Chapter XXIV: Part I (9)

Prof. Whitney, referring to the same subject, says: “Each new phase of belief has sought in them (the sacred texts) its authority, has claimed to found itself upon them, and to be consistent with their teachings; and the result is that the sum of doctrine accepted and regarded as orthodox in modern India is incongruous beyond measure, a mass of inconsistencies”: a summing up that might, we regret to say, be truthfully made of a Christian country of far higher civilization than that of India.

Not stopping to discuss what has been called the “standing reproach” against Indian literature, that it is barren of historical and geographical results, nor to point out much that is of high value and interest to every scholar, we will close by an inquiring comment as to the following statement made by Prof. Whitney at p. 22. He is speaking of the Vedic texts, and says: “So thorough and religious was the care bestowed upon their preservation that, notwithstanding their mass and the thousands of years which have elapsed since their collection, _hardly a single various reading, so far as yet known, has been suffered to make its way into them after their definite and final settlement_.”

We have italicized the passage which we wish to make the subject of our inquiry, for, unless we are mistaken, two instances may be pointed out in which the texts in question have been garbled or seriously tampered with.

We find the first instance in the developments growing out of the discussion as to whether there are three Vedas or four Vedas (Goverdhan Caul on the “Literature of the Hindus,” _Asiatic Researches_, Calcutta, 1788, vol. i., p. 340, and Sir William Jones’ _Works_, vol. iv. p. 93 (edition of 1807)). Even down to the present day, Indian scholars sometimes speak of three Vedas, sometimes of four. According to Indian tradition, Brahma has four mouths, each of which uttered a Veda. Yet most ancient writers speak of but three Vedas, Rig, Yajush, and Sama, from which it is inferred that the Atharva was written after the three first. The Atharva is spoken of and called the Veda of Vedas in the eleventh book of Manu, and the designation affirms the assertion of Dara Shecuh, in the preface to his Upanishad, that the first three Vedas are named separately, because the Atharvan is a corollary from them all, and contains the quintessence of them all. But this verse of Manu, which occurs in a modern copy of the work brought from Benares, is entirely omitted in the best copies, so that, as Manu himself in other places names only three Vedas, _we must believe this line to be an interpolation_ by some admirer of the Atharva.

The second instance to be specified is furnished by Prof. Whitney himself, at pages 53, 54, and 55, where he gives a translation of a hymn from the concluding book of the Rig‐Veda (x. 18), describing the early Vedic funeral services. When the attendants leave the bier, the men go first, while the director of the ceremony says:

“Ascend to life, old age your portion making, each after each,
advancing in due order;
May Twashtar, skilful fashioner, propitious, cause that you here
enjoy a long existence.”

The women next follow, the wives at their head:

“These women here, not widows, blessed with husbands,
May deck themselves with ointment and perfume;
Unstained by tears, adorned, untouched with sorrow,
The wives may first ascend unto the altar.”

The wife of the deceased is then summoned away the last:

“Go up unto the world of life, O woman!
Thou liest by one whose soul is fled; come hither!
To him who grasps thy hand, a second husband,
Thou art as wife to spouse become related.”

In commenting upon this hymn, Prof. Whitney notes its “discordance with the modern Hindu practice of immolating the widow at the grave of her husband,” and adds: “Nothing could be more explicit than the testimony of this hymn against the antiquity of the practice. It finds, indeed, no support anywhere in the Vedic scriptures.” And now we come to the “various reading,” for Prof. Whitney concludes the passage with this statement: “Authority has been sought, however, for the practice, in a fragment of this very hymn, rent from its natural connection, and a little altered; by the change of a single letter, the line which is translated above, ‘The wives may first ascend unto the altar,’ has been made to read, ‘The wives shall go up into the place of the fire.’ ”

We heartily welcome this work of Prof. Whitney, and thank him for it as a solid contribution to literature and to philological science, honorable to himself, and reflecting credit on American scholarship.

The House That Jack Built.

By The Author Of “The House Of Yorke.”

In Two Parts.