Author Of Three Centuries

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269720/1

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The Author of the Three Centuries* (Studies on Bharthari, 6) There seems to be a tendency among recent scholars to consider as possible, or even probable, the identity of Bharthari, supposedly the author of the Three Centuries (satakatraya, subhasitatrisati), with the grammarian-philosopher of the same name. This article is meant to draw attention to the fact that the arguments adduced to support this position are far weaker than is generally realized. Harold G. Coward (1976:95 f.) has the following to say about the question: "Tradition seems to have consistently maintained that Bhartrhari, the poet, was the same Bharthari, who composed the Vakyapadiya and a commentary on the Mahabhasya of Patanjali. This ancient tradition identifying Bhartrhari the poet with Bharthari the grammarian was called into question by scholars writing around the turn of the century (e.g., M. R. Kale), and more recently by D. D. Kosambi, Kosambi's argument, however, although meticulously researched, depends for its strength on the Chinese pilgrim I-tsing's suggestion that the Bharthari of the Vakyapadiya was a Buddhist. Since Bhartrhari the poet shows no trace of Buddhism, Kosambi felt that there must be two different Bhartrharis. However, ... the contents 33 Coward may be exceptional in his decision to fully accept what he Johannes Bronkhorst considers to be an ancient tradition. Several other scholars are more circumspect, yet they, too, are inclined to follow this tradition to at least some extent, by considering it more or less probable that the two Bhartrharis were identical. Christian Lindtner, for example, refers to Coward's remarks, then adds that he has no hesitation at all in accepting the authenticity of the collection of poems ascribed to Bharthari, i.e. the satakatraya (1993:203). Jan E. M. Houben (1992:5-6), similarly, observes: "To consider Bharthari, the author of the [Vakyapadiya], identical with Bhartrhari the poet requires little more than the willingness to imagine him as a versatile genius, since there are no strong arguments to support the view that they were different." Houben refers in this context to D. H. H. Ingalls (1965:41), according to whom there is no reason why Bhartrhari "should not have written poems as well as grammar and metaphysics". Ashok Aklujkar (1969:555 n. 28), similarly, had observed: "The possibility that Bhartrhari, the grammarian, and Bhartrhari, the poet could be the same person is not so slight as is generally assumed." Madhav M. Deshpande (1992: 269), finally, states: "It cannot yet be conclusively decided whether the poet Bharthari was the same as the grammarian-philosopher". Preceding articles in this series have been published in the following periodicals: Bulletin d'Etudes Indiennes 6 (1988), 105-143 (no.1:"L'auteur et la date de la Vitti"); Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 15 (1989), 101-117 (no. 2: "Bharthari and Mimamsa"); Asiatische Studien / Etudes Asiatiques 45 (1991), 5-18 (no. 3: "Bharthari on sphota and universals"); id. 46.1(1992), 56-80 (no. 4:"L'absolu dans le Vakyapadiya et son lien avec le Madhyamaka"); id. 47.1(1993), 75-94 (no. 5:"Bharthari and Vaisesika"). Bronkhorst: The Author of the Three Centuries of [the Vakyapadiya] are thoroughly Brahmanical in nature. This, plus the new dating of Bhartrhari as prior to the fifth century A.D. (on the basis of Bharthari quotations in the works of Dinnaga), has led recent scholarship to return much nearer the identity thesis of the classical tradition. Not only does the author of this book [=H. G. Coward] adopt the traditional viewpoint on this question, but it is suggested that Bhat's assumption of Patanjali's classical Yoga in the Vakyapadiya... also occurs in his poetry and is further evidence for the identity thesis." Everyone who has occupied himself with the question of the identity of the author of the Three Centuries, agrees that the work of D. D. Kosambi (1948) is, and remains, the basis of any serious discussion. Yet the positions taken by many of the scholars mentioned above create the impression that they have not read Kosambi's study with the care which it deserves. Kosambi, like many others before and after him, made a mistake which is to be held responsible for a large amount of confusion: he accepted the testimony of I-ching. Coward is completely right in stating that Bharthari, contrary to I-ching's testimony, was not a Buddhist. Nor was Iching right in placing Bharthari in the 7th century. Yet this 'fact' is still used by S. Lienhard (1984:89) to show that the two Bhartrharis cannot be one

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vAcaspatyam 35 Bronkhorst: The Author of the Threc Centuries and the same person. For our present discussion it is important to exorcise the ghost of I-ching, and to put his untrustworthy evidence concerning the date and religion of Bharthari aside. Fortunately much remains to be said about the author of the Three Centuries without invoking I-ching. Consider first Kosambi's following observations (1948:62): "There is no way of knowing what form the original Bharthari collection took, but it could never have been a Satakatraya, nor could the author himself have promulgated any edition comparable to what we possess today. The immense variation in order as well as content proves the latter point, for no one could possibly tako such liberties with a generally accepted text. Moreover," the uniform tendency to add extra flokas as Bharthari's shows that the work was, in all probability, started as a collection of Bhartrhari Slokas by much later admirers. For neglect during the poet's own lifetime, the starizas themselves offer ample testimony." It is not necessary to recall here the enormous differences that exist between the many manuscripts of the Three Centuries. Let it be enough to mention that these manuscripts contain together some 850 stanzas only 200 of which occur in all of them. Besides the different stanzas found in different manuscripts, the same stanzas often occur in a different order. The form of the individual stanzas, too, varies greatly in the different manuscripts. Kosambi's remarks seem therefore fully justified. This, however, would mean that what we have is a collection of stanzas, collected at a time when their composer had been dead for a long time. This in its tum raises the fundamental question whether even the ther even the original collection (if there was one) can rightly be ascribed to one single poet. We know that this collection attracted innumerable accretions after its kernel had been established. Can we seriously believe that, before a first collection had been made, several hundred stanzas of one single poet had been preserved together? Is it not far more likely that already the original collection contained stanzas from various poets? This question gains in significance by the fact that several verses of the kernel of 200 identified by Kosambi occur in other early texts. Stanza 63 occurs in Kalidasa's Abhijnanasakuntala (5.13; Scharpe,1954:65), and others are found in the oldest layer of the Pancatantra as restored by Edgerton. Kosambi was aware of this fact, and concluded (p. 78): "If, therefore, one man wrote these verses, he must belong to me opeus centuries of the Christian era", that is to say, before Kalidasa and before the oldest layer of the Parcatantra. This conclusion, which has been accepted by others, virtually ensures that the author of the Three Centuries was not the grammarian-philosopher Bharthari, for the latter lived, in all probability, after Kalidasa. This can be seen as follows. The Candra-Vrtti cites Kalidasa's Raghuvamsa (Oberlies, 1989:13). - This commentary was composed, it appears (Bronkhorst, forthcoming), more or less at the same time as the Candra-Sutra, on which it comes. The author of the Candra-Sutra, Candra, is referred to in the concluding verses of the Vakvapadiva-Vrtti. These verses further state at banquam is later than Candra. Bhartphari, according to this evidence, lived after Candra, who in his turn lived after Kalidasa. We are, in view of the above, confronted with the following dilemma: either the original kernel of the Three Centuries had one single author, who cannot then be Bharthari, the grammarian-philosopher; or the Three Centuries was an anthology from the beginning. Warder (1983:122-23), too, addresses the question whether the original collection was itself simply an anthology. He rejects this possibility on the basis of the following reflections: "In any case one general remark can be made about the collection: it is 'philosophical' in character, at least in the popular sense of reflections about the problems of life. In this it is totally unlike the work of Amaruka..., which is purely descriptive and particular. To the extent that a homogeneous outlook can be discerned in the Trisati, bitter and ironical, we may become convinced that the original collection was entirely the creation of an individual, not merely an anthology of verses by earlier poets which happened to reflect a certain outlook. This argument has, of course, only any force if Warder's criterion 1. One cannot even exclude the possibility that there were various collections of stanzas, which borrowed from each other, so that they all came to share a number of stanzas in common. In this case the attribution to one single poet becomes even loss plausible. 2. See Sternbach, 1974:50 n. 255. Serious criticism of Edgerton's reconstruction has been voiced by R. Geib (1969:8 f.). Sternbach (1974:50) believes that the verses from the Abhijilanasakuntala and the Parcatantra were added to the Three Centuries but maintains, strangely, that yet "a small part of [this anthology] was composed by Bharthari himself". 3. Surprisingly, Warder (1983:122), following the testimony of I-ching, assigns the author of the Three Centuries to the 7th century. The question of the presence of a stanza from the Sakuntala in the Three Centuries is not addressed.

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36 vAcaspatyam allows us clearly to distinguish between the original kernel and the verses added later. If it doesn't (and no one has as yet claimed the opposite), we'll have to admit that a collection, the multiple authorship of which is beyond doubt, can yet present a more or less homogeneous outlook. And if this is true of the present versions of the Trisati, the original collection, too, may have had several authors, yet be homogeneous in its outlook. The homogeneous nature of the present collections has been pointed out by Kosambi, who (p. 81) draws attention to "the remarkable fact that, in spite of the extraordinary variation from version to version, the total impression produced by any of them is about the same". In other words: "A certain type of stanza came to be attracted to the collection." Sternbach (1974: 50-51) presents the following argument: "Probably many verses of the Srigara-sataka were written by Bhartrhari, for they show a definite unity of structure - they first deal with the pleasure of love and the beauty of women, then with the might of love and its joys, particularly in the changing seasons of the year, then there are verses in which the joys of love are compared to the bliss of the peace of mind attained through asceticism and wisdom, and lastly the poet recognizes more and more clearly that a woman is after all nothing but a sweet poison, a serpent by the wayside and that love is but a decoy, luring men to love the world, whereas happiness can only be found in renunciation of the world in God -Siva or Brahman." This argument is particularly puzzling in that it is well known that the different versions of the Three Centuries present the verses in widely differing orders, and that the versions collectively known as the Southern and Western Recension have imposed a more logical arrangement, where the Northern Recension has undergone no such arrangement. Sternbach is aware of this fact, and indeed speaks of "the immense variations in the order" (p. 51). One is therefore entitled to ask to which version he is referring when he speaks of the unity of structure of the Srigara-sataka. His book contains no answer to this question.' It will therefore be wise to discard the whole argument as ill-founded, We turn to the next question: Did the collectors of the original kernel of the Three Centuries really ascribe the stanzas to someone called Bhartrhari? The evidence we have is meagre and late. K. A. S. Iyer observes (1969:11): "A Bharthari had already attained fame as a great poet (mahakavi) in the 10th century A. D., because Somadeva calls him so in his Yasastilakacampu. The Jain writer Merutunga of the 14th century A. D. says in his Prabandhacintamani that the poet Bhartrhari wrote the 37 Bronkhorst: The Author of the Three Centuries Vairagyasataka and other poems." The 14th century, be it noted, is more than eight centuries after the date we believe Bhartrhari lived. How old is the tradition according to which the poet Bhartrhari is identical with the grammarian-philosopher of that name? Coward speaks of an 'ancient tradition' which 'consistently maintained' this identity. Iyer's following remark (1969:11) sings a different tune: "There is a tradition that the Bhartrhari who wrote the three satakas is the same as the author of the Vakyapadiya. It is recorded in Ramabhadra Diksita's Patanjalicaritam which is, however, not an ancient work. It is not easy to say how old this tradition is." Ramabhadra Diksita lived around 1700.' It is in this context of interest to note that Punyaraja's commentary on VP 2.85 (ed. Iyer p. 46) cites a verse that belongs to the kernel of the Three Centuries (no. 11), without giving the slightest hint that in his opinion the verse was composed by the author of the Vakyapadiya. At this point I must cite another passage from Kosambi's Introduction (p. 57):"...the Kasmirian Abhinavagupta (1000 A.D.) knows only of the grammarian Bhartrhari, and seems never to have heard of the poet. Nevertheless, the Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana (Kasmirian of the 9th century) contains the stanza smitam kincid [which belongs to the oldest kernel of the Three Centuries; J. B.] without attribution to any author. In the 11th century, Ksemendra does cite a poet Bhartrhari by name but he gives as others' slokas which are as genuine Bhartrhari as any...at least by the canon adopted in this edition." To these remarks by Kosambi we may add that Abhinavagupta, too, cites a verse which belongs to the oldest kernel of the Three Centuries (Niti 11) without attributing it to any author. Given that Abhinavagupta often refers by name to the author of the Vakyapadiya, we must conclude, not just that there is no evidence to believe that the Three Centuries were attributed to the grammarian Bhartrhari, but also that there is important evidence to the contrary. To sum up: It is open to serious doubt whether even the original kernel of the Three Centuries had a single author; it is not known whether the original collectors of this kernel believed that the stanzas had a single author, if they did, we do not know whether they thought he was called Bharthari; and the evidence for a tradition according to which the author 4. 5. Cf. Sternbach, 1974: 49-50. Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, V: The Philosophy of the Grammarians (ed. Harold G. Coward and K. Kunjunni Raja, Delhi 1990), p. 321. 6. Ingalls et al., 1990:146.

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vAcaspatyam 39 of the Three Centuries was the grammarian-philosopher Bharthari is very recent indeed. This last assumption, moreover, is in conflict with the presence of some stanzas from before the time of Bhartharl in the kernel of the Three Centuries. It is not necessary to discuss in detail Coward's further "evidence for the identity thesis", viz., the presumed fact that "Bharthari's assumption of Patanjali's classical Yoga in the Vakyapadiya... also occurs in his poetry". The similarities between the contents of the Vakyapadiya and of the Yoga Bharya are remote, and the same is true of those between the Satakatraya and the Yoga Bhagya No other conclusions can be drawn from them but that all three texts are Indian and Brahmanical, and therefore necessarily share a number of features. Let us now consider another argument that has been presented in favour of the identity of the two Bhartharis. K A. S. Iyer (1969:13) formulates it as follows: "One of the stanzas of the three satakas is the following dikkaladyanavacchinnana [n]tacinmatramurayel svanubhutyekmanaya namah santaya tejasel' This usually comes at the very beginning of the Nitisataka in the different editions, Kosambi's rigorous critical eye has relegated it to Group II (No.256). In other words, it is a doubtful stanza. Now we hayo the authority of Somananda and Utpalacarya that it is a genuine composition of Bharthari, not taken from any of the Satakas, but from his Sabdadhatusamiksa....Somananda criticizes Bharthari for straying away from his function of being a grammarian and indulging in the quest for true knowledge not only in his vakyapadiya but also in his (Sabdadhatu) samlksa and ultimately propounding, not true knowledge, but a mere semblance of it. While explaining this portion of the Sivadrsti, Utpala says that the learned Bharthari, by speaking about Pafyant only, has propounded a mere semblance of true knowledge and quotes two verses from the Sabdadhatusamiksa of which the above verse is one. Somananda Bronkhorst: The Author of the Three Centuries criticizes this verse of Bhartrhari word by word. If this stanza 18 a genuine one of the three fatakas attributed to Bharthari, the fact that it is also a genuine part of another work of Bharthari, the Sabdadhatusamiksa, would point to identity of authorshipofthe three satakas and the Sabdadhatusamiksa and ultimately of the Vakyapadiya also." In other words, the stanza cited by Iyer might have originally occurred both in the work of Bharthari the poet and in that of Bhartshari the grammarian-philosopher. In reality, there are good reasons to believe it occurred in neither. As far as the Three Centuries are concerned, Kosambi (1948:6263) had no doubts "that the stanza dikkalady [256] is...spurious, a later addition as seen from numerous omissions. In the first place, this is the very quintessence of Vedantic doctrine. Secondly, we can see it growin Vedantic documents. The Yogavasistha has dikkaladyanavacchinnah sarvarambhaprakasakyt/ ctnmatramurtir amalo deva ity ucyate munell (VI-a, 30.12). This is followed by the 6000 sloka Laghuyogavaststha, written by Gauda Abhinanda, a 9th century Kasmirian, which gives [6.1) dikkaladyanavacchinnam adrstabhayakori kam/cinatram aksayam santam ekam brahmasmi netarat/ The exact form of our Sloka occurs as the opening of the Laghuyogavasisthasara, which gives a still further condensed presentation of the Vedic doctrine in 223 stanzas. In Bharthari proper, the stanza is decidedly out of place, as the more ardent Saiva stanzas that might have supported it all drop out of Group I." Even more problematic is that the content of the stanza under consideration is in conflict with the philosophy presented in the Vakyapadiya, as has been pointed out elsewhere.' In other words, it can hardly be accepted as having been composed by the grammarian-philosopher Bharthari. Of course, the statements by Somananda and Utpala might be considered evidence that they already identified Bharthari the poet and Bharthari the grammarian-philosopher. But not even this conclusion is certain. All we can conclude with confidence is that they believed that Bharthari the grammarian-philosopher composed another work, called Sabdadhathusamiksa." As we have seen, they may have been mistaken in this. 7. Note that Iyer himself characterizes this argument u "insufficient, sot, in any caso, enough to upset the conclusion of Kosambi that we really do not know who the author of the satatas was." 8. Kate (1971:trans.1) translates:"Salutation to that peaceful Majesty whose form is puro kowledge, Infinito and unconditioned by space, time, cto., and the principal means of mowing which is self-perception." 9. Asiatische StudievBludes Asiatiques 46 (1), 1992, p. 58, with note 12. 10. Professor Raffaele Torella informs me that there are good reasons to believe that this work was rather called Saddhatuamikpl.

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, 01769797 41 Bronkhorst: The Author of the Three Centuries Scharpe, A. (1954): Kalidasa-Lexicon Vol. I, Part I: Abhijnanasakuntala. Brugge: De Tempel. Sternbach, Ludwik (1974): Subhasita, Gnomic and Didactic Literature. Wiesbadea: Otto Harrassowitz. (A History of Indian Literature, vol. 4, fasc.1.) Warder A. K. (1983): Indian Kavya Literature, 4: The ways of originality (Bana to Damodaragupta). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. References Aklujkar, Ashok (1969): "Two Textual Studies of Bharthari." Journal of the American : Oriental Society 89, 547-563. Bronkhorst, Johannes (forthcoming): "The Candra-vyakarana: some questions." Festschrift Cardona. Coward, Harold G. (1976): Bhartrhari. Boston, U.S.A.: Twayne Publishers. (Twayne's World Authors:Series, 403). * Deshpande, Madhav M. (1992): "Bharthari (ca. 450-510). "In: Philosophy of Lan. guage. An international handbook of contemporary research. Edited by Marcelo Dascal, Dietfried Gerhardus, Kuno Lorenz, Georg Meggle. Volume 1. Berlin - 3): New York Walter de Gruyter. Pp.269-278. Geib, Ruprecht (1969): Zur Frage nach der Urfassung des Panicatantra Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz: (Freiburger Beitrage zur Indologie, 2.) Houben, Jan B. M. (1992): The Sambandha-samuddesa and Bharthari's Philosophy of Language. A study of Bhartphari's Sambandha-samuddesa in the context of the Vakyapadiya, with a translation of Helaraja's commentary Prakimma-Prakasa on the Sambandha-samuddess. Thesis University of Utrecht. ' Ingalls, Daniel H. H. (1965): An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry. Vidyalara's 'Subhasitaratnakosa' translated. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Univer sity Press. (Harvard Oriental Series, 44). Ingalls, Daniel H. H., Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff, and Patwardhan, M.V.(tr./1990): The Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana, with the Locana of Abhinavagupia . Cambridge, Mass., and London, England: Harvard University Press. (Harvard Oriental Series, 49.) Iyer, K. A. Subramania (1969): Bhartrhari. A study of the Vakyapadiya in the light of the ancient commentaries. Poona: Deccan College. (Deccan College Building Centenary and Silver Jubilee Series, 68). KAle, M. R. (1971): The Niti and Vairagya Satakas of Bhartrhari. Edited with a commentary in Sanskrit, an English translation and notes. Seventh edition. Delhi: Motila! Banarsidass... . Kosambi, D.D. (1948): The Epigrams attributed to Bhartshari, including the Three Centuries. For the first time collected and critically edited, with principal variants and an introduction. Bombay. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, (Singhi Jain Series, 23.) Lienhard, Siegfried (1984): A History of Classical Poetry., Sanatorij - Pali - Prakrit. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. (A History of Indiari Literature, vol. 3, fasc.1.) Lindtner, Chr.(1993):"Linking up Bharthari and tho Bauddhas." Asiatische Studien/ Etudes Asiatiques 47 (1),195-213. Oberlies, Thomas (1989): Studie zum Candravyakarana. Eine kritische Bearbeitung von Candra Iv. 4. 52-148 und V. 2. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner (Alt- und NeuIndische Studien, 38) . Tot o