HOS vol. 50 has been released at the end of 1994:
by BAREND A. VAN NOOTEN and GARY B. HOLLAND
1994. Pages, xviii, 667. Royal 8. Price, $50.00.
[ISBN 0-674-76971-6]
[Introduction pp. i-xiii; edition, pp. 1-547, with mandala, sukta, rc numbers as well as Grassmann's numbers; and including deity, author, and meter.]
Also including computer diskettes of the metrical AND the traditional Samhita texts with a quick program for word searches, as well as a simple conversion program allowing users to choose their own style of Romanization.
NB: the texts are unformatted. The discette is formatted in DOS style
which is easily readable by Macintosh computers these days. On request,
we may supply a Mac version in the future.
The Rig Veda has come down to us in two versions, the Samhita
and the Padapatha, neither of which corresponds in all respects to the
actual metrical form of the hymns... we have chosen to present the hymns
in a format closely approximating the canonic forms of the various meters.
... The discrepancies between the metrical canon and the transmitted form
of the hymn have been discussed beginning with the Pratisakhyas, and continuing
through the works of Hermann Grassmann, Hermann Oldenberg, and E. Vernon
Arnold, but no systematic method for restoring the text in conformance
with the metrical canon has been devised. ... Our approach has been to
treat the text in the first place as if it were a synchronic document and
to use the meter as the principal criterion for analysis. We view this
straightforward metrical restoration of the text as a necessary preliminary
to any further investigation of the relative chronology of the Rig Veda.
...
The publication of this volume also marks the start of a new
Vedic program of publication in the HOS. Apart from the Rgveda, the following
volumes are in various stages of preparation: Paippalada Atharvaveda, Samaveda
Samhita with commentaries, Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, Atharva Pratisakhya.
At the same time, we also envisage a significant widening of the series
to include other, non-Sanskritic texts....
... I would like to draw the readers' attention to our new sub-series
"HOS - Opera Minora", which will be available directly from the Department
of Sanskrit and Indian Studies at Harvard, 53 Church Street, Cambridge
MA 02138, USA and from South Asia Books,. Columbia, MO.; this will be announced
separately.
In the new sub-series, we plan to publish, in fairly inexpensive
form, conference volumes, such as that of the Harvard symposium of May
1994 on translating from Indian texts, or, finally, those of the the 1989
International Vedic Workshop. Further, we plan to print reports...., a
preliminary edition (such as that of the Paippalada Samhita of the Atharvaveda);
and we may also publish some reprints of the more expensive HOS volumes
for the use of students, such as the long out of print translation of the
Rgveda by K.F. Geldner.
Finally, I hope to initiate in the new series reprints of the "Opera
Minora" of American Indologists. ... Like its German counterpart, the Glasenapp
Series of Kleine Schriften, we hope that the new series will not just facilitate
our own work, but that it will also stimulate reading and discussion of
the often stupendous volume and depth of work that our predecessors have
carried out, which work, however, tends to become increasingly overlooked
in an academic climate that is increasingly geared to quick, fashionable,
and trendy production. M. W.