Albrecht Weber[1] and Rudolph Roth respectively, but also of Professor Lepsius and others. Already during his first summer with Roth, the edition of the Atharva-Veda was planned.[2] In October, 1851, he began copying the Berlin manuscripts of the text, and finished that work in March, 1852. Leaving Berlin[3] in March, 1853, he stayed seven weeks in Paris, three in Oxford, and seven in London (collating Sanskrit manuscripts), and then returned to America, arriving in Boston August 5.
Before quitting Germany, he received an invitation to return to Yale College as Professor of Sanskrit, but not until August, 1854, did he go there to remain. His election was dated May 10, 1854, so that his term of service exceeded forty years. The events of such a life as his are, so far as they concern the outside world, little else than the succession of classes instructed and of literary labors brought to a conclusion. It may be noted, however, that very soon after their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Whitney went, partly for health and partly for study,[4] to spend somewhat less than a year in France and Italy (November, 1856 to July, 1857), passing several months at Rome. In 1873 he took part in the summer campaign of the Hayden exploring expedition in Colorado, passing two full months on horseback and under canvas, coursing over regions which in good part had been till then untrodden by the feet of white men, and seeing Nature in her naked grandeur—mounting some nine times up to or beyond the altitude of 14,000 feet. In the summer of 1875 Mr. Whitney visited England and Germany,[5] mainly for the collection of further
- ↑ In a letter to Salisbury from Weber (see JAOS. iii. 215), dated Berlin, March 29, 1851, Weber writes: "I have already had the pleasure of instructing two of your countrymen in Sanskrit, Mr. Wales and Mr. Whitney. Mr. Whitney certainly entitles us to great hopes, as he combines earnestness and diligence with a sound and critical judgment. I hope to induce him to undertake an edition of the Tāittirīya-Āraṇyaka, one of the most interesting Vedic Scriptures." Whitney's fellow-student was Dr. Henry Ware Wales (Harvard, 1838), who had already, nearly two years before, by a will dated April 24, 1849, provided for the endowment of the Wales Professorship of Sanskrit in Harvard University, which was established in due course January 26, 1903, and to which the editor of these volumes was elected March 23, 1903.
- ↑ This appears from the following portion (see JAOS. iii. 216: cf. also p. 501) of an interesting letter from Roth, dated Tübingen, August 2, 1851: "I have had for a scholar, through this summer, one of your countrymen, Mr. Whitney of Northampton. Through the winter, he will reside in Berlin, in order to collect there whatever can be found for the Atharvaveda, and then return here with what is brought together. We shall then together see what can be done for this Veda, hitherto without a claimant, which I consider as the most important next to the Rigveda." Cf. Roth's letter of November 18, 1894, JAOS. xix. 100.
- ↑ The date given on p. 1 is not quite correct: see p. cxviii.
- ↑ The AV. Pratīka-index (Ind. Stud., vol. iv.: see p. 62) is dated Paris, May, 1857.
- ↑ In particular, Munich and Tübingen (cf. JAOS. x., p. cxviii, = PAOS. for Nov. 1S75). At that time, the editor of these volumes was residing at Tübingen as a pupil of Roth and as one of the little group to which belonged Garbe, Geldner, Kaegi, and Lindner. Whitney's arrival (July 6) was a great event and was hailed with delight. It may be added that it was the privilege of Whitney and myself to take part in the memorable feast given at Jena by Böhtlingk on his sixtieth birthday, June 11, 1875, in celebration of the completion of the great Sanskrit Lexicon.
