Page:Atharva-Veda samhita.djvu/93

Rh handling without injury. To copy the birch-bark leaves in their proper order is a process by which they need suffer no harm; and this is precisely what Roth did (see p. lxxxii) as soon as possible after finishing the pressing task of making the Collation for Whitney.

'''Care taken in the use of Roth's Collation. Word-division.'''—In carrying this work through the press, I have constantly and with the most scrupulous pains utilized Roth's original Collation and his supplementary notes thereto, endeavoring thus to check any errors concerning the Kashmirian readings that might have crept into Whitney's copy for the printer. Since Roth's system of transliteration differs considerably from Whitney's, the chances for mistakes arising through confusion of the two systems were numerous; and I have taken due care to avoid them. It may here be noted that Whitney's system transliterates anusvāra before a labial by m and not by ṁ; but that in printing the Kashmirian readings, I have followed the Collation in rendering final anusvāra by ṁ (or ṅ), save before vowels. Furthermore, in making use of Roth's Collation, Whitney has habitually attempted to effect a satisfactory word-division. In many cases this is hardly practicable; and in such cases it was probably a mistake to attempt it. For examples, one may consult the readings at v. 29. 2, ‘syatamo; vi. 44. 2, sarogaṇaṁ; 109., 1, jīvātavā yati; 129. 3, vṛkṣe sārpitaḥ intending vṛkṣeṣv ār-; vii. 70. 1, dṛṣṭā rājyo, intending dṛṣṭād āj-.

The Kashmirian readings have not been verified directly from the facsimile by the editor.—As the facsimile appeared in 1901, it is proper for me to give a reason for my procedure in this matter. In fact, both my editorial work and the printing were very far advanced in 1901, so that a change of method would in itself have been questionable; but an entirely sufficient and indeed a compelling reason is to be found in the fact that it would have been and still is a task requiring very much labor and time to find the precise place of the Kashmirian parallel of any given verse of the Vulgate, a task which can no more be done en passant than can the task of editing a Prātiçākhya,—all this apart from the difficulties of the Çāradā alphabet.

Provisional means for finding Vulgate verses in the facsimile.—Whitney noted in pencil in his Collation-Book, opposite each Vulgate passage having a Kashmirian parallel, the number of the leaf of the Kashmirian text on which that parallel is found, adding a or b to indicate the obverse or the reverse of the leaf. These numbers undoubtedly refer to the leaves of Roth's Kashmirian nāgarī transcript (No. 16, Garbe) from which Roth