Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c12.s3.141

c12.s3.141

That the text of the Rigveda should have been corrected by successive editors, and from different points of view, is in itself sufficiently probable: and under such circumstances no restoration of the original text can claim to be more than approximative. But whatever difficulties are involved, it is at least safe to say that it is better to face them than to treat as a text affording a basis for metrical investigation one that is so full of inconsistencies as the Saṃhitā. We constantly find in hymns belonging to the same group, and even in the same hymn and the same verse, differences of quantity for which no metrical or other cause can easily be imagined, and which it is therefore impossible to ascribe to the author. Such inconsistencies are illustrated in the passages quoted below in pairs, the number of which might be indefinitely increased: