Interpreting Vakyapadiya Historically

Author(s): Ashok Aklujkar
Publisher: Ashok Aklujkar
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269648/1

Page #1
ASHOK AKLUJKAR of the mancial supportan various stageshe American INTERPRETING VAKYAPADIYA 2.486 HISTORICALLY (PART 1)* 1.1 The verse I propose to discuss (parvatad agamam labdhva bhasya-bijanusaribhih| sa nito bahu-sakhatvam candracaryadibhih punah|/) is a part of the ten epilogue type verses found at the end of the Vakya-kanda or second book of Bhartshari's Vakyapadiya or Trikandi.1 * (a) A part of this article was presented as a paper at the 188th meeting of the American Oriental Society held in Toronto in April 1978. The financial support necessary for gathering the relevant textual materials was given at various stages by the University of British Columbia, the Canada Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute. (b) In referring to the Vakyapadiya/Trikandi verses I have followed the enumeration in Rau 1977. 1 Eight of these verses are directly or indirectly relevant to the following discussion. They are given below for easy reference: prayena samksepa-rucin alpa-vidya-parigrahan/ samprapya vaiyakaranan samgrahe 'stam upagate/481// krte 'tha patanjalina guruna tirtha-darsina| sarvesam nyaya-bijanam mahabhasye nibandhanel/482// alabdha-gadhe gambhiryad uttana iva sausthavat) tasminn aksta-buddhinam naivadasthita niscayah||483|| vaiji-saubhava-haryaksaih suska-tarkanusaribhih/ arse viplavite granthe samgraha-pratikancuke|/484// yah patanjali-sisyebhyo bhrasto vyakaranagamah/ kale sa daksinatyesu granthamatre vyavasthitah//485// parvatad agamam labdhva bhasya-bijanusaribhih| sa nito bahu-sakhatvam candracaryadibhih punah||486|| nyaya-prasthana-margams tan abhyasya svam ca darsanam/ pranito gurunasmakam ayam agama-samgrahah//487// vartmanam atra kesamcid vastumatram udahrtam/ kande trtiye nyaksena bhavisyati vicarana||488// in alpa orahe 'Starlinal....wel|482||

Page #2
582 I have argued elsewhere (Aklujkar 1978:9-26) that the ten verses were not written by Bhartrhari but by a student of his. However, this does not diminish the historical importance of the verses, for they remain almost as ancient as they have been thought to be. Secondly, acceptance of my view on the authorship of the verses is not a presupposition underlying the points I wish to make in this article. As far as I can see, the observations I offer below are logically independent of the problem of authorship. 1.2 I should also clarify what I mean by a historical interpretation of 2.486. Such an interpretation is primarily an attempt to dissociate the verse from the interpretation, mythological and based on superstition, assigned to it in the Tika and echoed elsewhere.2 It is an exploration of the possibility of attributing a commonsensical and contextually defensible meaning to 2.486. Secondly, I do not wish to claim that such a meaning reflects historical events that it informs us regarding what actually took place. Although I shall write a portion of this article as if in my view the verse THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN 2 (a) The Vakya-kanda-Tika published in the Benares Sanskrit Series (nos. 11, 19, 24 in 1887) is usually ascribed to Punya-raja. However, as is argued in Aklujkar 1974, it could be from the pen of Hela-raja. (b) As far as I am aware, it has not as yet been demonstrated that the Tika comment on 2.486 is largely mythical in nature. I intend to analyze the comment as a myth in part 2 of this aticle (see fn. 5 below). (c) Even those scholars working on Bhartrhari who have referred to or reproduced the Tika comment on 2.486 have not noted that similar accounts are found in the Tibetan tradition and in the late Sanskrit epic poem Patanjali-carita.

Page #3
INTERPRETING VAKYAPADIYA 2.486 583 contains unquestionable history, this is not a matter of conviction to me. The value of 2.486 and the group to which it belongs lies primarily in informing us about what was viewed as history by a learned individual fifteen hundred years ago. It is as an ancient historical statement that the verses are important. Although because of their age they are likely to be closer to historical reality than our more recent sources and guesses, it is not imperative that we view them as giving us the historical truth. In other words, there is a need to separate our perspective from that of the author of the verses. 3 1.3 . A comprehensive historical interpretation of 2.486 should attempt to answer the following questions: (a) What was the nature of the activity referred to by agamam labdhva ? In other words, what was the manner of the acquisition of agama? (b) What was the source or location of the acquisition of agama ? How does one identify parvata? (c) What is meant by bhasya-bija-s and how were they utilized ? (d) What is the precise meaning of bahu-sakhatvam nitah? How exactly did Candracarya and others make the agama manybranched ?4 (e) Who are Candracaryadi? Can we 3 Regrettably, such a separation is missing in the discussions of 481-90 that have so far appeared in print. Scholars have written as if an unalloyed piece of historical information regarding the Paninian grammatical tradition is to be found in these verses. 4 In a literal interpretation of 486 the component adi in candracaryadibhih must be connected with agamam labh as well as bahu-sakhatvam ni; that is, the associates or followers of Candracarya 'must be understood as agents in the act of acquisition and the act of making the dyakaranagama many-branched. However, it is

Page #4
584 THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN assign a personality to the designation Candracarya ? My intention in the present article is to answer only the first question. The remaining questions must be left out for treatment in separate publications.5 2.1 Prior to addressing myself directly to question (a), I should draw attention to a grammatical-textual problem I have pointed out without offering a solution in Aklujkar 1978:23-4. How we answer question (a) will depend on our resolution of that problem. The construction agamam labdhva sa bahu-sakhatvam nitah in 2.486 seems as strange to me as manim labdhva sa bahu-bhedatvam nitah or visaviksam samvardhya sa bahukhandatvam nitah. Normally, the demonstrative pronoun sah should not be necessary, and there should be nominative forms in the place of masim and disa-orksam; possible that the author did not want us to interpret his remark with such grammatical exactitude; in his view Candracarya could have been the lone agent of the act of acquiring and others could have joined or followed Candracarya only in furthering the agama. The same can be said about the parallel statement in Raja-tarangini 1.176. In the Tibetan tradition Candra-gomin, who is a functional equivalent of Candracarya, is not accompanied by anyone when he comes across the Mahabhasya exposition. 5 See 'Interpreting Vakyapadiya 2.486 historically (part 2) to be published in Indological and Buddhist Studies in Honour of Professor 7. W. de Jong and Interpreting Vakyapadiya 2.486 historically (part 3)' forthcoming. The former will constitute a negative sequel to the present article in that it will demonstrate that the Tika answer to question (a) is not historical and has features typical of myths. The latter will seek to answer question (b). My thoughts on questions (c)-(e) are far from reaching a publishable form.

Page #5
INTERPRETING VAKYAPADIYA 2.486 that is, the sentences should be: manir labdhva bahubhedatvam nitah, visa-vrksah samvardhya bahu-khandatoam nitah, and agamo labdhva bahu-sakhatvam nitah.6 585 2.2 Now, there is no easy textual way of reducing agamam labdhva sa bahu-sakhatvam nitah to agamo labdhva bahu-sakhatvam nitah. All known manuscripts, especially those which are most reliable in instances of divergence in reading, agree in reading agamam and in containing sah. Besides, sah is needed to refer to vyakaranagama mentioned in verse 485. This leaves only one textual solution available to us: emendation of the reading agamam or parvatad agamam. Such a course of action is especially inviting if one notes that the word agamam is not really necessary; vyakaranagama has been referred to unambiguously in 485. Use of an unwarranted substantive hardly agrees with the meticulousness of expression evident in 2.481-90. Secondly, if the substantive agama were to be repeated at all, it would have been repeated most probably after employing an appropriate form of the demonstrative pronoun; that is, agamo vyavasthitah tam agamam labdhva... does not seem strange, but agamo vyavasthitah| agamam labdhva Cf. Vamana, Kavyalamkara-sutra-vrtti 5.2.21 (p. 77-8 of the Nirnaya Sagara edition of 1953): anabhihite [Panini 2.3.1] ity atra sutre tin-krt-taddhita-samasaih [Varttika 5] iti parigananam krtam. tasya prayikatvan nipatenapy abhihite karmani na karma-vibhaktir bhavati, yatha visa-vrkso 'pi samvardhya svayam chettum asampratam [Kumarasambhava 2.55] iti. Also, Siddhantakaumudi on 2.3.1-2 in Karakaprakarana 537. Note the construction rajna sa mahipatih nigrhya tulyavasthah vyadhiyata in Raja-tarangini, 4.305.

Page #6
586 THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN ... does seem strange; the two sentences do not join smoothly in the latter case.? 2.3 The above considerations, however, do not seem so strong to me as to force an emendation on us; their strength extends only to making a prima facie case that the wording available to us may not be the original one. The argument they build up is essentially stylistic. That words are used in a measured, considered manner in verses 2.481-90 does not necessarily mean that their author will not repeat a substantive for the sake of the metre or for the sake of emphasizing some aspect.8 Similarly, the absence of a tam is a matter of stylistic sensitivity; it is an expression that would have made the reference of agama more pointed, but it is not absolutely required by the context. Being aware of these counter-arguments and of at least one other plausible way of explaining the construction agamam labdhva sa bahu-sakhatvam nitah, I do not wish to propose that the text of 486a be emended. 2.4 If it is decided that the text as handed down in manuscripts should not be tampered with, then the grammatical problem seen in agamam labdhva sa ? One would get a similar feeling if someone decided to avoid using pronouns in constructing English sentences and repeated the related nouns whenever necessary. Why this happens is an interesting question, but it need not be answered here. 8 For example, the intention could be to say: 'one does not expect that a culturally less active area like a mountain would preserve knowledge that is lost elsewhere, but it is at a mountain that Candracarya acquired the agama which the successors of Patanjali had lost.'

Page #7
INTERPRETING VAKYAPADIYA 2.486 587 bahusakhatvam nitah must be solved by probing deeper into syntax. Two syntactic solutions are possible: (a) One could assume that the author of 486 feels like referring to the vyakaranagama by sah once again after he has referred to it by agamam because an expression like bhasyabijanusaribhih actually intervenes and an expression like bhasya-bijanusaribhih candracaryadibhih mentally intervenes. A sentence like margam labdhva srantcis trsitaih ksudhitai raja-putraih sa punar hapitah ("After having found the path, the exhausted, thirsty, and hungry princes lost it again') does not seem strange. Only when the expressions between margam labdhva and sah are removed and the sentence is shortened to margam labdhva sa hapitah do we get the feeling that some deviation from standard Sanskrit has taken place; we feel like asking, "If this is what the author has in mind, why did he not write labdho margah punar hapitah or margam labdhva te tam punar hapitavantah?' (b) If one assumes that the reference of agamam and sah is to different entities then agamam labdhva sa bahu-sakhatvam nitah is not a strange or ungrammatical construction. For example, vajram labdhva manir bahubhedatvam nitah and visavyksam samvardhya amra-orkso bahu-khandatvam nitah are acceptable sentences. 2.5 The Tika ascribed to Punya-raja or Helaraja (see fn. 2 above) accepts the second possibility and does not seem to be aware of the first. It understands 9 The Tika introduces and explains 486 as follows: atha kalantarena candracaryadibhir agamam labdhva tena copaya-bhutena sakalani bhasyavasthitani yani nyaya-bijani tany anusrtya vyakaranagamah punar api sphitatam nita ity abhidhatum aha ... parvatat tri-kutaika-desa-varti

Page #8
588 THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN agamam as referring to a mula-bhuta vyakaranagama and sah as referring to the vyakaranagama that the students of Patanjali lost. According to it, what happened in the history of Paninian grammar was essentially this: Because of the peculiar style of the Mahabhasya and because of the insensitive interpretations advanced by Vaiji and others, the successors of Patanjali lost the knowledge of what Patanjali actually wished to say and what Patanjali accepted as siddhanta. This knowledge was no longer a part of their living tradition of study and was preserved only in manuscripts among the Southerners. Candracarya and others again gave it currency in a much developed form, once they came in possession of the mula-bhuta dyakaranagama. In other words, although the Tika seems hesistant and hazy, 10 tilingaika-desad iti. tatra hy upala-tale ravana-viracito mula-bhutavyakaranagamas tisthati. kenacic ca brahma-raksasaniya [sa?] candracarya-vasurata-guru-prabhitinam datta iti. taih khalu yathavad vyakaranasya sva-rupam tata upalabhya, satatam ca sisyanam vyakhyaya [vyakaranagamo?] bahu-sakhitvam nito vistaram prapita ity anustuyate. 10 Note that in the Tika comment agamal mula-bhuta-vyakaranagama and vyakaranagama are nowhere placed near each other in such a manner as to make their distinction readily intelligible. In the passage introducing 486, one cannot immediately determine whether the agama referred to by agamam labdhva tena copaya-bhutena is the same as the vyakaranagama referred to by vyakaranagamah punar api sphitatam nitah, and thus identical with the wyakaranagama spoken of in verse 485. It is also not clear if that agama is a means (upaya) with respect to following the intimations in the Mahabhasya (bhasyavasthitani yani nyaya-bijani tany anusitya) or with respect to making the obscure vyakaranagama easily noticeable (vyakaranagamah punar api sphitatam nitah). As for the passage following the text of 486 in the Tika, there seems to have been a studied effort not to state explicitly the object of satatam ca sisyanam vyakhyaya bahusakhitvam nitah and thus to play down the presence of vyakaranagamah and sah in verses 485 and 486.

Page #9
INTERPRETING VAKYAPADIYA 2.486 589 it probably isualizes the relevant happenings as follows: Candracarya and others got hold of the essential, most fundamental, body of Vaiyakarana doctrines. They studied the intimations in the Mahabhasya on the background of these doctrines; they used the principles implicit in Patanjali's statements to provide flesh to the skeleton they had received. This activity enabled them to make current once again a multifaceted, robust tradition of Vaiyakarana views. 2.6 There are several problems associated with the reconstruction of events given in the Tika. First of all, no author is likely to use a very general word like agama for a very specific mula-bhuta vyakaranagama without adding the necessary qualifications. Such an unqualified use is especially unlikely when the word agama could be mistaken as referring to the general vyakaranagama or the Mahabhasya-related vyakaranagama (see fn. 18 below) mentioned in the immediately preceding verse. Besides, the verses 481-90 have been written with such a clear awareness of sequence that it seems highly improbable that their author would suddenly switch the reference of agama from vyakaranagama to mulu-bhuta vyakaranagama. If he had such a switch in mind he would have in all likelihood written a verse between present 485 and 486 making the transition possible. As matters stand, even the Tika does give any hint of a verse missing in between. Moreover, nowhere else in Sanskrit literature, as far as I am aware, is the notion of an eternal but ordinarily inaccessible mula-bhuta vyakaranagama corroborated. To be noted

Page #10
590 : THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN in this connection is also the fact that the Tika explanation does not clarify what the relation of the activities of Candracarya and others was to the vyakaranagamagranthall preserved among the Southerners. Did Candracarya and others get hold of this grantha or was the furthering of vyakaranagama achieved by them independently of the grantha-achieved only through the mulabhuta vyukaranagama and study of the Mahabhasya ? It is obviously the first alternative that is more likely to have been intended by the author of 486, for if Candracarya and others are not said to have known the grantha, the mention of grantha in verse 485 becomes vacuous, and Candracarya and others cannot be said to have made the vyakaranagama many-branched; they cannot make many-branched something they do not possess, and verse 485 tells us that vyakarana gama was preserved only in grantha form (note grantha-matre). But if Candracarya and others did get hold of the grantha and the vyakaranagama contained in it, how do we get a statement to that effect from 486a, should we decide to follow the Tika explanation ? Under that explanation, once 486a is made to state that Candracarya and others got hold of the mula-bhuta vyakaranagama we have no space to accommodate a statement to the effect that Candracarya and others got hold of the vyakaranagama 11 I retain the expression grantha in order to be able to preserve the ambiguity of the original; verse 485 does not specify whether the vyakaranagama was preserved in one grantha (manuscript, composition, written form of a work, manuscript bundle) or several grantha-s.

Page #11
INTERPRETING VAKYAPADIYA 2.486 591 that the successors of Patanjali had lost.12 Thus, the Tika explanation is untenable for more than one reason.13 2.7 The outcome of the discussion so far is that, n the present state of our resources, alternative (a) mentioned in 2.4 above is the best solution available. True, it implies acceptance of a certain laxity in the composition of 486, with part of that laxity attributable to intervening expressions. However, it does not at hannot to abbes 12 It may be said by way of objection that I am putting too specific an interpretation on the word mula-bhuta--that what the author of the Tika means is nothing more than vyakaranagama; he characterizes it as mula-bhuta because it was vital to the understanding of the Mahabhasya and the doctrines of the Vaiyakarana-s; his intention is not to set mula-bhuta vyakaranagama apart from vyakaranagama (see fn. 10 above). In other words, mulabhuta is an adjective that describes, not one that distinguishes. However, it seems extremely unlikely to me that mula-bhuta is intended as a simple descriptive, emphatic, adjective. The author of the summary verses appearing at the end of the Tika manuscripts, who was most probably a junior contemporary of, if not identical with, the author of the Tika (Aklujkar 1974:181-4), certainly did not take it that way. The relevant verse in his composition is: bhrastasyamnaya-sarasya vaiyakarana-gaminah| mula-bhutam avapyatha parvatad agamam svayam/l. Here the vaiyakarana-gamin amnayasara (that is, the vyakaranagama) is clearly distinguished from the mula-bhuta agama. Thus, the Tika words have been understood as I understand them almost from the time of its author. Secondly, if vyakaranagama and mula-bhuta vyakaranagama are deemed identical, the Tika must be understood as implying that the successors of Patanjali mentioned in 485 were initially in possession of a ravanaviracita agama and that grantha in 485 means inscribed on stone (upala-tala)'. However, these implications are not at all supported by the Tika comment on 485. 13 Note also that there is no suggestion of two agama-s in the Raja-tarangini (1.176) passage reminiscent of 486: candracaryadibhir labdhvadesam [v. 1. labdhva desat] tasmat tadagamam [read sahagamam?]/ pravartitam maha-bhasyam spam ca vyakaranam kitam/).

Page #12
592 THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN least force us into any intellectual acrobatics or assumption of unexpressed distinctions. Besides, although I have so far been able to find only one, 14 many sentences showing the influence of intervening expressions on constructions of the type agamo labdhva bahu-sakhatvam nitah may be found in Sanskrit literature. If they are found, then the only problem with the wording of 486 will be the use of the word agama when it could have been contextually understood. As pointed out in 2.3 above, this is hardly a serious problem. The greatest merit of solution (a), however, is that it leaves room for answering question (a) in 1.2 above in a commonsensical way. 3.1 Given the background that verses 481-485 provide and the result (bahu-sakhatvam nitah) that 486 speaks of, what could Candracarya and others be understood as having done or gone through? It is quite clear that in their days the Mahabhasya-related vyakaranagama had ceased to be a true agama and was, at least according to the text we have, preserved only in a remote 14 This is Samkara, Tattvopadesa verse 66 (Minor Works of Sri Samkaracarya, Poona Oriental Series No. 8, ed. H.R. Bhagavat, 2nd edn., 1952, p. 24): advayananda-rupat tvam pracyavyativa dhurtakaih| dura-nito 'si dehesu samsararanya-bhumisull Having dislodged you thoroughly (ativa) from a form consisting of bliss of non-duality, the rogues have led you far in [the region of] bodies, the jungle land of transmigration. Here the construction dhurtakais tvam pracyavya [tvam] dura-nito 'si is similar to candracaryadibhir agamam labdhva sa bahu-sakhatvam nitah, unless, of course, the reading tdam can be proved to be a corruption of tvam. As an instance of the need felt that a pronoun be used to refer to an intervened subject or object, note Patanjali on Pratyahara-sutra 1 (Kielhorn's cdn., vol. I, p. 18): loka rsi-sahastam ekam kapilam ekaikasah sahasrakstvo dattva taya sarve te sahasra-daksinah sampannah. dehest from a form the regiontruction dhurlening

Page #13
593 INTERPRETING VAKYAPADIYA 2.486 or relatively remote written source or body of sources. Therefore, the first possibility is that Candracarya and others would try to make the source or sources not so remote, that is, to make the Southern grantha available in the North. The second possibility is that they would try to collect the scattered written record; a reconstruction of the agama would have been impossible without a systematic exploration of the sources in which it that was preserved. The third possibility is Candracarya and others would try to interpret what they found in the South.15 3.2 Of these three possibilities-reintroduction of manuscripts in the North, piecing together of the agama preserved in the Southern sources, and making sense of the relevant enlightening works in the South, the first possibility is not likely to have been intended for expression in 486a. The words bhasya-bijanusaribhih and bahu-sakhatvam nitah indicate that the initial achivement registered by Candracarya and others is likely to be intellectual and unlikely to be a simple transcription of manuscripts. Besides, if Candracarya and others had been responsible for giving wider currency to a work or body of works, details such as title, etc. of that work 15 Theoretically, this interpretation could have been two-fold: (a) reading the Southern record by mastering its script, and (b) making sense of the sentences or remarks seen in the record. The first type of interpretation, however, is not likely to be meant here. Since Sanskrit manuscripts were commonly written in the local scripts, decipherment was probably not considered to be such a rare achievement as to deserve a special mention. Secondly, the accompanying qualification bhasya-bijanusaribhih indicates that the achievement of Candracarya and others was interpretative in the sense of understanding, comprehension, or making sense. 38

Page #14
594 or body of works would probably have been provided. Nor does the first possibility agree with the general and primary sense of agama (traditionally handed down knowledge' as explained in Aklujkar 1971:169-70). 3.3 Thus, if we are to follow the indications that 485 and 486 give, the initial achievement of Candracarya and others can be narrowed down to (a) culling of the vyakaranagama bearing on the Mahabhasya from various works preserved in the South and (b) interpretation of the works surviving in the South that contained information crucial to a proper understanding of the Mahabhasya which had ceased to be properly studied. Now, these two activities are mutually complementary in practice. Mere collection of relevant passages or works is useless without interpretation, and no satisfactory interpretation of texts which have gone out of currency is possible unless passages of similar . or related import are put near each other. Therefore, what Candracarya and his associates or successors did was probably both collation and exegesis. THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN 3.4 I thus understand recovery of as much vyakaranagama as was available in a book-bound, moribund form to be the nature of the activity referred to by agamam labdhva. I do not think that the agama referred to in this phrase is different from the vyakaranagama mentioned in 485 or is one, specific, work. I view Candracarya and others as having in their possession the Mahabhasyale and some other texts of the Paninian 16 Attempts have been made, most notably by Albrecht Weber and S. D. Joshi, to infer from verses 481-90 that the text of

Page #15
INTERPRETING VAKYAPADIYA 2.486 595 system (including the Astadhyayil? and varttika) but no reliable interpretation of the Mahabhasya18 and no precise knowledge of what the Mahabhasya had implicitly taken from the Samgraha and related works. Generally, it was the pre-Patanjali scholarship in theories about language, grammar, and related topics and the knowledge of the influence of that scholarship on Patanjali's own thinking that had become elusive by the time of Candracarya and his associates. The inability of their predecessors to cope with a work that demanded knowledge of several branches of learning and the prevalence of Mahabhasya interpretations based on uninformed guess-work (suska tarka; see Aklujkar 1978: 18; Cardona 1978: 95-6) authored by Vaiji, Saubhava, the Mahabhasya survived precariously before Candracarya established it again. Kielhorn (1876) and Cardona (1978) have pointed out that the verses do not support any such inference. 17 Remarks by Thieme (1956: 19 fn. 45-6) and Cardona (1978: 97, lines 6-10) leave the impression that in their view the understanding and use of the Astadhyayi had suffered a decline before Candracarya recovered the agama. As indicated in Aklujkar 1978:16-9, the evidence before us does not warrant this conclusion. Although a Mahabhasya-related agama would include at least some knowledge contained in or inspired by the Astadhyayi and although improper understanding of the Mahabhasya may in some cases result in an improper understanding of the Astadhyayi, we have no indications in the available evidence that the Astadhyayi as such was eclipsed either as a body of knowledge or as a generally accessible text. 18 It should be borne in mind that bhrastah in 485b is an attributive (qualifying or delimiting) adjective, not a predicate adjective. The author's intention is not to assert loss of the entire vyakaranagama or the entire Paninian grammatical tradition, but to speak of the lost portion of the vyakaranagama. That this vyakaranagama is one which has a bearing on the Mahabhasya is something we know from the context (patanjalina, mahabhasye, patanjali-sisyebhyah).

Page #16
596 THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN and Haryaksa had deprived them of information necessary for a proper understanding of the Mahabhasya (not necessarily of the Astadhyayi; see Aklujkar 1978: 18-9). It is this information they must have tried to get, and their success in getting it or a significant part of it must constitute the agama-labha. Since they could not have got the information unless they searched for pre-Patanjali works, works incorporating contents of pre-Patanjali works, and works directly (as commentaries) or indirectly relevant in the study of the Mahabhasya, and studied whatever materials became available to them, agama-labha amounts to search and understanding of nearly-lost relevant works and fragments thereof.19 19 (a) If mula-bhuta in the Tika explanation (fn. 9) is taken as a simple descriptive or emphatic adjective (fns. 10, 12 and 13), my interpretation may be said to agree with the Tika interpretation in spirit, although certainly not in details. Both the interpretations would then converge to the extent of describing the recovered agama as fundamental, as basic, to the understanding of the Paninian tradition in general and of the Mahabhasya in particular, as one having general relevance as well as immediate specific application. The details of the Tika explanation I would eschew would then be upala-tale, ravana-viracitah, and brahma-raksasaniya dattah. (b) My interpretation agrees with Kielhorn's (1876:245) in that he too attempts (although implicitly) to divest verse 486 of the supernatural elements associated with it. We differ in our understanding of what Candracarya and others discovered in the South. According to Kielhorn, the discovered matter was written ... commentaries which gave the traditional interpretation [of the Mahabhasya'. I find this interpretation too specific to be reconciled with the primary sense of agama and the drift of 481-7. The author of 481-7 is evidently concerned with some knowledge which was common to the Samgraha and the Mahabhasya, which could be used for understanding or in conjunction with) the principles implicit in the Mahabhasya (note bhasya-bijanusaribhih), and

Page #17
INTERPRETING VAKYAPADIYA 2.486 597 3.5 Since I was so far concerned with discussing the most probable interpretation of only agamam labdhva, I have ignored the presence of the word parvatat and have used expressions that leave room for the inference that Candracarya and others acquired the agama portions at a number of distant places in the South. Hence it needs to be clarified that this inference is not an unavoidable aspect of my exposition of agamam labdhva. What is necessary if my interpretation is to stand is that Candracarya and his associates be thought of as having visited a number of places in the South and as having made as thorough an effort as was possible in the then prevailing conditions; it is not necessary that they be thought of as having acquired the agama at a number of places removed from each other. Therefore, the word parvatat which indicates that the acquisition of agama took place in one region or took place mostly in one region does not conflict with my interpretation. It merely implies that even the written sources for the agama had become scarce and were not found, as far as the search by Candracarya and others was concerned, outside a region identifiable as parvata. which had the potential for development into a variety of views or principles (note bahu-Bakhatvam nitah ... nyaya-prasthana-margams tan). Such knowledge could be gathered from the commentaries on the Mahabhasya, but it need not be viewed as exclusively available in them. Besides, if the uncertainty of interpretation evident in Bhartshari's Mahabhasya-tika is any indication, a definite or mostly definite traditional interpretation such as the one commentaries would provide does not seem to have been available in Bhartshari's time. It is, therefore, unlikely to have been acquired by Candracarya who does not seem to be far removed from Bhartshari in time.

Page #18
598 THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN : 3,6 I prefer the interpretation given in the last five paragraphs to the one found in the Tika for a number of reasons: (a) It arises out of and agrees with the context of 486. According to it, Candracarya and his followers carry out what we would expect them to carry out in the situation described in 481-5. (b) It appeals to no supernatural event or person. (c) It does not necessitate the assumption of an unsubstantiated, permanent but almost inaccessible, agama. (d) We are not required to admit a sudden shift in the use of the word agama-from vyakaranagama to mulabhuta vyakaranagama or from 'knowledge handed down in a tradition' to 'a specific text'. (e) Conflict with the Raja-tarangini passage echoing 486 (see fn. 13 above) is avoided. That passage seems to speak of an agama whose immediate usefulness was in bringing the Mahabhasya into academic currency, in making the Mahabhasya a respectable and hence attractive text for serious students. My interpretation presupposes precisely such an agama. (f) The nature of the agama that Candracarya and others managed to salvage should be reflected in the Vakyapadiya|Trikandi, for as verse 487 tells us, the Vakyapadiya/Trikandi is based on Bhartshari's20 own view as well as the many-branched agama or nyaya-prasthana-marga-s that Candracarya and others succeeded in developing after they got the agama. Now, even a rapid reading of Bhartshari's 20 Or Vasurata's, if the Tika explanation is followed. h

Page #19
INTERPRETING VAKYAPADIYA 2.486 599 work will bring home the fact that the agama it contains is almost always related to the Mahabhasya. More often than not the pattern is one of stating some theses in the area of language and grammar and then mentioning or discussing some Mahabhasya statements that could be associated with those theses. This pattern is particularly obvious in the third kanda but is not missing in the first two kanda-s particularly in the Vstti portion.21 Traditional scholars have not been oblivious to it.22 Thus, there can be no doubt that agama as it related to the Mahabhasya was something that Bhartshari valued greatly. The interpretation I have proposed agrees with this observation, as it does not rest on the notion of an agama distantly or indirectly related to the Mahabhasya. (g) We know it as a fact, especially after the discovery of Kautilya's Artha-sastra and the Bhasa plays, that many Sanskrit works which would throw a flood of light on dark periods and serve to link later works to earlier works survived in manuscript form in the South long after they ceased to be available in the North. This was but natural in view of the relatively 21 Bhartshari's commentary to the Mahabhasya retains the thrust of this pattern, but naturally, since it must follow the order of Mahabhasya statements, reverses the sequence of the constituents of the pattern; wherever the Mahabhasya statements can be related to the general theses of the Vaiyakarana-s it cites or utilizes those general theses. 22 In concluding the Prakirna-prakasa, Hela-raja observes : sukti-sriyah ... etah ... harer bhasyabdhi-piyusa-cchatacchurita-vigrahah. One of the introductory' verses of Taranatha Tarka-vacaspati's Sabdartha-ratna is as follows: mahabhasyartha-tatparya-jnapikah karikah svayam krtva vakyapadiyakhyam nibandham kstavan harih/l.

Page #20
600 THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN greater freedom the South enjoyed from agression, the more durable writing material it abundantly had, the financial support its scholars received, and the tradition it created of bestowing filial care on manuscripts. Distant regions tend to preserve older language forms as well as works. Hence an interpretation of 486a which mainly argues that the situation concerning Sanskrit works was essentially the same in the days of Candracarya as we have witnessed it to be in the twentieth century should not come as a surprise. 3.7 To sum up, just as we need to distinguish our perspective from that of the author of 486 (1.2 above), we should distinguish the Iika author's perspective from that of the author of 486. The Tika interpretation, particularly because of its twofold understanding of agama, is not the one we should view as intended in parvatad agamam labdhva. The supernatural element in it may go back to the author of 481-90, for the possibility of that author having believed that Candracarya and others were guided to the lost vyakaranagama through some extraordinary encounter cannot be logically ruled out. However, we can be certain that the possibility is not expressed in 486 and that, for this reason, it should be treated as non-existent. It seems more than likely that in the days of Bhartshari and his disciples the story of Candracarya's acquisition of the agama was a simple tale of intelligent guesses and determined search, in which the only miracle was that Candracarya succeeded in the face of overwhelming odds. The simple tale seems to have been gradually mythologized

Page #21
INTERPRETING VAKYAPADIYA 2.468 601 in the Vaiyakarana tradition in the following period of five or more centuries. BIBLIOGRAPHY Aklujkar, Ashok. 1971. Nakamura on Bhartshari Indo: Iranian Journal 13: 161-75. -1974. The authorship of the Vakya-kanda-tika. Charu Deva Shastri Felicitation Volume, pp. 165-88. New Delhi. -1978. The concluding verses of Bhartshari's Vakyakanda. Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Diamond Jubilee Volume, pp. 9-26. Cardona, George. 1978. Still again on the history of the Mahabhasya. Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Diamond Jubilee Volume, .. pp. 79-99. Kielhorn, Franz. 1876. On the Mahabhasya. Indian Antiquary 5:241-51. Reprinted in Franz Kielhorn Kleine-Schriften, ed. by Wilhelm Rau, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1969. Rau, Wilhelm. 1977. (Ed.) Bhartshari's Vakyapadiya (mula-karikas). Monograph Series of the Deutsche Morgenlandische Gesellschaft, no. 42, 4. Wies baden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Thieme, Paul. 1956. Panini and the Paniniyas. Journal of the American Oriental Society 76: 1-23. Reprinted in Paul Thieine Kleine Schriften, vol. 2, pp. 573-95, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1971.