82 



Professor Buhler's Remarks 



the " Veda language" transcribed according to " the Jone- 

 sian orthography." He cites three passages of the Rig- 

 veda, one from each volume of Max Muller's edition. It 

 will be enough to reproduce only one, the second, and Mr. 

 Taylor's remarks, which apply to this in particular as well 

 as to all three. 



We read in volume II, page lxxxi : — 



Tattraisha sukre prat'hama 

 Yo jata prat'hami sana khandevo devan kratuna parya 

 b'hushat — 



Yasya sushma dodasi ab'hyasetam nrmnasya maha sa jana- 

 sa danda — 



Yah jata rava prat'hamah — manakhan — devah — devan — 



Kratuna — pari — ab'hushat — 

 Yasya — sushmat — rodasi dati — ab'hyasetam — nrinnasya — 

 maha — sah — j anasha — danda. 



Volume II, p. 469. 



Then follows the passage from Max Muller's Rig Veda, 

 v. Ill, p. 949, and Mr. Taylor goes on to say : " It will thus 

 be seen that the composition is evidently designed for mea- 

 sured intonation by more than one person ; and with re- 

 curring alliteration (as to words and letters) of a peculiar 

 kind." 



I can only gather two things from these quotation s 

 firstly that Mr. Taylor cannot properly read the Devanagari 

 characters, and secondly that he does not understand a sin- 

 gle word of the passages which he quotes. In order to 

 prove the first charge let us go over these lines, which, 

 as they stand, are just as little Sanskrit as Tahitian. In 

 the first line we have Tattraisha for tatraisha, sukre for 

 sukte, prathama for prathama ; in the second, prathami for 

 prathamo, sana khandevo for manasvan devo, devan for de- 

 van, parya bhushat for paryabhushat, and after jata eva is left 

 out : in the third line sushma dodasi for ^ushmadrodasi, 



