23 APRIL 1870, Page 18

THE RIG-VEDA TRANSLATED.*

WE are very glad to welcome Professor Max Miiller back to his okl sphere of usefulness, the Vedas. Whatever he writes, whether on Sanskrit literature or on wider subjects, such as the comparison of the language, mythology, or religions of various nations, is sure to attract by beauty of style and skill in the art of presentation to hearers or readers, and to win confidence by the evident basis of very various and profound knowledge on which it rests. He has thus the power of fascinating even those who at the outset were disposed to rebel against his authority, or to doubt one who shows himself so universal a genius. And it cannot be doubted that ranch that he has written on multifarious topics and in various places is prompted by unity of purpose and clear sight of its tendency ; so that he may be laying the foundation of a science where he appears to be only writing an article for an ephemeral publication. This is observable in his various papers and lectures .on Comparative Mythology, which commenced (if no earlier essay has escaped our notice) in articles in the Oxford Essays and Edinburgh Review in 1856, and have continued so steadily that it becomes clear he can write a full treatise on the subject whenever he wishes. At the same time, it is no lees true that in this age no one can possess universal knowledge, however universal his genius be; and we cannot help feeling some misgiving as to a writer who writes of the hitherto scarcely explored vast region of the Turanian languages with aearly the same confidence as if he were treating the familiar Aryan stock. It was not by a preconceived theoretical scheme of the surface supposed to be covered by them that the community of the Aryan stock was established. Bopp originally compared together only the Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, and German ; to these he added in his Comparative Grammar Zend and Lithu- anian, and in subsequent parts Slavonic, and in the second edition Armenian. So will it probably fare with the languages called by Dr. Miffier Turanian ; when a few have been proved to form the • Rig-Veda-Sanhita. The Sacred Ilymns of the Brahmans. Translated and Explained by F. Max Miller. Vol. L Hymns to the Marais or the Storm-Gods. London : Trillmer. 1869.

centre of a group, others may be one by one affiliated to them ; but the preliminary generalization will serve no purpose except to bias the minds of investigators in favour of one result. Similarly, the papers collected under the title of Chips from a German Work- ship inspire the reader with very various degrees of confidence. The workshop is essentially German, and its very chips must therefore be worthy of preservation in a permanent form. Few Englishmen, indeed, would think of collecting all these trifles ; for trifles many, if not most, of them are, when compared with the real earnest work which Dr. Milner is capable of performing. Some perpetuate philological disputes not yet decided, and worse, per- petuate the favour accorded by Dr. Milner to a new comer, Haug, and the ill-temper he cherishes against an older investigator of the Avesta, Spiegel. Of these we can only say that we should prefer to set Haug and Spiegel to adjust or fight out their differences, but should not accept Dr. Miiller as arbiter ; and in any case, would rather have been spared his ill-temper. This exhibition of himself, and the Turanian essay, show us that Dr. Miller has strong prejudices, and takes a side even on subjects on which, not being his special forte, he is not obliged to speak at all. We feel constrained therefore to stop our ears to the song of the Siren, to resist the peculiar fascination of his words, and to be led by hint only where reason assures us he gains strength from contact with mother Earth.

To further fortify this position, we would remark on an inno- vation he has introduced in linguistic study. He has invented and extensively employed the term 'Science of Language.' Now, in English, science is applied to that alone which is the object of universal physical law,—the realm of necessity, which besides the strictly physical sciences, includes the knowledge of the necessary forms of mental ratiocination as exhibited in logic, and the neces- sary results of human action irrespective of its moral character as shown in political science. But with man as a free agent,—with the free acts of his mind, his will, his fancy, his conscience—Science has nothing to do, and Philosophy occupies its place. Thought and language being correlative terms, there can be a true Science of Language only in so far as there are 'Laws of Thought,' determining only in what lines it must move, but not fixing its origin, its first essence, or its ultimate issue. It seems, therefore, a retrograde movement to treat language scientifically rather than philosophically, as did W. von Humboldt and the Schlegels. And now, as if the "Science of Language" were not enough novelty in nomenclature, we are threatened by Dr. Milner with a "Science of Religion," which above all else belongs to the free and unprescribed action of the human soul, and cannot be reduced to the formulas of science, unless, indeed, by Buckle's art of taking averages,—which proves nothing. Even on his own subjects, then, we find Dr. Milner free neither from rash generalizations, prejudice, nor shallow philosophy.

We recall these matters in no unfriendly spirit towards r. Midler himself, and certainly not towards this work. If he some- times errs when he wanders into less known regions, into which it is only natural his great learning should tempt him, he is always at home in the Vedas. His constant employment since 1848 has been editing for the East India Company the original text of the Rig-Veda with the commentary of Sayana ; and only extensive study of those sacred writings could have made this appointment possible. The bulky quartos of closely printed Sanskrit text attest his vast energy, and the last is not yet published. The industry would have been great were the book a Mahdbharata or other work written in ordinary Sanskrit ; but how shall we estimate it when we take into account the fact that the very language had to be in large measure recovered, partly by the help of, but quite as often in spite of the dicta of Hindu grammarians; that the require- ments of the prosody were to be discovered ; and that the mytho- logical basis of the hymns could only be reached by the most careful collation of the hymns themselves,—by a process, in short, which seems to involve little less than reading through this gigantic literature, and remembering every peculiar phrase, so as to be able to bring it forward at the proper time for comparison with other phrases which may elucidate it or which may be eluci- dated by it? Then consider the self-restraint imposed on an editor who had simply to produce the best possible text of this book, but could not append his own translation, necessary as the latter must often be to justify his text, or to prevent others from suspecting him of misprinting or defective scholarship ! We might add many other points to strengthen our position that Dr. Mailer has achieved one of the greatest works of this century, in the midst of difficulties lying partly in the nature of the work itself, but perhaps quite as much in his own high conception of the mode in which it must be executed to have a permanent value,—by avoiding, on

the one hand, servility to the native commentators when they seemed not to understand the antique language, and on the other, unauthorized tampering with the text, which might often be thus "improved" to the admiration of readers.

But now, in this translation, Dr. Muller can have his say freely. If the translation is not itself sufficient justification of his readings, he can fortify it by critical notes; if it assumes unheard-of mean- ings, or contains dia-4 2+4744.5vca of doubtful meaning, he can present a long array of passages in his defence. In his introduction he enters very minutely into the principles that he laid down and carried out in his edition. This introduction is one of the most remarkable literary pieces justificatives we have ever seen. It would seem absolutely exhaustive. It seems that every word has been looked at through a microscope, and been made to yield informa- tion, not of its formation only, but of its meaning and shades of meaning traced through a long list of passages where it occurs, to say nothing of its prosody and accent ; and the statements of the Indian grammarians and commentators are at the same time treated with respect such as might satisfy the most conservative, though in the end often abandoned for what a modern philologist cannot but regard as more philosophical. Dr. Miller's views, indeed, have been gaining in strength and originality as he pro- ceeded. At first inclined to study the Indian commentators, and to believe that no secure principle could be reached except by a

preliminary perfect acquaintance with them (which he still holds), he now has gained sufficient strength to be able in large degree to dispense with their aid, to see their ignorances and shortcomings, and to read the original text for himself with larger views of lan- guage and prosody, and hence to produce a new translation not based mainly on Sayana's commentary. Thus he is enabled to say, without the arrogance which the words seem to convey :— " When some twenty years ago I decided on undertaking the first edition of the two texts and the commentary of the Rig-Veda, I little expected that it would fall to my lot to publish also what may with- -out presumption be called the first translation of the ancient sacred hymns of the Brahmans. It may sound self- contradictory if, after confessing the help which I derived from these translations, I venture to call my own the first transla- tion of the Rig-Veda. The word translation,' however, has many :meanings. I mean by translation, not a mere rendering of the hymns of the Rig-Veda into English, French, or German, but a full account of the reasons which justify the translator in assigning such a power to such a word, and such a meaning to such a sentence. I mean 'by translation a real deciphering, a work like that which Barnouf per- formed in his first attempts at a translation of the Avesta,—a traduction raisonnie, if such an expression may be used. Without such a process, without a running commentary, a mere translation of the ancient hymns of the Brahmans will never lead to any solid results. Even if the trans- lator has discovered the right meaning of a word or of a whole sentence, his mere translation does not help us much, unless he shows us the process by which he has arrived at it, unless he places before us the pieces justificaiives of his final judgment. The Veda teems with words that require a justification. . . . It was out of the question in a transla- tion of this character to attempt either an imitation of the original rhythm or metre, or to introduce the totally foreign element of rhyming. Stich translations may follow by and by ; at present, a metrical transla- tion would be only an excuse for an inaccurate translation."

To the first few hymns Dr. Miller has appended the translations f Wilson (based on Sayauri), Langlois, and Benfey. The dis- crepancy between them is sometimes enormous, and suggests the immense difficulties in determining the sense, which our translator co candidly admits. While Wilson's work is very prosy, suggest- ing the idea that it is the translation of a commentary rather than of a poem, and Langlois' is evidently barely more than guess-work, Benfey's has a more scholarly character, and agrees with Miller's more often than the others. The new one, however, would be recognized even without its lengthy pieces jastificatives as the best of all,—most idiomatic, most pregnant with wisdom and continuity of sense, and yet not obscuring any real harshness or obscurity of the original. Dr. Muller arranges this new edition according to the deities addressed, and.not in the traditional order. "By this process," he says, "I believe a great advantage is gained. We see at one glance all that has been said of a certain god, and we gain a more complete insight into his nature and character. Something of the same kind had been attempted by the original collectors of the ten books, for it can hardly be by accident that each of them begins with hymns addressed to Agni, and that these are followed by hymns addressed to Indra." The present first volume is entirely occupied with eleven in the first book addressed to the Maras. It is important to note, what the title omits, that this book is an edition as well as a translation. It contains the Sanskrit text in Roman characters ; and it is given in the Pads form, which allows each word to stand by itself, instead of joining the words according to the euphonic laws known as Sandhi, or composition, which is the peculiarity of the Sanhita form of text. This is a deviation from the same author's edition of the Rig-Veda, which contained the Sanhita text. He admits that it is difficult to decide on their relative antiquity, and that sometimes the Pads presupposes the Sauhita text, but says that "neither the Pada nor the Sanhita text, as we now possess them, represent the original text of the Veda. Bath show clear traces of scholastic influences. But if we try to restore the original form of the Vedic hymns, we shall certainly arrive at some kind of Pads text rather than at a Sanhita text ; nay, even in their present form, the original metre and rhythm of the ancient hymns of the Rishis are far more per- ceptible when the words are divided, than when we join them together throughout according to the rules of Sandhi."

While we wonder at the facility and telling expressiveness which Dr. Muller has gained and used for years in a language not his own, we yet occasionally observe faults which prevent his pass- ing muster as a true master of English style. He has so nearly attained perfection that it is a pity he should not advance a little further ; and we are persuaded he could do so if he were warned of the necessity. His tendency is towards a redundancy which savours more of the penny-a-liner than of the elegant writer or the careful speaker ; and we meet with repetitions which weaken the sentence. We enter, too, a deliberate protest against the introduction of unmeaning compound terms like " intercomparison " into our language. Comparison by itself denotes the laying together and examining side by side of any number of things ; and the prefix inter scenic to us in all conceiv- able cases simply otiose. Dr. Miiller is particularly fond of this word : "a complete intercomparison of all passages in which the same words and the same phrases [why not the same words or phrases occur ;" "which would not always stand the test of an intercomparison of all passages." When the Latins content them- selves with a collatio locornot, why should we call it what is equiva- lent to an intercollatio? As a German, Dr. Muller might like to write eine Untereinandervergleichung, but as an English writer he ought to content himself with plain comparison.

We give one short hymn as a specimen. It is one of the most intelligible, but none can be fully understood without the com- mentary :—

" HYMN TO AGINI (THE GOD OF FIILE) AND THE MAIMS (THE STORK-GODS). "1. Thou art called forth to this fair sacrifice for a draught of milk ; with the Maruts come hither, 0 Agni!

'2. No god, indeed, no mortal, is beyond the might of thee, the mighty one; with the Maruts come hither, 0 Agin!

"3. They who know of the groat sky, the Visve Davits without guile ; with the Maruts come hither, 0 Agni!

"4. The wild cones who sing their song, unconquerable by force ; with the Maruts come hither, 0 Agni !

"5. They who are brilliant, of awful shape, powerful, and devourers of foes ; with the Maruts come hither, 0 Agni !

"6. They who in heaven are enthroned as gods, in tho light of the firmament ; with the Maruts come hither, 0 Agni !

"7. They who toss the clouds across the surging sea ; with the Marais come hither, 0 Agni !

"8. They who shoot with their darts across the sea with might ; with the Maruts come hither, 0 Agni!

"9. I pour out to thee for the early draught the sweet (juice) of Sums; with the Maruts come hither, 0 Agni !"