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DECEMBER, 1894.]
BULLETIN OF THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA.
367
ing and having confidence in them. We are next told that the word śruddhú,60 by which this sentiment is expressed in the Veda, has not this meaning, that theological61 faith is too abstract A notion, and savours too much of reflection for so early a book, where everything is simple, material, and tangible; that sraddha here means what it has never meant since the existence of language in India, "gift, offering." This M. Regnaud tries to prove by the Latin credere, "whose primitive meaning is, without doubt, to give, restore, trust;"52 by means of tuo signification of the roots élath, árath and áran, variants of árad..... which mean to send, restore, detach, etc.,53 by “the constant use of the derivative (or the variant)64 óráddha in the ritual and technical sense of a libation made to the manes :"65 in a word, by a succession of translations, which M. Regnaud looks on as "perfectly convincing," but which will be accepted by no Vedic scholar. If there are no gods, there must consequently be no prayers. And, in reality there are none: as he shews us further on, 58 not by a "detailed proof," which would be too long, but by a method of procedure 'which " very happily" leads to the same result av much less cost." Ninety-nine per cent. of the Veda has, it is true, very much the look of being prayers; there is nothing, it would seem, that the gods are not asked to grant or to avert. These are all merely phrases, or passages which have been wrongly understood. The texts are as clear as day, we must only torture them to understand them. The whole of this article is simply topsy-turvy. How can I prove to M. Regpaud, if he will not see it, that tam ma sarh srija varchaså means "(Agội) grant me splendour," and not " (Agni) make me flow on with thee," that is to say, "cause that which I am making flow, to flow," ? that san. má agne varchasi srija sam prajayd sam dyushá, means "Agni, grant me splendour, offspring, a long life" and not "Agni, make me fow on by thy splendour, by thy production, by thy warmth" ! that I. 23, 22, means "O Waters, carry off whatever evil has been done by me whatever violence I have committed, or what I have sworn falsely” and not "O Waters (which I make flow on), carry off all what in me is difficult of approach (let not that flow on which I do not cause to flow) or what I have hemmed in (prevented from flowing on) or what I have closed in, inasmuch as I have not caused it to flow on.57 "The root bap," says M. Regnaad, on this, “is generally taken to mean 'swear, curse. It has this meaning, it is true, in the classical literature, but from a wrong interpretation of its Vedic meaning. Sap, for échap, seems to be a doublet of kshap, which means that which covers, envelops,' or • darkness, night;' compare the Greek Kéras, ckéw, okutátu etc." M. Regnaud often appeals to Bergaigne. Now, if he can shew me, in all Bergaigne's works, a single specimen of sleight of hand like this, I shall consent, from henceforward, to admit that he is right in the whole question.
At this point we have come, for this time at least at the end of this long and doleful journey in the realm of absurdity, and are now in a position to read with advantage the volume in which M. Regnaud bas embodied his most recent researches.58
4 T. XXV. p. 61.
A great deal can be done with words in ical. No body ever took sraddha in the Veda for faith in the sense of Bt. Paul or St. Augustine. But I cannot see that there is anything so subtle in it when reduced to the simple act
non-belief in the power or the existence simply cf such and such a god. The most primitive tribe we may imagine had neighbours who did not believe in their gods (of course if they had some) and the Vedio rishis were in this position, they knew peoples who were anindrah " who did not honour Indra."
63 "To give," of course, but to give of trust; debitum is always the correlative of creditum. As Which assumes for sraddhd somothing like the meacing of "the deposition of the gift," or something similar.
Again an inaccuracy. Sraddha is surely a derivative and nothing but a derivative. But then it is clear that the original and the derivative cannot both mean "gift."
Here, as always, an inncouracy. Braddha means the whole ceremony, which is very complicated, never a libution, a single offering. M. Regnaud woull have made a point by paying attention to this, for this would have let him Iplain fraddha by " the ceremony which has to do with tho offerings." But habit is a second nature. # T. XXVI. p. 48. The bracketted words are added by me, and are taken from the annotations of M. Reguaad.
Rig Veda et les origines de la mythologie indo-européenne. Première partie (forining the first volume of the Bibliothèque d'études in the Annales du Musée Guimet), Paris, 1892.
