Prakrit Textual Criticism

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Z_Bhanvarlal_Nahta_Abhinandan_Granth_012041.pdf
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/250249/1

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Prakrit Textual Criticism --Dr. Satyaranjan Banerjee Calcutta University 1. Introduction : Statement of the Problem: The Prakrit language, or more properly, the Middle Indo-Aryan, belongs to the middle period of the Indo-Aryan language which is the Indic branch of the Indo-Iranian sub-branch of the Indo-European family of languages. So it is a connecting link between old Indo-Aryan (i.e. Vedic and Classical Sanskrit ) on the one hand and the New Indo-Aryan languages (such as, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Oriya, Bihari, Assamese etc.) on the other. Prakrit is a vast subject. It covers literatures for over 1500 years beginning from the time of Mahavira and Buddha ( 7th or 6th Century B. C. ) down to the time of the emergence of New Indo-Aryan (i. e. 1000 A. D.) or even later than that. It includes literature written in Inscriptional Prakrits, nearly about 1500 in number and distributed geographically in almost all parts of India - South, North-West, West, North and East; it includes literature in Pali, both canonical and non-canonical, and also literature written by the Jains in Ardha-magadhi, Sauraseni, Maharastri and Apabhramsa. There are some non-Jain poets, such as, Satavahana, Pravarasena, Vakpatiraja, Rajasekhara, Abdul Rahaman and several others. Sanskrit dramas offer us a great variety of Prakrit dialects beginning from the time of 2nd or 1st Century B. C. down to the time of tenth Century A. D. or even later than that. Prakrit being a common speech and its dialects being representatives of different parts of India, the variety of Prakrit dialects makes it more difficult to handle any Prakrit texts easily. It also includes some other Prakrits, such as, Kharosthi, Niya and Gandhari or Prakrit Dhammapada, outside India. Apart from the Inscriptional Prakrits, our knowledge on Prakrit language and its dialects and sub-dialects, commonly known as "Literary Prakrits", is mainly based on the works of Prakrit grammarians and the dramatic and rhetorical works of Sanskrit writers. The Sanskrit dramaturgists, such as, Bharata, Dhananjaya, Visvanatha, Singhabhupala, Sagaranandi and others, have given in their respective treatises only the names of Prakrit dialects which should be or is to be spoken by persons belonging to different strata of the society. The distribution of Prakrit dialects in Sanskrit dramas is, therefore, based on a sort of socio-linguistic pattern, no matter whether the author of a particular drama belongs to any particular region of India and speaking a particular

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dialect of Prakrit. While distributing the Prakrit dialects in a Sanskrit drama, not a single author has shown any lack of know- ledge by which the prescriptions of the dramaturgists are generally violated. But at the same time, it should be borne in mind that not a single dramaturgist has ever given any characteristic features of the dialect that they are prescribing for the dramatists. Bharata, of course, has given some general features of Prakrit, but nothing about dialects So where do the Sanskrit authors get the characteristics from ? Did the dra- matists know the characteristic features of Prakrit dialects from their own personal experience, or from books current at their times ? difficulty in handling a Prakrit passage in a text. When a scholar opens up a Prakrit book and peruses a few passages, he can easily detect that such book is written mainly in X dialect, but it is also interspersed with other Y and Z forms. As a result what happens is this that we assume a different dialect for the justification of variety of forms. This assumption may be partly true at times, but sometimes it seems too much adherence to the manuscripts forgetting that some forms might be scribal errors or wrong representation of spelling, unless they can be justified historically. Therefore, in editing a Prakrit text, the problems which a linguist faces are mainly i) dialectal, ii) orthographic, and iii) selection of readings. 2. Problems in editing a Prakrit text: i) Dialectal Our knowledge about Prakrit and its dialects is mainly based on the grammarians beginning from Vararuci ( 4th or 5th Cent. A. D. ) down to Markandeya ( 16th or 17th Cent. A. D. )--Vararuci and Hemacandra being the oldest and the best representatives of Prakrit grammarians. Although most of the Prakrit grammarians are later than the Prakrit literature, the features of Prakrit including dialects as prescribed by the grammarians are in major, if not in all cases, preserved in the works of the Prakrit writers and Sanskrit dramatists as we find them printed to-day. As we have said above, it is a very difficult task to determine the dialect of a Prakrit passage. While editing some Prakrit texts, even scholars like Jacobi, Pischel were puzzled in determining the question of language of the text. Hermann Jacobi has assumed a Jain Maharastri dialect of those texts which are non-canonical on the one hand but written by the Jains on the other. In a similar way Richard Pischel has postulated a Jain Sauraseni of those Jain texts which are written in Sauraseni. At the time of Pischel, of course, no Digambara canonical literature was pub Butto a scholar, it seems, there are works where features of dialects as described by the grammarians are not fully preserved, not even in essential forms. Herein lies the main [ 48

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lished, and so he had no comment on them. A few books by Kundakunda and Umasvami were available, and on the basis of those books he had established the Jain Sauraseni. But recently the earliest canonical literature of the Digambara Jains were published first in 1939 and then completed the whole lot in subsequent years by 1960, after which most of the earlier editions were being reprinted. The first of the series is Satkhandagama which is written in Sauraseni dialect, but again influenced by the older Ardha-magadhi and the Maharastri as well, giving it a name which is called by Pischel as Jain Sauraseni. The assumption of these two dialects-Jain Maharastri and Sauraseni is based on a notion that probably these two dialects are different from the normal features of the language as emblamed and treasured up by Prakrit grammarians. But how far they differ from Maharastri and Sauraseni is a moot question and how far these differences are systematic to forma separate dialectis another problem. These are the questions which normally puzzle the readers of Prakrit. With regard to the Inscriptional Prakrits and Pali, the question is not severe, but with the Prakrit and Apabhramsa and partly with the early literary specimens of some modern IndoAryan languages, the problem of readings is acute. Although inscriptions are written documents and we have more reliability in inscriptions than in the manuscripts, the earlier writers do not offer the features of Prakrit that can go on at par with pUra ] the inscriptions. Take, for example, the drama of Asvaghosa. We are all grateful to Luders (Bruchstruck buddhistischen Dramen, 1911) who has presented the fragments of some Buddhist dramas discovered in Turkestan and dated by him in the first or second cent. A. D. In his opinion, there are three types of Prakrit dialect employed by Asvaghosa in his plays. To use his terminology, they are old Sauraseni, old Magadhi and old Ardha magadhi. The Dusta's speech in three important points is similar to the Magadhi of the Prakrit grammarians, it substitutes for r, reduces all three sibilants to s'; and has e in the nominative singular of masculine nouns in a. But it ignores the rules of the grammarians in certain respects; hard letters are not softend (eg., bhoti), nor soft consonants elided (e.g., Kumuda-gandha ), when inter-vocalic. There is no tendency to cerebralize n and in Kalana the dental replaces the cerebral. Fuller forms of consonants remain in hangho (hamho) and bambhana ( bamhana). Certain consonantal changes are irregular ryjj and not yy; e.g.. ajja, sc >cch, kkkh, not sk or cch, st>tth not st, kissakisa, ahakam than ahake, hake, haje, (Keith, Sanskrit Drama, p. 86). But it is a point worth noting here that not a single grammarian has ever described any old features of Sauraseni, Magadhi or Ardha-magadhi. How should we justify these forms then? Should we reconsider the judgment of the manuscripts ? ii) Orthographic

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lars including Senart himself were not happy with the reading. The tu prefixed to dampati is difficult to solve. T. W. Rhys Davids and William Stede's Pali English Dictionary, The Pali Text Society, London, ( 1972 ) has explained the formation of the word thus : The orthography of manuscripts is some- times responsible for the selection of a reading particularly of a Jain manuscript. The peculiar way of writing na and na, y and th, s and ph, jh and bh and many other conjuncts makes us responsible for a wrong selec- tion. Unless one is thoroughly conversant with the calligraphy of Mss, one cannot do any justice to the reading of a Prakrit passage. I need not dwell upon this point here in detail. iii) Selection of readings Leaving aside the orthographic representation of Prakrit, we shall now pass on to the next problem, i.e, selection of readings. It is a fact worth noting here that sometimes some editions are responsible for the peculiar, forceful and incongruous reading of a text. In this respect, we shall divide our examples into two groups. In group A, some of the grammatical texts are discussed, where the selection of a particular reading, instead of another, has caused us trouble in determining the linguistic features of a particular language. In group B, the readings of some Prakrit texts are analysed. A. Grammatical texts Let us first take Senart's edition of Ka- ccayana's Pali Grammar. Under the sutra- jayaya tudam-jani patimhi (II. 7. 24. No. 34) -jaya iccetaya tudamjani iccete adesa honti patimhi pare. jayaya pati tudam pati jayaya pati janipati. Senart has read the sentence as tu-dampati meaning 'husband and wife', and after that the word is included in all the Pali Dictionaries. But most of the scho- "Tudampati (dual ) husband and wife. I turdial. for du, Skt dve. dampati from dama-domus Skt. daypati = Gk. despotes ; cf. also Kern Toev. 11. 93. who compares tuvantuva for duvanduva ]." In reality, the word is not tudampati, but simply, dampati as in Sanskrit, meaning husband and wife. tu is, in fact an emphatic particle meaning 'but', and the passage means, but (=tu) when jaya is compounded with pati, we get the compound as dampati, janipati and jayapati. Coming to the field of Prakrit, the situation seems to be worse For one word, we could have several forms in Prakrit and at times it is difficult to think which one is correct. Take, for example, the reading isi in Cowell's edition of Vararuci's Prakrita-prakasa. Cowell has accepted the reading isi with a short initial i under the vrtti of a sutra id-isat-pakva-svapna-vetasa-vyajanamadangangaresu, 1.3 i.e., (in a group of words beginnig with isat etc. i is substituted for the first a ), whereas he has given the variant reading with long i in the foot-note as isi. In fact, the reading with long i is the correct one, as in all the editions of all Prakrit grammarians so far known to us, the word isi with long i at the initial is given, which is also Cowell's reading in

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the foot-note. Moreover, there is no reason but not in vistara. Even then some scholars why the Sanskrit long i in isat should be think that the sutras are not clear, Actually short in Prakrit. The use of this word is I feel that the reading should be stah sto also found with long i (cf. isisi cumbiaim vintarasya as one sutra. From the method etc. in Sakuntaia Act I, prologue). As Cowell of framing the sutras, it is seen that the prehas given the alternative reading in the foot ceeding sutra is duspreksa-sadsksayoh ksasya note, this should not be taken as printing kkho va (XIII. 2) where words are particularly mistake. The question of dialect will not mentioned for the Sakari dialect, it is quite also help us in solving this reading. possible also that the next sutra should Hultzsch's edition of Simharaja's Prakrita contain a word as well, and the subsequent sutras are also framed with regard to some rupavatara offers us another difficulty. Sim words. There is no reason to think stah haraja has based his grammar on Hema. Stah as a general rule. candra and Trivikrama, as far as examples are concerned. But with regard to I, B. Prakrit texts Hultzsch has edited his text with cerebral Let us now consider some of the textual 1 in cases where others will have simple or readings of Prakrit. dental I. In fact, cerebral 1 is a rare occurence in Prakrit. The reason that Hultzsch's Sten Konow's edition of Karpuramanjari edition contains cerebral , 1 is due to the fact (KM) is a great problem. Here the prob. that he has edited his text from a lem is not only of reading but also of lanSouth Indian manuscript preserved in the guage. According to general belief the KM Royal Asiatic Society of London, where is written in a Sauraseni dialect. But Konow Sanskrit I is written as ,l, which Hultzsch has never mentioned it in so many words. thinks a variety of Prakrit. That is why in in his opinion Rajasekhara's KM is written Bhasa's dramas this cerebral I is preserved. in a sort of mixed Prakrit-between MahaOn the basis of this feature L. D. Barnett rastri and Sauraseni. In his edition what once thought that there was a southern we find is that the verses are in Maharastri school of Prakrit grammarians as well. and the proses are in Sauraseni following (JRAS, 1921 ). the dictum as laid down in the works of While giving the characteristic features dramaturgy. After 35 years, M. Ghosh edited of Sakari, Purusottama in his Prakritanusa that text again. In his edition all the passa ges are in Sauraseni. Konow has consulted sana has given two sutras as several Mss, and some of the best Mss do stah stah XIII. 3. contain the readings in Sauraseni even in Vistarasya XIV. 4. verses which he has either corrected for the Some have suggested "na vistarasy" i.e. sake of dramaturgy or neglected as improper 4x 1

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readings. Ghosh has done just the opposite. For example : Sten Konow : hou (Ms. bhodu),Ghosh bhodu phurau (Ms. phuradu), phuradu etc. With regard to some of the readings of Desinamamala, Pischel remarks: "Another great difficulty was raised by the examples which Hemacandra adds at the end of the commentary on each stanza of the ekartha sabdas. These examples are either void of all sense, or of an incredible stupidity. ...... It was a most disgusting task to make out the sense, or rather non-sense, of these examples, some of which have remained rather obscure to me." (Pischel's edition of Desinamarnala, Poona, 1938, pp. 29-30) The assumption of the reading sunahi meaning trinu ('hear me') and ayade as independent words in Pischel's edition followed by other editions, gives us a sense that does not appear to be happy and consistant. But these two words when combined sunahit ayade=Skt sunabhi-kupa acting as a bahuvphi compound representing vocative singular form of a feminine base ending in a and refering to adaye as an attributive adjunct, refering to adaye as will present us a good sense. because the comparison nabhikupa, nabhigarta etc. is rather usual in Indian literature, and even Hemacandra uses this comparison more than once in the same book. This remark of Pischel depends upon the selection, of readings which, at times, seems to be ineffective poetically. Let us take one example to demonstrate this truth. Pischel's reading : adae sunahi ayade anada-adayana-pie sarasi kale/amdhamdhuma-vinaya-varaha-vvathanam tamittha anado kim (Hc. I. 18. verse 15 ) The next difficulty is with the root sarasi. The use of the Prakrit root sara as an equivalent to Sanskrit root smp 'to remember' is far less common than the Sanskrit root sr 'to go'. And it may be added here that of the root sms, the form sumara very often puts in appearance in Prakrit literature, and the form sara is extremely rare. Hance ! suggest sarasi meaning 'go'. It is also suggested that anada- adayana-pie should be taken in a locative form qualifying the word kale, i. e., 'the time pleasing to the paramours and courtesans' which no doubt yeilds a good sense, happy and consistent. and sarasi in the sense of 'going', its object; being amdhamdhum, when avinaya-varahavvatthanam will stand in opposition to it, i.e., the going of an unchaste lady to the well which is the meeting place of the paramours and courtesans. The Prakrit word tam should stand for The English translation on the basis of this reading will be as follows: "O you the courtesan, hear (me), oh well, are you remembering the time favourable to a paramour and a courtesan? Well is the (meeting place of a paramour and an unchaste lady, is there any paramour ?" [ 44

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tad, meaning 'therefore'; so tam ittha anaco kim should be translated as 'is there any paramour (waiting for you ) ?' So the trans- lation of the improved reading should be as follows: "Oh, you the courtesan whose naval cavity is like a well, are you going at this time pleasing to the paramour and the cour- tesan to (that) well which is the meeting place of the paramour and the courtesan? Why, is there any paramour (waiting for you ) ?" It is very difficult to get a very good edition of Prakrit texts. Take, for example, the editions of Kalidasa's Sakuntala by two eminent scholars - Monier-Williams and Richard Pischel. Both have claimed that they have paid much attention to the readings of the text and have carefully preserved the Mss. Pischel has an advantage over Mo- nier-Williams with regard to Prakrit passages, which, Pischel believes, have been presented correctly. These two editions differ so much that they represent two different recensions. But with regard to the treatment of labial b and semivowel v, these two scholars vary too much. About the retention of v, Pischel is in favour of the grammarians, while Monier- Williams has a strong predilection for the historical development of the sound and prefers b. The common reader is at a loss to decide which course to adopt. This problem is summed up in my book--The Eastern School of Prakrit Grammarians, (p.99) which is quoted below : "He (i.e. Pischel) says that the gramma- rians are not to be corrected with the help of the manuscripts ; but the manuscripts are to be improved upon with the help of the grammarians. But it can be added here that the peculiar characteristics of an eastern Prakrit, supported by the eastern grammarians should not be rectified with the evidence of the western grammar. So the Prakrit readings, in regard to labial b, cannot be summarily rejected. It should also be noted that the readings given by Monier-Williams seem to be based on an outlook of the historical background answering to the reliability of one or two other readings of the different manuscripts, while it will appear as almost certain that the readings given by Pischel reveal a strong predilection for grammar." In the Jain canonical texts the problem is different. We are all aware of mistakes that a scribe makes while copying the Mss from another one, or writing from the dictation of a person. The copyist may or may not be educated in the subject. As a result the Mss may contain some mistakes which obviously defy the genuineness of the language. These mistakes are at times regarded as "archaic" or earlier features of a language. Take, for an example, the one reading of the Uttaradhyayana sutra (1. 5) k anakundagam caittanam vittham bhumjai suyare evam silam caittanam dussile ramai mie Here the reading with long i in ramai is difficult to accent but for "archaic" Simi. lar types of readings of long i of verbs, such as vuccai (1.2), nikkanjjai (1.4) are abundant. 48 ]

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The readings with short i are also available in the foot-notes. Besides these are orthographic problems in Jain texts. The use of ya-sruti, dental and cerebral n, the sporadic cases of voiceless changing into voiced, and so on. These problems will remain as long as the principles of editing Prakrit texts are not followed. variations are such that it is difficult to follow any particular reading from the Mss. The copyists are not always learned, moreso, they may not have any knowledge or a very limited knowledge of the language and hence every possibility of making mistakes. The phonetics of the language is not always regular. Sometimes the copyists add something to the Mss. to improve upon the text. It is, therefore, not an easy task to edit a Prakrit text, as is normally the case with Sanskrit or with Pali. 3. Manuscripts vs Grammarians : 4. Emendation : It is my personal feeling that some sorts of emendations are necessary to edit a Prakrit text--if the Mss. of a particular text do not help us much-recording, of course, the variants at the foot-note. (Cf. my edition of Kramadisvara's Prakrit Grammar, $ 26, pp 19-22). 5. Conclusion : Having discussed some difficulties and anomalies of Prakrit texts, what remains now is a great task for the scholars to determine the principles we follow in editing a Prakrit text. The basic problem is whether the gram- marians or the manuscripts are to be followed. It is not easy to answer the ques. tion, particularly when most of the scholars think that any kind of linguistic phenomenon is possible in Prakrit. Perhaps under the tacit influence of this so-called ideas, some of the Prakrit forms have been incorporated in some editions which sometimes baffle and betray some of the basic notions of Prakrit language including dialects as enunciated by Prakrit grammarians. It is true that Prakrit grammarians are not very old, and most of the authors belong at a time when the language was almost stereotyped like Sanskrit. As a result the Prakrit features as embalmed and treasured up by the gram. marians vary from author to author, except a few general forms which are co- mmon to all. The texts of Prakrit manus- cripts are not always uniformly common; the The above are some of the specimens taken at random to show the linguistic problems of Prakrit and Prakrit textual criticism. it is indeed very difficult to form direct cutand-dry principles for this purpose, unless we base our arguments on some priniciples by which grammarians are involved in the matter. In conclusion, I can just say that I have endeavoured to present a picture of editing Prakrit texts, and leave with the readers to judge its value or revalue of some Prakrit passages presented in this dissertation. [ 40

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Bibliography Books on Textual Criticism 1. J. N. Madvig --Adversaria, Copenhagen, 1871. 2. F. W. Hall -- Companion to Classical Texts, Oxford, 1913. 3. S. M. Katre-Introduction to Indian Textual Criticism, 1st edn 1941 (2nd edn 1954), Poona, 1941. 4. P. Maas--Textual Criticism. ( Eng. Tra. ), Oxford, 1958. 5. Housman - The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism (in his Selected Prose, edited by John Carter, Cambridge, 1961.) 6. A. Dain - Les manuscripts, 2nd edn, Paris, 1964. 7. Bertil Axelson-Korruptelenkult, Lund, 1967. 8. L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson--Scribes and Scholars, Oxford, 1968. 9. J. B. Hall - Introduction to his edition of Claudian De raptu Proserpinae, Cambridge, 1970. 10. G. Pasqualia-Storia della tradizione e critica del texts, 2nd edn, Florence, 1970. 11. James Willis-Latin Textual Criticism, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1972. 45 )