454 Mr. CoLEBROOicE on the Philosophy of the Hindus. 



be employed instead of the proper Sanscrit term. Thus go (gauh), and not 

 gdwi, is the riglit term for a cow.* Orthograpliy, likewise, is to be care- 

 fully attended to ; else by writing or reading aswa for aswa in the directions 

 for the sacrifice of a horse, the injunction would seem to be for the sacrifice 

 of a pauper (a-swa, destitute of property). 



Generally, words are to be apphed in strict conformity with correct 

 grammar. The Sdcyas, and other heretics, as Cumarila in this place 

 remarks,! do not use Sanscrit (they employ Prucrit). But Brdhmanas 

 should not speak as barbarians. Grammar, which is primeval, has been 

 handed down by tradition. Language is the same in the vedas and in 

 ordinary discourse, notwithstanding a few deviations : the import of words 

 is generic, though tlie application of them is specific. 



The peculiarities of the dialect of the veda are not to be taken for inac- 

 curacies. Thus, tman stands for dtman, self or soul; and Brdhmanasah 

 for Brdhmajidh, priests ; with many other anomalies of the sacred dialect.t 



When the ordinary acceptation of a term is different from that which it 

 bears in an explanatory passage, this latter import prevails in the text like- 

 wise, else the precept and its supplement would disagree. Thus trivrit, 

 triplet, is specially applied to a hymn comprising three triplets or nine 

 stanzas, which is the peculiar sense it bears in the vedas. 



Again, chwu, which, in ordinary discourse signifies boiler or cauldron, 

 is in the vedas an oblation of boiled food, as rice, &c. So as-wabdla, which 

 literally means horse-hair, is a designation of a species of grass (sacchanim 

 spontaneuiii) into which it is said the tail of a consecrated horse was once 

 transformed ; and of that grass a cushion is made for certain religious rites. 



It will be observed, as has been intimated in speaking of the members of 

 an adhicarana in the Mhminsd, that a case is proposed, either specified in 

 Jaimini's text or supplied by his schoHasts. Upon this a doubt or question 

 is raised, and a solution of it is suggested, which is refuted, and a right 

 conclusion established in its stead. The disquisitions of the Mimdnsd bear, 

 therefore, a certain resemblance to juridical questions ; and, in fact, the 

 Hindu law being blended with the religion of the people, the same modes 

 of reasoning are applicable, and are applied to the one as to the other. 

 The logic of the Mimdnsd is the logic of the law ; the rule of interpreta- 



* Vart. 1. 3. 9. f lb. 1. 3. 7. X Mim. 1. 3. 10. 



