2 Hjabiiar Edgrcn, 



That such a collection is a desideratum will readily be"' 

 admitted. By furnishing a ready access to all words of like 

 or similar meaning, it will aid in the interpretative work ; 

 and by its exhaustiveness it will further a yet closer and 

 more critical study of the life and surroundings of the Vedic 

 people. For even if these are well and fully analyzed in 

 their general features by Ziemer, in the work referred to 

 above, and, in special phases, by others, such as Roth, 

 Weber, Kaegi, Perry, etc., yet many things hitherto un- 

 touched, and many statements requiring elucidation, or even 

 closer scrutiny and correction, will occupy the future investi- 

 gator. One example will suffice to show that even the de- 

 ductions of so careful an investigator as Ziemer may in some 

 instances be subject to revision. His statement that the 

 Vedic people had advanced far enough in agriculture to use 

 irrigating ditches, to which Kaegi adds canals, is unsupported 

 by any valid evidence, as far as the Rig- Veda goes. There 

 are really no words there meaning canal or irrigating ditch. 

 The only word adduced by Ziemer in support of his state- 

 ments, the air. Xey. kJianitra (root kJian, dig), even if of some- 

 what uncertain use in the hymn where it occurs, cannot 

 mean ditch or canal, but rather, as given by the Petersburg, 

 Grassmann, and native dictionaries, ' spade.' ^ The noun khd 

 (root khan), which Grassmann renders by ' Rinne, Kanal,' is 

 the only word that might at first sight suggest the idea of 

 irrigating ditches. But an examination of its occurrences 

 in the Rig-Veda shows at once that it means simply * water- 

 course, stream,' and that it is used only figuratively in three 

 of the four passages where it appears in this sense for the 

 down-pouring rain.^ 



In arranging my material I have considered it best to 

 follow the order suggested by naturally connected and sub- 



1 Cf. R.-V. I. 179. 6: agdstyah khdnamanah khanitraih prajam apatyam 

 balam icamanah, ' Agastya, digging with spades {i.e. toiling), desirous of 

 progeny, of descendants and strength.' 



2 Cf. R.-V. II. 15. 3: vajrena khani atrnan nadinam, 'with his bolt he 

 (Indra) bored the course for the rivers ' (/.t'. shattered the clouds and set the 



