विष्णु स्मृति (वैष्णव धर्मशास्त्र - नन्दपण्डित कृत वैजयन्ती टीका सहित सटीक)

PREFACE. 3
readings, &c., in C¹,² has been traced in that MS. Some of them
are found in V¹⁻⁶ as well, and there are a few other instances of
special agreement between C¹,² and V¹⁻³, such as the highly charac-
teristic omission of the greater part of chapter LXXXI, and the
equally characteristic interpolation in LXV, 2. This interpola-
tion is clearly due to a piece of the Commentary having crept
into the text, and to the same source may be traced nearly all
the other interpolations in C¹,² *, as well as the far less numerous
interpolations which the MSS. exhibit.
The Commentary, which is in most cases a running gloss on
every word of the text (T.), has not only enabled me to trace
interpolations and omissions, and to establish the general
superiority of V⁴ over the two other classes; it has also proved
an excellent check on the whole text in V⁴, which has served as
basis for the present edition. In my endeavours to ascertain
as nearly as possible the reading commented on by Nandapaṇḍita,
I have naturally derived much aid from V¹⁻³ as well, and even
from C¹,² and from v, which latter MS. has clearly been copied
like the rest from a copy of the Vaijayantī. The difference be-
tween the three classes is nowhere so marked as to constitute them
so many different recensions.
Readings opposed to the tenor of Nandapaṇḍita's Commen-
tary (C.) have generally been giving in the notes only, the only
important exception to this rule being the Vedic Mantras, many of
which appear to have been altered and corrupted at a very early
period. For amending these I have fully availed myself of the
help afforded by the extensive analogous sections of the Kāṭhaka
Gṛihya-sūtra, and in some cases, by the Vedic Saṃhitás and by the
Brāhmaṇas. The Mantras in XLVIII, 9, 10 have been left as they
are, because, though traceable to the White Yajurveda, they may
have been remodelled in order to adapt them to the particular
sacrificial rite described in chapter XLVIII. Violations of the
* See, e. g., the critical notes on V, 91, 101; XI, 8; XLVII, 2;
XLIX, 6; LXIV, 37; LXVIII, 16; LXIX, 3, 5; LXXV, 2, 3.