Page:Atharva-Veda samhita.djvu/81

Rh Berlin ms. bears the copied date saṁvat 1767 (A.D. 1711): it is characterized by Weber, ''Ind. Stud.'' xvii. 178, as "pretty incorrect"; but my impression is that it is better than the ms. of the British Museum.

Text-critical value of the Anukramaṇīs.—The most important ancillary treatise that an editor needs to use in establishing the text of the saṁhitā, is the Prātiçākhya; but the Anukramaṇīs are also of some importance, especially for the settlement of questions concerning the subdivisions of the text (cf., for example, pages 611, 628: or note to iv. 11. 7), as has been practically shown by S. P. Pandit in his edition, and in his Critical Notice, pages 16-24.—The pronouncements of the Anukramaṇīs concerning the verse-norms of the earlier books (see p. cxlviii) are also of value in discussing general questions as to the structure of the saṁhitā. In particular questions, also, the statements of the Major Anukr. are sometimes of critical weight. Thus iii. 29, as it stands in our text, is a hymn of 8 verses; but our treatise expressly calls it a ṣadṛca, thus supporting most acceptably the critical reduction (already sufficiently certain: see note to vs. 7) of the hymn to one of 6 verses, the norm of the book. —Here and there are indications that suggest the surmise that the order of verses (cf. p. 739) or the extent of a hymn (cf. p. 768), as contemplated by the Anukr., may be different from that of our text.—Its statements as to the "deity " of a given hymn are sometimes worth considering in determining the general drift of that hymn; and its dicta regarding the "seers" of the hymns are of interest in certain aspects which are briefly noticed below, pp. 1038 ff. —Then too, the manuscripts of the Anukr. may sometimes be taken as testimony for the readings of the cited pratīkas (cf. note to iv. 3. 3). And it happens even that the authority of the Major Anukr. may be pressed into service at x. 5. 49 (see the notes) to determine which pair of verses (whether viii. 3. 12-13 or vii. 61. 1-2) is meant by the yád agna íti dvé of the mss. (see below, p. cxx: and cf. the case at xix. 37. 4).

The author of the Major Anukramaṇī as a critic of meters.—The author shows no sense for rhythm. His equipment as a critic of meters hardly goes beyond the rudimentary capacity for counting syllables. Thus he calls ii. 12. 2 jagatī; but although pāda a has 12 syllables, its cadence has no jagatī character whatever. To illustrate the woodenness of his methods, we may take ii. 13. 1: this he evidently scans as 11 + 11: 10 + 12 = 44, and accordingly makes it a simple triṣṭubh, as if the "extra" syllable in d could offset the deficiency in c! For the spoiled c of the Vulgate, the Ppp. reading pibann amṛtam (which is supported by MS.) suggests the remedy, and if we accept that as the true Atharvan form of the verse, it is then an example of the mingling (common in one and the same verse) of acatalectic jagatī pādas with catalectic forms thereof. So far, indeed,