पृष्ठम्:बृहद्देवता.djvu/२७

Introduction] THE KASHMIR KHILA COLLECTION [xxxi to exist from the mention of their pratikas or some general reference in other Vedic works, but of the rest not a trace has been found till now. It was a most fortunate circumstance that when I read a paper at the Hamburg Congress of Orientalists, in September 1902, on my forthcoming edition of the Brhaddevata, I said a good deal about the khilas which are referred to in that work. As a result of these remarks, I heard, in March last, from my friend Prof. E. Leumann, of Strassburg, telling me that he had in his possession a transcript made by the late Dr. H. Wenzel of a collection of khilas found in a MS. of the Rg-veda which was purchased in Kashmir by the late Prof. Bühler ¹. I gladly availed myself of his kind offer to lend me this transcript; and by great good fortune Dr. Wenzel's note-book arrived in time for me to utilize, in my translation and notes, the material which it contained in regard to every khila mentioned in the text of the Brhaddevata. It has proved of the utmost service, since it has saved me from several mistakes, besides giving certainty in various passages where all would otherwise have been conjecture. In addition to the information I have supplied in the notes regarding the thirty-seven khilas mentioned in the text, it is here only possible to give a brief account of the collection as a whole. Now that the text is accessible it will be interesting to investigate how many of the eighty-nine hymns contained in it are referred to in Vedic works. The Brhaddevata alone quotes more than three-eighths of the whole number. There are indications that the text has been well preserved. Thus the initial pädas of the first four stanzas of the khila brahma jajñanam quoted in the Aitareya Brahmana (i. 19. 1-4) are found practically without any variation of reading and in the same order in the Kashmir collection. The khilas are here arranged in five Adhyayas, which are subdivided into vargas. Each Adhyaya has prefixed to it a regular Anukramani, giving the pratika, the Rishi, the deity, and the metre of the following group of hymns. The position of the khila is indicated by the appended pratika of the hymn of the Rg-veda which immediately follows. The first Adhyāya contains twelve khilas, the first corresponding to Aufrecht's no. i, from which it differs in the initial päda only. Then come the eleven Sauparna hymns, of which, as they have been the subject of a good deal of specula- tion, I give the beginnings, along with the number of stanzas contained in each: 1. sasvan näsatya (14); 2. pra dharayantu madhunah (7); 3. jyotişman- ¹ See his Detailed Report,' Bombay, 1877, Appendix i, No. 5, and some account of the MS., p. 35 f. I am not yet certain as to the exact number, being still doubtful in a few cases as to whether what seems one khila may not really be two. 3 Cp. Moyer, Rgvidhana, p. xxiv; Oldenberg, Prolegomena, p. 508; Weber, History of Indian Literature, English Translation, and ed., P. 313 f.