260 On the Funeral Ceremonies of the ancient Hindus. [No. 4, 



The writer of the foot-note above alluded to, adopts Max Midler's 

 reading, but attempts to improve upon his translation by the fol- 

 lowing : — " Let these women, unwidowed, having good husbands, 

 and with anointing butter on their eyes, enter their houses. Let the 

 mothers, untearful, unmiserable, possessed of excellent wealth, go 

 up to the house first." He adds " I have here followed Say ana, 

 save in not rendering ^|T TT^'tJ by " approach," ^T^T^rf- AVhat is 

 meant by infcr, Sayana's " house," is not obvious."* 



The most material error in the above translations is duo to 

 Sayana. That great commentator, when he took up the Rig Yeda, 

 depended more upon the lexicographic meanings of words than 

 upon the relation of the mantras to the ceremonials of the Yajiir 

 Veda, and hence many discrepancies are to be met with between 

 his interpretations and those of the ancient Siitrakaras, and some- 

 times in his own interpretations of the same verse in the Rig, Yajur 

 and the Sama Vedas. Nowhere is this more prominently apparent 

 than in his commentary on the stanza under notice, in the Rig and 

 the Yajur Yedas. When he met with it in the former, he wrote : 



*fW ^^r ^tii^t: ^<*j: *?fa?r=Ti ^r^^r^r sf^rr <r^r ^?p^: ^- 



S» s» %* 



^fsSffiT: ^^<*j: ^H?teT: ^^far TR^f^frTT TTT^T^'I^fWirrr Toq-q: | 



Subsequently, with the light of Baudhayana, Bharadvaja and 

 Hiranyakes'i, he perceived the truo bearing of the stanza, and then 

 interpreted it thus : — 



\* ^* v» d >J 



'^ppf:' ^^Tr^rTT:, '^rtt^T:' TT^fTfTT.-.. '^?V.' ^ %f^ ilTTqT:, 



That the last is the most consistent rendering may be accepted I 

 without hesitation. 



* Journal R. As. Soc, N. S., Vol. Ill, p. 185. 



