The passage which is always quoted from the Rv. IV. 9, 4, as showing +gnâ-s+ to be a nom. sing. in _s_, is extremely difficult, and as it stands at present, most likely corrupt:-- Utá gnấḥ agníḥ adhvaré utó gṛhá-patiḥ dáme, utá brahmấ ní sídati. This could only be translated:-- “Agni sits down at the sacrifice as a woman, as lord in the house, and as priest.” This, however, is impossible, for Agni, the god of fire, is never represented in the Veda as a woman. If we took +gnâḥ+ as a genitive, we might translate, “Agni sits down in the sacrifice of the lady of the house,” but this again would be utterly incongruous in Vedic poetry. I believe the verse is corrupt, and I should propose to read:-- Utá agnấv agníḥ adhvaré. “Agni sits down at the sacrifice in the fire, as lord in the house, and as a priest.” The ideas that Agni, the god of fire, sits down in the fire, or that Agni is lighted by Agni, or that Agni is both the sacrificial fire and the priest, are familiar to every reader of the Veda. Thus we read, I. 12, 6, agnínâ agníḥ sám idhyate, “Agni is lighted by Agni;” X. 88, 1, we find Agni invoked as ấ-hutam agnáu, etc. But whether this emendation be right or wrong, it must be quite clear how unsafe it would be to support the theory that feminine bases in _â_ ended originally in _s_ by this solitary passage from the Veda. NOTE C. GRAMMATICAL FORMS IN SANSKRIT CORRESPONDING TO SO-CALLED INFINITIVES IN GREEK AND LATIN. There is no trace of such a term as infinitive in Sanskrit, and yet exactly the same forms, or, at all events, forms strictly analogous to those which we call infinitives in Greek and Latin, exist in Sanskrit. Here, however, they are treated in the simplest way.