Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/59

 The rationale of this mode of designation is not well understood; the Prātiçākhyas give no account of it. In the scholastic utterance of the syllable so designated is made a peculiar quaver or roulade of the voice, called or

The accent-marks are written with red ink in the manuscripts, being added after the text is written, and perhaps often by another hand.

Nearly accordant with this, the Rig-Veda method of designating accent, are the methods employed in the manuscripts of the Atharva-Veda, of the Vājasaneyi-Saṁhitā, and of the Tāittirīya-Saṁhitā, Brāhmaṇa, and Āraṇyaka. Their differences from it are of trifling importance, consisting mainly in peculiar ways of marking the circumflex that precedes an acute (87 d). In some manuscripts of the Atharva-Veda, the accent-marks are dots instead of strokes, and that for the circumflex is made within the syllable instead of above it.

In most manuscripts of the Māitrāyaṇī-Saṁhitā, the acute syllable itself, besides its surroundings, is marked — namely, by a perpendicular stroke above the syllable (like that of the ordinary circumflex in the RV. method). The independent circumflex has a hook beneath the syllable, and the circumflex before an acute (87 d) is denoted simply by a figure 3, standing before instead of after the circumflexed syllable.

The Çatapatha-Brāhmaṇa uses only a single accent-sign, the horizontal stroke beneath the syllable (like the mark for grave in RV.). This is put under an acute, or, if two or more acutes immediately follow one another, only under the last of them. To mark an independent circumflex, it is put under the preceding syllable. The method is an imperfect one, allowing many ambiguities.

The Sāma-Veda method is the most intricate of all. It has a dozen different signs, consisting of figures, or of figures and letters combined, all placed above the syllables, and varying according both to the accentual character of the syllable and to its surroundings. Its origin is obscure; if anything more is indicated by it than by the other simpler systems, the fact has not been demonstrated.

In this work, as everything given in the characters is also given in transliteration, it will generally be unnecessary to mark the accent except in the transliterated form; where, however, the case is otherwise, there will be adopted the method of marking only the really accented syllables, the acute and the independent circumflex: the latter by the usual -sign, the former by a small  (for ) above the syllable: thus,

इ꣫न्द्र अ꣫ग्ने  स्व॑र्  नद्य॑स्

These being given, everything else which the Hindu theory recognizes as dependent on and accompanying them can readily be understood as implied.