Vedic Hymns, Part I (SBE32): Preface to the First Edition... | Internet Sacred Text Archive

The most powerful instrument that has hitherto been applied to the emendation of Vedic texts, is the metre. Metrical criticism.Metre means measure, and uniform measure, and hence its importance for critical purposes, as second only to that of grammar. If our knowledge of the metrical system of the Vedic poets rests on a sound basis, any deviations from the general rule are rightly objected to; and if by a slight alteration they can be removed, and the metre be restored, we naturally feel inclined to adopt such emendations. Two safeguards, however, are needed in this kind of conjectural criticism. We ought to be quite certain that the anomaly is impossible, and we ought to be able to explain to a certain extent

p. lxxviii

how the deviation from the original correct text could have occurred. As this subject has of late years received considerable attention, and as emendations of the Vedic texts, supported by metrical arguments, have been carried on on a very large scale, it becomes absolutely necessary to reexamine the grounds on which these emendations are supposed to rest. There are, in fact, but few hymns in which some verses or some words have not been challenged for metrical reasons, and I feel bound, therefore, at the very beginning of my translation of the Rig-veda, to express my own opinion on this subject, and to give my reasons why in so many cases I allow metrical anomalies to remain which by some of the most learned and ingenious among Vedic scholars would be pronounced intolerable.

Even if the theory of the ancient metres had not been so carefully worked out by the authors of the Prâtisâkhyas and the Anukramanîs, an independent study of the Veda would have enabled us to discover the general rules by which the Vedic poets were guided in the composition of their works. Nor would it have been difficult to show how constantly these general principles are violated by the introduction of phonetic changes which in the later Sanskrit are called the euphonic changes of Sandhi, and according to which final vowels must be joined with initial vowels, and final consonants adapted to initial consonants, until at last each sentence becomes a continuous chain of closely linked syllables.