Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c5.17

c5.17

13. Our single first-hand authority for the text of the Rigveda is the “Saṃhitā” recension, which has been preserved from an unknown antiquity without any variants of importance. The “Pada-pāṭha” text is now acknowledged to be an early commentary upon the Saṃhitā, and cannot be set in opposition to its authority. Other Vedic texts repeat the matter of many hymns of the Rigveda in slightly differing forms, but in such cases the Saṃhitā text generally appears to have the advantage, and it may be inferred with some confidence that the other texts were historically derived from it.