These remarks will, I hope, suffice in order to justify the principles by which I have been guided in my treatment of the text and in my translation of the Rig-veda. I know I shall seem to some to have been too timid in retaining whatever can possibly be retained in the traditional text of these ancient hymns, while others will look upon the emendations which I have suggested as unpardonable temerity. Let everything be weighed in the just scales of argument. Those who argue for victory, and not for truth, can have no hearing in our court. There is too much serious work to be done to allow time for wrangling or abuse. Any dictionary will supply strong words to those who condescend to such warfare, but strong arguments require honest labour, sound judgment, and, above all, a genuine love of truth.

The second volume, which I am now preparing for Press, will contain the remaining hymns addressed to the Maruts. The notes will necessarily have to be reduced to smaller dimensions, but they must always constitute the more important part in a translation or, more truly, in a deciphering of Vedic hymns.

F. MAX MÜLLER.

Parks End, Oxford:
  March, 1869.

Footnotes

cxiv:a 'Nur eine Stelle habe ich mir angemerkt, wo das Metrum âam verlangt.' Kuhn, Beiträge, vol. iv, p. 180; Bollensen, Zeitschrift der D. M. G., vol. xxii, p. 587.

cxvi:a Professor Kuhn has finally adopted the same scanning, Beiträge, vol. iv, p. 584.

cxviii:a I, 54, 9; 135, 2; III, 42, 8; V, 11, 5; VII, 22, 7; VIII, 51, 9; 76, 8; 82, 5; IX, 62, 27; 86, 30; X, 167, 1.

cxviii:b II, 11, 3; V, 30, 6.

cxviii:c See Bollensen, Orient and Occident, vol. iii, p. 459; Kuhn, Beiträge, vol. iv, p. 199.

cxviii:d Orient and Occident, vol. iv, p. 449.

cxix:a Synizesis in Greek applies only to the quick pronunciation of two vowels, if in immediate contact; and not, if separated by consonants. Samprasârana might seem a more appropriate term, but though the grammatical process designated in Sanskrit by Samprasârana offers some analogies, it could only by a new definition be applied to the metrical process here intended.

cxix:b A. B. p. 835, 30. ἐστὶ δὲ ἐν τοῖς κοινοῖς μέτροις καὶ ἡ καλουένη συνεκφώνησις ἣ καὶ συνίζησις λέγεται. Ὄταν γὰρ φωνηέντων ἐπάλληλος γένηται ἡ προφορά τότε γίνεται ἡ συνίζησις εἰς μίαν συλλαβήν. Διαφέρει δὲ συναλοιφῆς· ἡ μὲν γὰρ γραμμάτων ἐστὶ κλοπή, ῆ δὲ χρόων· καὶ μὲν συναλοιφή, ὡς λέγεται, φαίνεται, ῆ δὲ οὔ Mehlhorn, Griechische Grammatik, § 10s. Thus in
we have synizesis, in
synæresis.

cxix:c Cf. Mehlhorn, Griechische Grammatik, § 57.

cxx:a See the important chapters on 'Kürzung der Vokale' and 'Tilgung der Vokale' in Corssen's 'Aussprache des Lateinischen;' and more especially his remarks on the so-called irrational vowels in Plautus, ibid. vol. ii, p. 70.