," and the thing is done. Frankly, I do think that even at twenty I should have been too old for a method like this. I am not able to review in detail, in this place, these Vedic studies, which are besides already quite fsiliar to the readers of this Review.co They consist uniformly of a "preface on method," as if there were & pecnliar method for the Rigveda) followed by translations of whole hymns or isolated passages. What this method precisely is would be difficult to say at a first view in a few words. We see chiefly that M. Regnaud claims to continue the work of Bergaigne; that the Rigveda has been little understood because varions bad systems have been applied to its interpretation; that this would be altered with a good system ; that the Rigveda is a primitive book, the most primitive we can imagine, one in which nothing is fixed, but in which everything, both ideas and language is in process of formation; that it also may not be primitive in its entirety, we must always take care to be in the vanguard, and be on the outlook against what perhaps will be the opinion current to-morrow), but that it is absolutely primitive in its materials, (bat where we are to draw these materials from is not said). All this is, at first sight, a little confased ;41 evidently the correct method is as yet only in its beginnings. As to translation, we see that on the other band this is very simple : we have only to depart as much as may be from our predecessors, to frame our etymologies according to linguistic theories which are not approved of, as far as I can see, by the students of language, and without any great care for the rudimentary principles of philology. It is not sound philology, for instance, to translate dakshina, by offering, which is not a ima neyópevov, beca ose it is certainly allied with the root dde-ins to give, make an offering, or in verse 7,4 to make parikshitos a simple adjective, with the meaning,"containing, enclosing," and further in the locative case from the mere desire of change, and contrary to all feeling for the usages of
- Rather "call"; the meanings which I have put within brackets do not exist either in classical Sanskrit nor in the Vedic language.
40 T. XXI. pp. 63, 801 ; XXII. p. 302; XXIII. p. 508 ;-XXV. P 65; XXVI. p. 48. 41 Though very well pat, M. Regnaud's powers as a dialectician are not in question here. +7 Ry. I. 123, 1. T. XXI. p. 70, das does not exist.
. 45 Rv. I 128, 7, ibid. p. 81.
