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xxxvi
Editor's Preface

inconsistencies of orthography or abbreviation, I trust that a high degree of accuracy in the real essentials has been attained. I dare not hope that my colleagues will not discover blemishes and deficiencies in the work; but I shall be glad if they do not cavil at them. India has much to teach the West: much that is of value not only for its scientific interest, but also for the conduct of our thought and life. It is far better to exploit the riches of Indian wisdom than to spend time or strength in belittling the achievements of one's fellow-workers or of those that are gone.

The biographical and related matter.—The First American Congress of Philologists devoted its session of Dec. 28, 1894 to the memory of Whitney. The Report of that session, entitled "The Whitney Memorial Meeting," and edited by the editor of this work, was issued as the first half of volume xix. of the Journal of the American Oriental Society. The edition was of fifteen hundred copies, and was distributed to the members of the Oriental Society and of the American Philological Association and of the Modern Language Association of America, to the libraries enrolled on their lists, and to some other recipients. Besides the addresses of the occasion, the Report contains bibliographical notes concerning Whitney's life and family, and a bibliography of his writings: but since, strictly speaking, it contains no biography of Whitney, I have thought it well to give in this volume (p. xliii) a brief sketch of his life; and in preparing it, I have made use, not only of the substance, but also, with some freedom, of the form of statement of the autobiography which Whitney published in 1885 (see p. lx). Moreover, since the people into whose hands this work will come are for the most part not the same as those who received the Report, it has been thought advisable to reprint therefrom the editor's Memorial Address (p. xlvii) as a general estimate of Whitney's character and services, and to give, for its intrinsic usefulness, a select list of his writings (p. lvi), which is essentially the list prepared by Whitney for the "Yale Bibliographies" (List, 1893).

    at last in time for correction.—At xix. 27. 7, I had added suryam as the Kashmirian reading for the Vulgate sūryam, simply because Roth's Collation gave suryam; but on looking it up in the facsimile, last line of folio 136 a, I found, after the plates were made, that the birch-bark leaf really has sūryam and that the slip was Roth's.—In regard to xix. 24. 6 b, the Fates seemed to have decreed that error should prevail. Here the manuscripts read vāpinā́m. This is reported in the foot-note of the Berlin edition as văpīnā́m(ist error). The editors intended to emend the ms. reading to vaçā́nām, which, however, is misprinted in the text as vaçānā́m (2d error). [The conjecture vaçā́nām, even if rightly printed, is admitted to be an unsuccessful one.] In the third line of his comment, Whitney wrote, "The váçānām of our text" etc. (3d error). This I corrected to vaçā́nām, and added, in a note near the end of the paragraph, that the conjecture was "Misprinted vaçānā́m." My note about the misprint was rightly printed in the second proof; but in the foundry proof, by some mishap, it stood "Misprinted vaçānam." (4th error). The fourth error I hope to amend successfully in the plate.