It has at least...

It has at least, I think, brought a considerable amount of light to bear on the history of the author's text, especially with regard to the labours of its editor `Abdu'l-Latîf in the seventeenth century; though, as explained in the Introduction, I am very far from imagining that we have arrived at any close approximation to the author's original. I do not say that a reconstruction of Sanâ'î's original text is impossible; though judging merely from the MSS.

I have examined, I am inclined to doubt the possibility. The text fell into confusion at a very early date, and it will perhaps only be by prolonged search or by a lucky chance that a future editor will obtain a copy which approximates in any close degree to the original; though a closer and more prolonged study of the copies we possess would, I have no doubt, give indications as to the place of many lines and passages which in the present edition are almost certainly wrongly placed or have been set apart as homeless.

But at the present stage of Oriental studies it is unprofitable to devote to the preparation of a text the same prolonged research which we are accustomed to see in editions of the classical authors of Greece and Rome; and the labour of scholars in the province of Oriental letters is better expended on a first rough survey of the ground, so much of which remains as yet absolutely unknown; when a general knowledge of the whole has been obtained, it will be time to return for a thorough cultivation of each individual plot.

In the list of the variant readings I have found it quite impossible to indicate the different order of the lines and sections in the several MSS., nor have I as a rule given the variations in the titles of the sections. Otherwise the list is complete. The translation is as literal as I have been able to make it.

The notes are largely taken from the commentaries of `Abdu'l-Latîf, published along with the text in the Lucknow lithograph (L), and of `Alâu'd-Dîn, similarly given in the lithograph (B) which I obtained from Bombay.

I have utilized all such portions of these commentaries as appeared to me to be helpful in arriving at an understanding of the text; matter taken from the commentary in the Lucknow lithograph I have distinguished by the letter L, also used in the list of variants to denote the readings of this lithograph; similarly the matter of `Alâu'd-Dîn's commentary is distinguished in the notes by the letter B.