On the Aindra School of Sanskrit Grammarians, their Place in the Sanskrit and Subordinate Literatures c8.13

c8.13

² As we have the Vedic texts at present, they are not free from errors which must have been made at the time of their last revision, or in the pre-historic times of India. So also some stanzas are irrelevant interpolations where they occur, and the proper order has not always been preserved in hymns which are otherwise intact. See Roth “Der Atharvaveda in Kaschmīr,” p. 19; and “Siebenzig Lieder des Ṛigveda” passim. See also, Benfey—“Einleitung in die Grammatik der Vedischen Sprache” p. 8 ffg.; and his treatise “Die Quantitätsverschiedenheiten in den Saṃhitā- und Pada-Texten der Veden,” i., pp. 12, 25. Special researches of the most interesting character are those by Profr. de Gubernatis (in “Annuario della Società Italiana per gli studi Orientali” I. pp. 41-49); Bollensen (in “Orient und Occident,” ii., pp. 457 ffg.) But the whole tradition of the Vedic texts as handed down is, beyond doubt, surprisingly accurate [see especially Profr. Max Müller’s Ṛigvedasaṃhitā (translation), i. pp. lxvii. ffg.]; and this is not only the case with the Saṃhitās but also in many cases with the later Brāhmaṇas. Some, however, have undergone revision (see my “Sāmavidhāna Br.” i., pp. x., ffg. in which M. Barth concurs—“Revue Critique” 1873, No. 44, p. 282). I have in another place (“Devatādhyāya Br.” Preface, p. xi.) attempted to show that some Brāhmaṇas were put in their present order by Sāyaṇa, and that he must be considered as the final author of the Vedic canon; on this see M. Barth’s article in the “Revue Critique” No. 12 of 1874, p. 179.