Project proposal - shatapathabrAhmaNa (weber) cleanup.
विश्वासो वासुकिजः (Vishvas Vasuki)
Goal and motivation
The sasvara pATha of shatapatha-brAhmaNa (mAdhyandina) is valuable for students and practitioners of vedic ritual and language. We a typed devanAgarI version which needs quite a bit of svara correction. If you can contribute labor or money towards this, please let me know. Else, please pass this on to those interested.
Details
Various editions of shatapatha-brAhmaNa have been published. Of them, ones by Weber and vamshIdhara-shAstrI are prominent. In reality, neither of them has perfect svara-s, though the latter is generally superior. So, ultimately one needs to compare both pATha-s, and use one's understanding of grammar, language and notation to pick the best reading.
Plan
Weber had brought out an edition in 1848! Due to the efforts (since 1970s) of folks such as Dr. H. S. Ananthanarayana guided by Dr. W. P. Lehmann, J.R. Gardner and Matthias Ahlborn, a romanized (still erroneous) form of this text has been on the internet.
We have used this to produce a devanAgarI version (conversion of the western grave accent to a traditional-like svara on the previous syllable was a non-trivial matter), and made some further corrections. A sample:
स वै᳘ प्रात᳘रप᳘ एव᳟॥
प्रथमे᳘न क᳘र्मणाभि᳘पद्यते ऽपः प्र᳘णयति यज्ञोवा आ᳘पो यज्ञ᳘मेॗवैत᳘त्प्रथमे᳘न क᳘र्मणाभि᳘पद्यते ताः प्र᳘णयति यज्ञ᳘मेॗवैतद्वि᳘तनोति॥
- This text should be further corrected to match the Weber edition perfectly. Especially, book 12 (of 14) needs much attention as acute accents marked (often with errors and lack of completeness) have been rendered as shatapatha-accent-marks.
- Then, based on this text, we should produce an edition to match the vamshIdhara-shAstrI edition.
- Finally, we should compare both and derive the best reading.
Of these, step 2 seems most laborious as one needs to compare accents on all 14 books.
--
Vishvas /विश्वासः