बौधायन श्रौतसूत्रम् (कृष्ण यजुर्वेद तैत्तिरीय शाखा - सम्पूर्ण प्रश्न एवं श्रौत-याग कल्प सटीक)

xii PREFACE.
Now, as all the MSS. give different divisions, most of them
not giving even any praśna numbers, I had to choose that
division which seemed to be most in accordance with the rest
of the work. The difficulties mentioned above become still more
complicated by the question, where the pravargya is to be
put in. Bhavasvāmin treats of it before the agniṣṭoma and the
Bombay and Tanjore MSS. place it before; other MSS. (J, F, P,
and the Benares MS. No. 63, mentioned Sūcipattra, page 70)
give it after the agniṣṭoma. As the analogy of the other Sūtras
and the contents of the pravargya section itself seem to point
to placing this praśna after the soma praśnas, I have not followed
in this respect the Vivaraṇa and the Bombay and Tanjore MSS.
Another consideration seems to stand for this arrangement;
there is more chance that the tradition of the pravargya section
became mutilated, when it was put at the close of the agniṣṭoma
as it is actually found in most of our MSS., than when it was
handed down at the beginning. As the cayana seems to be the
10th praśna, the vājapeya being the 11th (this number is given
to the vājapeya in the Haug MS.), there is room left for only
four praśnas between the cāturmāsya and the cayana praśnas
Now, if the pravargya section is to be taken as one of these,
then the soma proper cannot have contained more than three
praśnas. The division adopted by me agrees, as to the 2nd
and 3rd soma praśna, with the order given by F and by Keśa-
vasvāmin in his prayogasāra, although in his numbering (accord-
ing to the MS. of the India Office Library, at least) there are
slight inaccuracies. A short note, communicated to me by Mr.
A. Venis, found at the end of the agniṣṭoma MS. of the Benares
Sanskrit College, gives as numbers of the praśnas (here called
adhyāyas) of the agniṣṭoma portion, including the pravargya at the
end, the numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, thus agreeing with the arrangement
accepted by me. The separate pravargya MS. No. 50 of the
same collection bears also the number 9.
The collection of various readings in this edition does not aim
at being complete. Wherever the comparison of the Vivaraṇa
and the evidence of corresponding passages make the reading
evident, I omitted to give the varietas lectionum. The anunāsikā
I put only before sibilants and before v and h, although the
MSS. do not all agree in this respect. In accordance with
the common use in the MSS., I omitted the visarga before
the combination of sibilant with tenuis, although the MSS. are
always consistent in this. The repetition of the words finishing
an adhyāya and the anticipation of the words of the following
khaṇḍa at the close of a khaṇḍa have not been taken into account,
as these repetitions are only met with sporadically.
As the text of the Baudhāyana Sūtra has been handed down in
sandhi form, without any trace of division into sūtras, I have not
divided what the ancient Brāhmans had united, and not followed
the example of other editors of ritualistic texts. I only separated