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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
( 45 ) INCLUSION OF THE TEXT OF THE RGVEDA AND THE
PADAPAȚHA My own idea was simply to print Verkața Mādhava's commentary only. The text of the Rgveda is well known. Several good editions of the text of the Rgveda are available in the market. Printing of an accented text like that of the RV. involves a good deal of time and labour. By excluding the text of the RV., considerable space would have been saved. And the cost of production would have been proportionately low. In these days of financial stringency, a low price of the edition would have suited scholars. But the Indian literary tradition does not favour the publication of a commentary alone, without its original text, particularly the Rgveda. Orthodox Pandits would not have even looked at it. The Publishers did not like to alienate the sympathy of the orthodox scholars, so the text of the Rgveda had to be added.
The addition of padapatha along with the text of the RV. would have very much increased the bulk of the present edition. As I wanted to save as much space as possible, I edited the commentary in a manner so that the padapātha could be dispensed with. I devised the plan of putting a danda after VenkataMädhava's explanation of each word of a Vedic stanza. Thus his explanation of each word is separately shown. The commentator generally uses a single word to explain a word of the original text. His treatment therefore facilitates the use of the danda, in the way
tioned above. If he uses more than one word to explain a single word, then all such additional words are also put together, the danda being placed at the end only. Thus a reader can see at a glance as to how a particular word of a stanza of the Rgveda is explained by Verikața Mādhava.
The idea to exclude the padapātha should not be construed as to minimise its importance. The Padapātha is virtually equivalent to another commentaryl. In several instances, Padapātha differs from the Samhitā text. A preposition in a subordinate clause is not accented but the padapātha accents the preposition và in RV. III 36.86. Any light which the padapātha throws on the analysis
1 Roth, 'Was ist dann der Pada anders als eine Erklärung'?
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