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xviii the credit belongs in a peculiar manner to him. I have also done something in the same direction, by publishing in the Society's Journal in 1862 (Journal, vol. vii.) the Atharva-Veda Prātiçākhya, text, translation, notes, etc.; and in 1881 ⌊Journal, vol. xii.⌋ the Index Verborum—which latter afforded me the opportunity to give the pada-readings complete, and to report in a general way the corrections made by us in the text at the time of its first issue. There may be mentioned also the index of pratīkas, which was published by Weber in his Indische Studien, vol. iv., in 1857, from the slips written by me, although another (Professor Ludwig) had the tedious labor of preparing them for the press.

I have never lost from view the completion of the plan of pub­lication as originally formed. In 1875 I spent the summer in Germany, chiefly engaged in further collating, at Munich and at Tübingen, the additional manuscript material which had come to Europe since our text was printed; and I should probably have soon taken up the work seriously save for having been engaged while in Germany to prepare a Sanskrit grammar, which fully occupied the leisure of several following years. At last, in 1885–6, I had fairly started upon the execution of the plan, when failure of health reduced my working capacity to a minimum, and rendered ultimate success very questionable. The task, however, has never been laid wholly aside, and it is now so far advanced that, barring further loss of power, I may hope to finish it in a couple of years or so; and it is therefore proper and desirable that a public announcement be made of my intention.

⌊Statement of its plan and scope and design.⌋ — My plan includes, in the first place, critical notes upon the text, giving the various readings of the manuscripts, and not alone of those collated by myself in Europe, but also of the apparatus used by Mr. Shankar Pandurang Pandit in the great edition with commentary (except certain parts, of which the commentary has not been found) which he has been for years engaged in printing in India. Of this extremely well-edited and valuable work I have, by the kind­ness of the editor, long had in my hands the larger half; and doubt­less the whole will be issued in season for me to avail myself of it throughout. Not only his many manuscripts and çrotriyas (the living equivalents, and in some respects the superiors, of