LES textes vèdiques ne nous renseignent guére sur la nature du “ Bouc monopede ” (Aja ekapād). Dans la plus ancienne littèrature, il est gènèralement en relation avec le “ Serpent du fond ” (Ahi budhnya) et cette association s'affirme jusque dans le rituel domestique.1Atharva-veda, xii, 1, 7, nous apprend que Rohita, le “ Rouge ”, après avoir ordonné l'univers et ètabli la voûte cèleste (nāka), èrigea un support pour ètayer le ciel. V. Henry, suivi par Bloomfield, admettait que cet animal mythique ètait une entitè solaire (Les Hymnes Rōhitas, p. 25 ; SBE., xlii, p. 664).

H. Oldenberg n'en voulut rien croire (Religion du Vèda, trad. Henry, p. 60, n. 2). A. Hillebrandt reste indcis (Vèd. Myth., iii, p. 340). Macdonell, approuvè par Keith, identifie le “ Bouc monopède ” avec l'èclair (Ved. Myth., p. 74 ; Rel. and Phil, of the Veda and Upanishads, p. 137).Suivant l'èpopèe, le Soleil est formè de deux parties : l'une lumineuse qui nous èclaire, et l'autre obscure qu'on appelle son “ pied ” (pāda). Au moyen de ce “ pied ”, il pompe l'eau pendant huit mois et la fait ensuite retomber en pluie pendant quatre mois (Mhbhār., 8, 79, 78, et xii, 363, 5 et suiv.; cf. Hopkins, Epic Mythology, p. 85).Ce dernier mythe a pu être suggèrè aux populations de l'Asie des moussons par le spectacle des trombes.

It is now more than a hundred years since the birth, in 1826, of Edward Byles Cowell, the guru of perhaps the greater number of English Sanskrit scholars. His story is well known. The son of an Ipswich merchant, he was called at 16, by his father's death, to leave school and carry on his father's business. His heart was set on learning. He was already widely read in classics, Statius, Lucian, and Greek romances being added to his school reading, and he was destined, while yet in his 'teens, to publish articles on Rabelais, Longus, and the Persian poets. In 1841, at the age of 15, he had been introduced to Sir W. Jones' works, and in the early morning (called, it was said, by the milkman pulling a string attached to his foot) he had studied in them the Asiaticae Poeseos Commentarii (on Persian and Arabic poetry) and the Persian grammar, working by himself at the extracts from Hafiz and the Shahnamah. Soon, however, help came to him from an old Bombay officer, Major Hockley, whom Professor Cowell cited in 1898, when receiving the gold medal of the Royal Asiatic Society, as a proof of the power which “ enthusiasm and sympathy can always exercise on others, wherever we may be placed ”.

Viśvarūpa Tvāṣṭra, the son of Tvaṣṭar, is the name of a certain demon of whom we hear in the Rig-Veda and elsewhere. Indra, the demon-hunter par préférence, fought with him and killed him ; but his chief adversary no doubt was originally Trita ሀptya, an old Aryan water-god, whose deeds and fame have slowly been usurped by the all-overshadowing Indra. Reasons which cannot here be dwelt upon, as I have already explained them elsewhere,2 make it probable that Viśvarūpa was originally a serpent deity of the class which was later on generally styled nāgas. We shall here try to find out something more definite concerning his original surroundings and sphere of activity.

In the Introduction to his translation of the Vaikh1nasasmārtasūtra (p. xiii fll.) Professor Caland has called attention to certain Tamilisms in the said work, such as anyāṃ vivāhaṃ kuryāt (═ vēru peṇṇai vivākam ceytu-kolla-vēṇum), vedān … adhyayanaṃ Jcaroti, etc. In a work like the Vaikhānasa-sūtra, which is obviously not written in the best Sanskrit, this is not very surprising, nor can it be said that these irregularities render the text unintelligible anywhere. But there seem to be, even in the works of well-known Sanskrit authors, cases of Sanskrit influenced by the vernacular which actually embarrass the reader. One such case is the following one which I came across recently in Śankarānanda's Bhagavadgītā-vyākhyā.

Die im britischen Besitz befindlichen Handschriftenschätze in Tocharischer Sprache gehören bis auf ganz verschwindende Reste der Mundart B an, die in England nach dem Vorgang von Prof. Sylvain Lévi als „ Kuchean Language ” bezeichnet zu werden pflegt. Den Grundstock bildet die „ Hoernle Collection “, die nach Prof. Hoernle's Tod dem India Office überwiesen wurde. Ihr hatte ursprünglich auch die 42 Blätter umfassende Handschrift medizinischen Inhalts angehört, die unter dem Namen „ Weber MSS. Part ix and Macartney MSS. Set I “ geht, von der Hoernle bereits 1901 im JASB. 70, Part ii, Extra-Nr. 1, Appendix (p. 1–31) einen Transliterations- Versuch gemacht und die er auch in „ Facsimile-Reproduction “, Calcutta, 1902, veröffentlicht hat. Aber von diesen Blättern liegt jetzt die eine Hälfte (Bl. 1–12 und 30–42) in der Bodleyana in Oxford, die andere (Bl. 13–29) im British Museum in London. In der India Office Library befinden sich indessen ausser der Hoernle Collection auch noch die allerdings wenigen Blätter in Kucischer Sprache, die aus den späteren Funden Sir Aurel Stein's stammen.