ABOUT two years ago the writer was asked to prepare for the Christian Literature Society for India a revised edition of the late Dr. Murdoch's Account of the Vedas and consented to do so. But he soon found that no revision of that book, useful as it had been, could be made that would adequately represent modern knowledge and modern methods of interpretation of the Vedas. Consequently the present volume, though containing all that was of permanent value in Dr. Murdoch's handbook, is a distinct and new treatment of the subject. But it makes no claim to be original. It is only a careful compilation of what is known of the life and religion and Hymns of Vedic times, and the bibliography and the footnotes will show to how many teachers the writer is, most gratefully, a debtor. He has ventured on independent statements only when reference is made to the influence of the Dravidian on the Aryan religion, or to the religious practices of Dravidians in South India at the present time-subjects on which he has had special opportunities of observation since 1892. By the permission of Messrs. E. J. Lazarus & Co., Benares, the Readings from the Vedas are taken from the admirable series of translations of the Vedas prepared by the late R. T. H. Griffith and published by that firm. A. C. CLAYTON. NOTE ON THE SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION OF SANSKRIT WORDS As this book is written for the average student-reader rather than for the specialist, technicalities have, as far as possible, been avoided, but the transliteration of Sanskrit words will generally be found to agree with the scheme accepted by the Geneva Congress of Orientalists and the Royal Asiatic Society. Some knowledge of the Sanskrit alphabet is needed to grasp the sounds of letters distinguished by diacritical marks such as n. r. t. s. But the distinction between long and short vowels is more easy to observe. All vowels are pronounced in Italian fashion rather than in English, i.e. like the vowels in 'do, re, mi, fa' of the musical scale. Long vowels have been given in the text with a long mark over them, e.g. Indrāṇī, Sūryā. The short vowel a is never pronounced like the a in 'that'. It has always a sound corresponding to the a in 'era'. For instance, the first syllable in 'Varuņa' is pronounced something like the first syllable in the word 'current'. Many Sanskrit names, like Krishna, Rama, Sita and words like upanishad, rishi, veda, Rig-veda have become so well-known that usually it has not seemed needful to insert diacritical marks in them. |