While making his London collations in 1853 (see below, p. lxxii), Whitney made also a transcript of the Major Anukramaṇī, and subsequently he added a collation of the Berlin ms. thereof (preparative for item 5).—In the course of his long labors upon Atharvan texts, Whitney had naturally made many observations suitable for a general introduction (item 6). Roth had sent him a considerable mass of exegetical notes (item 7).—Furthermore, during the decades in which Whitney had concerned himself with this and the related texts, he had noted in his Collation-Book, opposite each verse of the Atharvan Saṁhitā, the places in the other texts where that verse recurs, in identical or in similar form, in whole or in part; thus making a very extensive collection of concordances, with the Atharvan Saṁhitā as the point of departure, and providing himself with the means for reporting upon the variations of the parallel texts with far greater completeness than was possible by means of the Table and Index mentioned above under item 3.
The critical notes.—Of all the eight promised items, the one of most importance, and of most pressing importance, was doubtless the eighth, the critical notes, in which were to be given the various readings of the manuscripts. In his Introductory Note to the Atharvan Prātiçākhya (p. 338: year 1862), Whitney says:
The condition of the Atharvan as handed down by the tradition was such as to impose upon the editors as a duty what in the case of any of the other Vedas would have been an almost inexcusable liberty—namely, the emendation of the text-readings in many places. In so treating such a text, it is not easy to hit the precise mean between too much and too little; and while most of the alterations made were palpably and imperatively called for, and while many others would have to be made in translating, there are also a few cases in which a closer adherence to the manuscript authorities might have been preferable.
The apparatus for ascertaining in any given passage just what the mss. read was not published for more than two decades. Complaints on this score, however, were surely estopped by the diligence and effectiveness with which both editors employed that time for the advancement of the cause of Indic philology. In his Introduction to the Index Verborum (p. 2: year 1880), Whitney says:
There will, of course, be differences of opinion as to whether this ⌊course of procedure⌋ was well-advised—whether they ⌊the editors⌋ should not have contented themselves with giving just what the manuscripts gave them, keeping suggested alterations for their notes; and, yet more, as to the acceptableness of part of the alterations made, and the desirableness of others which might with equal reason have been made.... It is sought ⌊in the Index⌋ simply to call attention to all cases in which a published reading differs from that of the manuscripts, as well as to those comparatively infrequent ones where the manuscripts are at variance, and to furnish the means...for determining in any particular case what the manuscripts actually read.
