This text of the Shatapatha, Maadhyandina Shaakha, was encoded in 1971, partly funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, by Dr. H. S. Ananthanarayana under the direction of Dr. W. P. Lehmann. Please take a moment to review HOW TO USE this database. It is painstakingly constructed and accessible in a multitude of ways. The explanation uses working illustrations.

It has been extensively re-worked, as its original form reflected the early limits of technology at that time which were, nonetheless, transcended by the vision of the project directors. NOTE: the word breaks per akSara are not present. This is for the reasons of

1). the original from which this is derived
2). efforts to preserve some copyright integrity by not offering a fully processed text without due review, and
3). it emulates the usual printed editions more closely which, I contend, is the only way to use e-texts.

Also, long vowels are rendered as double letters, with accent via ' markings over the appropriate letter. Font constraints require that vocalic R remain a capital, with : for length, and the original ! for accent. This will be rectified with ILK.

The ShB normally is considered to mark only udaatta in its mss (cf. Weber's edition). There are, in fact, two markings as you will find in the text. A traditional stroke ' over a vowel as well as "&" following it. The Texas team preserved both. The issue at hand involves how to read them. Contrary to Weber and Caland, however, there have been several arguments to the contrary. Specifically from Hoffman, Kiparsky, Witzel, and Cardona--see discussion. In essence, the traditional ' stroke (an underline in the mss) means NOT udaatta, but instead anudaatta. This is a thorny issue stretching into matters of various intonation deviation according to shaakha, mss. interpretation, and other matters. I am indebted to Michael Witzel for pointing me to how to go about clarifying this, offering several points for further review. For a more detailed discussion with links and references, click here. Subsequent to this, I have preserved the entire accent scheme so carefully encoded at Texas, and a great deal of information has been preserved behind the otherwise enigmatic ampersand markings.

The citation index is subdivided by kaaNDa, adhyaaya, and braahmaNa. There are asterisks by those braahmaNa's with RV links. From there you can begin viewing the ShB.

It is already apparent from using this technology the frequency of various sections in both texts viz. their cross reference to each other (see, for instance, RV index according to ShB usage--and bookmark it as it is not as accessible from the database). As much of the linking was done via the , it also becomes apparent, per Gonda (Mantra Interpretation in the Shatapatha BraahmaNa ) how the ShB represents a later redaction of an earlier text to which both this, the maadhyandina, and the kaaNviya editions refer. The TITUS project, in Frankfurt, Germany, headed by Dr. Jost Gippert, is working on a kaaNviya edition.

Eggeling's ShB for the Sacred Books of East series was often the most reliable, though frequently there were citations missing which, for instance, Griffith's edition identified. Typo's, however, were a problem, for instance viz. 2.2.3.22, which quotes RV 9.66.19c, was marked as 9.16.19 (9.16 has only 8 shloka's). However, otherwise rarely were Eggeling's citations were wrong, while Griffith's frequently were.

In general, the text is quite intact, though reports on errors are welcome and needed. Further updates and revisions will continue.
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