Vakrokti Jivita Of Kuntaka

Author(s): K Krishnamoorthy
Publisher: K Krishnamoorthy
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269528/1

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K. Krishnamoorthy, Vak rokti-jivita of Kuntaka. Dharwad, Karnatak University, 1977. xxxix + 28 facsimiles + 596 pages. Rs. 40, $10.00, PS 3.5. (L In the recent past, Professor K. Krishnmoorthy (K) probably ranks next only to V. Raghvan among Indian scholars who have published in English in the field of Sanskrit poetics. His reading in both Sanskrit and English literary criticism is wide. He has editions of many texts to his credit. His command of English expression is noticeably above average. He has the courage to disagree with stalwarts in the field and also that originality which consists in bringing new details and arguments to light. Yet it has generally been difficult for me to - instic be enthusfad about K's publications bearing on Sanskrit poetics. True, I still think highly of his Ph.D. thesis (1947, University of Bombay) published under the title The Dhvanyaloka and its Critics (Mysore: Kavyalaya, 1967) and have certainly benefited from a reading of his works; all of them contain something valuable. However, they do not give me unalloyed intellectual pleasure or inspire in me a general confidence regarding the author's abilities as editor, translator, commentator, and evaluator. The main reason for this is that in most of his recent publications K rarely displays the rigour, discipline, patience and caution which the projects he undertakes demand. The overwhelming impression I get is that K changes his stance as the work proceeds, that he does not revise the earlier portion to make it consistent with the procedure followed in the later portion, and that he compromises the needs of scholarly work for those of a rushed, textbook-type publication.

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In 1923, 1928, and 1961, Sushil Kumar De published the text of Kuntaka's remarkable and rare work, the Vakrokti-jivita (VJ). Since for the last two chapters (unmesa) of that work only one corrupt and fragmentary ms, was acces sible to De in the form of a transcript, De did not include those chapters in his 1923 edition and included only relatively better preserved portions of those chapters in his 1928 and 1961 editions. This was one serious deficiency in his otherwise valuable accomplishment. Another significant short coming was that De had to depend on transcripts - one of the transcript at Madras of a Malabar ms. that could not be traced and the other of a ms. in one of the Jain bhandaras at Jaisalmer (also spelt "Jesalmer," and "Jes almere"). Now, some time between 1974 and 1977, a scholar of a later generation like K comes to know that there are at Jaisalmer some previously unknown ms. leaves which cover most of that portion of the VJ for which De had only one transcript. K happens to be deeply interested in the VJ. He wishes to prepare a 'critical' edition of it. What would we expect him to do? I suppose minimally the following: 1 Acquire photocopies of the newly discovered leaves. Acquire photocopies of the previously known VJ ms. at Jaisalmer and of the (first direct) Madras transcript of the Malabar ms., if not of the Malabar ms. itself because of lack of information about its where abouts. Establish a relationship between the previously known and newly discovered ms. material at Jaisalmer. Establish a relationship between the Jaisalmer mss. and the Madras transcript of the Malabar manuscript. 5. Arrive at a text of the VJ according to the objective criteria of textual criticism.

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- 3 6. Aim at giving as complete and continuous a text as possible (non A adoption of the resume device). 7. Make the necessary changes in the objectively determined text to conform to context, grammar, metrics, evidence in the citations by later authors, wording of Kuntaka's sources, etc. Record the variations (noticed in mss., other authors, etc.) from the constituted text in a systematic and unambiguous way. 9. Give as complete an account as possible of the nature of the ms. material. Of these steps, K has satisfactorily taken only the first and the sixth. The photographs he has acquired of the new ms. ('J') seem easily readable, although their reproduction (between Contents and Introduction) can be read only in parts and with difficulty. Similarly, K has given many passages not found in De's resume; his 90 continuous pages (153-244), even with their problematic and doubtful readings, are much more helpful than De's 54-page resume of the third unmesa; his 48 pages of the fourth unmesa are more likely to stimulate Kuntaka research than the corresponding 24 pages in De. For some unexplained reason, K has not acquired, even in this age of photo copies and of realisation of the unreliability of transcripts, photocopies of the previously known Jaisalmer ms, and the Madras transcript. De had to be content with handwritten copies of these sources, for in the days of his edition the acquisition of even transcripts was very difficult. K, who could get photographs of the new Jaisalmer fragments, could have, I suppose, acquired photographs even of the old Jaisalmer ms. Instead he has worked with photographs of a transcript of that ms. Similarly, of the south Indian sources, the most basic source accessible at present is the transcript deposited at the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras, since its original, the Malabar ms., has not so far been traced. K does not utilise this transcript in any direct way. His reliance

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-4 is probably on a transcript of this transcript, or on a transcript of the Adyar Library transcript (No. TR398) of this transcript (cf. Preface and p. XI). Moreover, he is content with having a transcript only for the last two chapters. Obviously he sees no gain in ascertaining the accuracy of De's 'second-hand' readings! It seems that in India two definitions of the term 'critical edition' are current. One definition is the same as the one adumberated in the science of textual criticism and assumed by most Western Indologists who have attempted text -editing. The other definition seems to say that any edition based on more than one manuscript and reporting variant readings here and there is critical. K's editions of the Dhvanyalaka and the VJ are critical in this latter, 'weaker' sense. There is no attempt in them to relate manuscripts or to establish objective grounds for acceptance or rejection of readings. In the present VJ edition there is not even a clear description of the text-sources. I had to piece together several disjointed statements to understand roughly what materials were available to K. Since some of these statements are unfortunately ambiguous (see note 5 above), I am not sure even now that I understand the bases of K's edition precisely. Another blow set our normal expectations about a critical edition se is delivered by the procedure K has adopted for recording variant readings. Whether an editor works with photocopies or transcripts, we expect him to give the preferred text followed by an account of all variations or all significant variations (some editors choose not to report the ungrammatical, metrically faulty, or nonsensical readings). If K had three sources (photocopy of a transcript of the old Jaisalmer ms., photocopy of the new Jaisalmer ms. leaves, and a direct or indirect transcript of the Madras GOML transcript), as seems to have been the case, could he not have constituted the best possible text with their help and recorded their divergences or significant divergences from that text in a certain sequence?

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Instead, up to the pre-resume portion of De's edition, he almost mechanically relegates De's readings to the footnotes wherever they happen to differ from his source. This is not only contrary to usual practice, it results in making the a number of sentences unnecessarily problematic, and leads to the inconsistency of occasionally having to presuppose footnote readings in the translation. Also, a serious student of Kuntaka's work is required to use De's edition beside K's; he cannot be fully served by K's edition. More importantly, what is the justifi cation for the removal of De's readings? As far as K informs us, his sole basis for this part of the text is a photocopy of a transcript of the old Jaisalmer ms. Since De too had the same transcript available for use (see notes 5 and 10) and compared its readings with those of the Madras transcript, how can the readings he considered superior be removed through an exclusive acceptance of only one of his sources ? Or, are the readings accepted by K based on the new Jaisalmer leaves ? In that case, why does K not refer to those leaves until he is well into the third unmesa (p. 154) and why does he refer only to "a second transcript of the one supplied to De" on p. XII while discussing settlement of the pre-resume text? His remark, "I have given substantially the readings confirmed by it Ethe transcript]," on the same page is also intriguing. What is "substantially" supposed to mean in the present context? How can one singlemindedly reproduce the readings of a northern transcript/manuscript when the southern manuscripts are generally known for preserving older readings? The procedure K has adopted shifts the burden of critical selection from the editor to the reader. If the latter does not happen to specialise in the area of Sanskrit poetics or textual criticism, he will need informed guidance from the editor. Since there is no such guidance in the present edition, he will be either misled, if he puts his trust in the editor's selection, or frustrated, once he notices that the readings adopted by the editor frequently do not make sense.

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- 6 In the resume portion, K mostly abandons his policy of relegating De's readings to the footnotes. From now on he refers to De only rarely (e.g. pp. 245-6). On p. 147, corresponding to De's p. 160, he informs us that ms. B ends with the expression yas tasmad, although he has nowhere clarified what ms. B is. That the reference is to the earlier known Jaisalmer manuscript or De's transcript thereof is something left for us to find out. Then suddenly on p. 154, references to ms."J (- Jaisalmer New Palm-leaf fragments)" begin to appear. Why K did not refer to this source in the preceding portion although it contains a significant part of that portion remains a mystery. What the source of words included in remains parentheses between p. 147 and p. 154 is also a mystery. References to KLV, which the reader is expected to guess as standing for the Kalpa-lata-viveka (ed. Murari Lal Nagar and Harishankar Shastry Ahmedabad: L.D. Institute of Indology, 1968, with an English introduction by P.R. Vora, L.D. Series 17) also begin to appear, . giving the impression that the KLV does not quote anything from the first 150 pages of the VJ, which, of course, cannot be the case. K also seems to have implicitly assumed that there are no problematic readings in the first 150 pages which could be elucidated or improved upon by comparison with VJ passages quoted in later works. This too is not the case. Furthermore, it is obvious that the readings identified by K as found in ms. J cannot be the entirety of readings peculiar to J. K's use of parentheses is also perplexing. We find everything from single syllables to whole passages given in parentheses after p. 147. V Yet there is no explanation of what the parentheses indicate, especially where they flank entire passages. 13 K (p. XII) says that he has used brackets (by this term, I suppose he means "()" or "[ ]") to indicate the "minimal verbal changes" he has introduced to emend "very few misreadings of a serious nature." However, on pages such as 155 and 161-62, there are several lines that appear in rectangular parentheses. One cannot view them as minimal verbal changes. Nor do they seem

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-7 to be shaped by any awareness of the factors (haplography, etc.) that usually cause corruption in manuscripts. Lastly, the mention of J in footnotes comes to an end without any explanation on p. 248. A few equally intriguing references are made thereafter to "M" and "Ms." on pp. 249, 257 and 258. These, I presume, stand for the copy K had of the Madras transcript. On p. XII K states: "..... for the resume portion, I have not given any indication in detail of the scribal errors in the Madras transcript because that would take a volume and would not be of any help to general students or scholars." The presumption is clearly that a record of readings is not a vital part of a critical edition and that no one is likely to 'rescue' sensible readings from the scribal errors any more than Khas! Thus, what we mostly have in the book under review is a 'critical' edition without manuscript variants! In its first part (pp. 1-153) we have been asked to make do with the readings of an earlier edition, based on transcripts, as variants - to be content with buttermilk instead of creamy curds; in its second part, the editor has thrown a few crumbs of manuscript readings at us as it pleased him. The reader's problems are compounded by the oversights, inaccuracies and inconsistencies in recording whatever readings have in fact been recorded. (a) In fn. 7 of p. 167 we read "Misreading in Ms.," but there is no specifi cation of the ms. (b) . For the expression sabda-sobhatisaya-sunya in line 20 of p. 7, we read in fn. 10: ! '. K's intention is to point out that De's reading begins with sobha 9 and does not contain the word sabda, but fn. 10 is incapable of expressing that intention. It is also inconsistent with a fn. 11ke fn. 2 on the same page; just as that fn. says "pratyekan omitted," fn. 10 should have said "sabda omitted."

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-8 (c) In illustrative verse 1.11 (prakasa-svabhavyam ---), De's edition reads tatha tatra na which makes sense as Dvivedi's (edition 6 below, p. 18) Hindi translation establishes. K reads tatha yatra na but does not note De's reading or translate in such a manner as to justify the choice of yatra. (d) On p. 58 (lines 9-10), there is no difference between the reading accepted and the one in fn. 2. About karika 3.14 (abhidhayah prakarau stah), K remarks that it is not found in De's edn.". This remark can very easily be interpreted to mean that De has missed the karika - is not aware of its existence. However, De (p. 174) in fact reconstructs abhidh ayah prakarau stah as a beginning of a karika. A fair remark would have been: 'The karika is not found reconstructed in its entirety in De's edn.'. The same is true, to a lesser extent, of K's note 2 on p. 174 regarding karika 3.19. On the other hand, K's 3.28 is missing in De (p. 191), but K does not (f) note this. So also is the case with 3.33 ab (ucyate 'tisayoktih --- ). There are some cases in which De does not indicate that he has omitted any portion, but K's text contains an additional sentence or two (e.g., De p. 163, last line corresponding to K p. 150, lines 19-20). K neither indicates nor provides an explanation of this fact. (8) A reverse phenomenon is also noticed in some instances. Between ativartate and karuna-ras asya of lines 4-5 on p. 165, De gives the fragment --- stam eva tad api caturasram. This fragment is mysteriously missing from K's edition (p. 152, lines 6-7). (h) Although K does not so state, karikas like 3.14 seem to be reconstruc tions based on the vrtti. Their agreement with De's reconstructions is too close to be accidental.

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-9 (1) De's (pp. 186-87) and K's illustrations for the two varieties of rupaka are (pp. 178-79) reversed. There is not even a mention of this fact in K's edition. (j) By giving the Sanskrit reconstructions of Prakrit passages in the footnotes and by using words like "the chaya would be," De has indicated that the reconstructions are his contribution and are not found in the manuscripts/transcripts. K has instead given them in the main text without alerting the reader in any way. The foregoing instances should be sufficient proof of the lack of discipline in K's textual annotation. Unfortunately, this lack is not confined to textual annotation. It extends to wording of general remarks, division of the text, enumeration of verses, punctuation, tracing of quotations and, as I shall clarify below, even to translation. As representative instances of this reluctantly offered harsh evaluation, I submit the following: (a) As stated above, K's account of his text-sources is severely incomplete and marred by ambiguous statements at crucial points. At least at one point it suffers also from inaccuracy. On pp. XII-XIII, K observes: "It was presumed so long, because of the misplaced palm-leaf pages in the Madras Ms., that the original work extended far beyond the portion now available." First of all, there are no palm-leaf pages in the Madras Ms., which is actually a paper transcript. If by "Madras Ms." is meant the original (presumably from Malabar and written on palm leaves) of the Madras transcript, we expect to be informed about the details of the misplacing of leaves (at which point, how much, why, etc.). K does not provide this information. It is possible that his remark is based on a faulty recollection of De's (1961:v) statement regarding a gap of about five pages in the Madras transcript filled

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mysteriously by Ramakrepa Kavi. See the account of M4 below. (b) According to K, 3.23 is a karika. To me, it looks more like a quotation in Kuntaka's vrtti. The manuscript leaves which formed the basis of K's pages 201-07 were clearly either in a wrong sequence or the writing on them had suffered because of improper sequence in their exemplar. K should have realized this, for the indications are rather obvious: (1) the discussion of tulya-yogita (p. 201 and 204) and ananvaya (p. 204 and 206) is unnecessarily interrupted and resumed; (ii) expressions and examples that do not appear relevant are found in the present sequence (e.g. uditam asvasana-bhumayah of p. 201, lines 13-15); and (iii) a verse (p. 205, lines 19-20) that seems to be related to advas ana-bhumayah, both in meaning and metre, remains incomplete. (d) On p. 200, lines 19-22, it is clear from the context that Kuntaka's intention is to cite a definition and an example of prativastupama. It is also evident that the words samana-vas tu-nyasena prativas tupama yatha form a definition and two-quarters of anustubh. Furthermore, even if one missed these obvious things, there is De's (p. 200) remark which would (should) alert one: "Then citing Bhamaha's definition and example of prativas tupama (ii.34 and 36 respectively), he [Kuntaka] ---" What does K do in this situation? He indicates only Bhamaha 2.36 as a quotation and prints samana ---- as a part of the preceding introductory prose sentence by Kuntaka! (e) In the third unmesa the enumeration of all illustrative passages after verse 59 must be changed in view of the Errata (p. 595) note for p. 163, line 11. (c) -10 1

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-11 (f) K should definitely receive credit for tracing the sources of some of Kuntaka's passages and for identifying some of Kuntaka's sentences quoted in later works. However, he carries out both these activities in a haphazard manner. For example, in the vrtti of 1.20, akhyatan savyaya-karaka-visesanan vakyam has not even been suspected to be a quotation from the Varttika section of the Mahabhasya. Likewise, there is no systematic attempt at collecting as many of Kuntaka's statements quoted by later authors as was possible. The Kalpa-lata-viveka, some subhasita anthologies and Narendra-prabha-suri's Alankara-mahodadhi are explored for this purpose for the first time, which marks an advance over De's edition. However, the exploration is partial and not compre hensively recorded. Moreover, K makes no significant attempt to identify Kuntaka quotations in works like the Sahitya-mimansa which De mentions as indebted to Kuntaka (cf. K, p. XXVIII). There is also no system in presenting the information on explicit and implicit references to Kuntaka. It is partly presented in the Introduction and partly in the footnotes. The same lack of consistency characterises the record of quotations made by Kuntak. In commenting on them, many valuable details available in De's footnotes have been dropped. For example, De traces illustration 1.23 (tad-vak trendu ---) to the play Tapasa-vatsa-raja-carita despite the fact that the play was then known only in manuscript form and was not accessible to him. He also notes that the same illustration occurs in Abhinava-gupta's Locana and Hema-candra's Kavyanusasana. K does not even refer to the source of the illustration until it is partially quoted again under karikas 1.49-51 (p. 65), and there too he does not specify the source with De's exactitude. One should also compare K's (p. 27) note on the verse ramo 'sau with De's on the same. The latter is much

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-12 more informative and precise. On the other hand, K's note is likely to mislead an uninformed reader to the anachronistic conclusion that Kurtaka quotes from Mammata! The original extent of the VJ has been a problem for a long time. In the mss. known at present the work extends to four unmes as. The fourth unmesa looks incomplete; any remark (colophon, benedictory verse, etc.) which would indicate its conclusion beyond doubt is not available. On the other hand, De (1961: vi-vii) was informed by Ramakrsna Kavi that the owner of the Malabar ms. knew the work as consisting of five unmesa as. K is inclined to the view that the work as available at present is nearly complete. (In other words, we should not trust Kavi's information.) As far as I can see, he (pp. XII-XIII) gives only two arguments to support this conclusion. One is based on the premise that he has been able to arrange properly the leaves misplaced in the "Madras manuscript." I have indicated above that there is no substance in this premise. Even if it were valid, K has not demonstrated how the rearrangement of leaves serves to dispell the impression that the available VJ is incomplete. The second argument (expressed 246 with precision by De 1961: vi) is that with the fourth unmesa the discussion of all the varieties of vakrata is nearly over; why would Kuntaka need another chapter? This argument, while better than the first one, can hardly be called conclusive. It is possible, for example, that Kuntaka compared his view of literature with those of others in an additional chapter or that he tried to establish that additional varieties of vakrata are not needed. After all, Kuntaka does not say that discussing kavi-vyapara-vakratva is his sole objective. He (1.2) has declared it to be writing of a work of poetics. He would have been perfectly justified, for example, in discussing artha-vai citrya after discussing sabda-vai citrya in the form of the varieties of vakrata.

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-13 Thus, it should not be taken as a settled fact or probabilistic truth that the VJ came to an end with the fourth unmesa. What surprises me in the whole speculation is that neither De nor K has taken the trouble of deciding the issue of the extent on the basis of the internal references or cross-references of the work. Such an exercise may not prove anything decisively, but it will at least lend completeness to the discussion. For example, in lines 12-13 on p. 38 of K's edition, we read: etac ca sva-laksana-vyakhyanavas are vyak tim ayasyati. This (namely, that a literary work describes one thing and imparts, through it, another message or instruction) will become clear when the specific definition Cof prabandha-vakrata) is explained.' It should be an editor's responsibility to ascertain whether the expectancy created by this remark is satisfied and in which exact part of the work it is satisfied. The same applies to 'back-references' or references to the contents of the preceding part of the work. Except in a rare case like the one on p. 27, lines 7-8, K does not follow the lead provided by Kuntaka's internal references to determine the completeness of the available VJ. An unfortunate consequence of this lack of rigour in studying the work being edited is seen on p. 153. There K reconstructs a karika as follows: na preyas tad-viruddhah syad aprey (o 'sav alaakrtih) /alarikarantare syatam anyatradarsanad api // This reconstruction is faulty, since quarter 'b' does not agree with the following vrtti and does not add anything significant or contextually appropriate to the karika. Moreover, the reconstruction is entirely unnecessary. On p. 241, in making a 'back-reference' to his discussion of preyas, Kuntaka writes: na preyaso, viruddhah syad, 16 alamkarantare sati/Samsrsti-sahkarau syatam, anyatradarsanad api 11. This is obviously the missing karika from p. 153, as even a glance at the vrtti on pp. 153-56 would establish. If K had taken the trouble of referring back to Kuntaka's discussion of preyas, he would have realised the futility of reconstruction.

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-14 It is not unreasonable to expect that a good editor should ask questions of his material and especially try to explain anything that looks unintelligible or peculiar. I do not get the impression that K has carried out this questioning consistently or pressed hard enough for answers. In fact, I see in him a distinct tendency to be satisfied with an approximate, general understanding of the text. His translation proceeds as if there are no problems of interpretation. He (p. XII) gives the result of his editorial activity with the words "very few mis readings of a serious nature renained," while I find problematic expressions on practically every page of his edited text of the third and fourth unmesa and literally scores of passages in which his translation fails to solve my difficulties. Although the general absence of karikas from the manuscript portions covering unmesas 3 and 4 is peculiar, he makes no attempt to state this fact clearly or to account for it. The Sanskrit renderings of Prakrit verses which he incorporates are almost entirely confined to those which De gives in his edition. It should be clear from the preceding remarks that K's edition of the while useful as making the preserved text available in its entirety and as registering occasional improvements over De's edition (e.g. De's fn. 7 on p. ii is corrected by K on p. XIII; see also my note 18 above), is far from being definitive or reliable. A rigorously executed new edition of Kuntaka's remarkably original work is certainly needed; without it and without an explicit discussion of textual problems with it as the basis, no real progress in Kuntaka studies is possible. The other important part of K's book is translation. Sometimes it is literal (as it should be in the case of a sastra text, as an accompaniment of a 'critical' text and as a tool to stimulate finer research), and sometimes free, aiming more at literary effect than at faithfulness to the original. The readings it pre supposes are not always the ones available in the text constituted by K. Although

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-15 the text bristles with problematic passages, it runs as if there are no problems. There is no indication of uncertainty, no attempt to alert the reader, and no explanatory notes for some of the world's subtlest thoughts. Of course, even in such a translation something useful is always to be found, for it is quite likely that what 'stumps' a reader like me has lent its secrets to K. However, the situation cannot certainly be described as ideal. Consider, for example, the following sample (pp. 214, 504): tad-visesanatvad eva samase 'smin nilotpala -sabdasya purva-nipatah saptami-visesane bahu-vrihav 1ti. "In a compound word like dark lily', the adjectival quality is required to come first because it is adjectival only. Or the adjective will relate itself to the possessor in the locative case if it should be a possessive compound." There is no recognition in the translation of the fact that saptami-vises ane bahu-vrihau is quoted from Panini (2.2.35), or that there is nothing corresponding to "Or" in the original. K clearly does not distinguish between sabda and quality, or visesana 'qualifier, adjective' and the quality or property which a visesana signifies. I suppose, if one were to translate texts in this manner, one could translate a number of them in one life-time. This review has been largely negative. The intention behind it was not to magnify K's failures, but to ensure that his work does not lull the specialists of Sanskrit poetics into a feeling of complacency. Kuntaka's insightful and delightful work needs to be edited and translated again. What K has achieved is not sufficient. I hope I have not been unfair in recording the real refinement he has brought to Kuntaka studies. I would like to conclude this review with a positive contribution. Since K does not provide a comprehensive account of the material known to be available for editing the VJ, it would be useful to gather in one place the information I have been able to cull about VJ manuscripts, traze cripts and editions. It may save a future editor some hours of work.

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-16 Manuscripts and Transcripts Jl: Ms. noticed in Catalogue of MSS in Jaina Bhandars at Jes almere, compiled by C.D. Dalal (Gaekwad's Oriental Series, no. XXI, pp. 62, 25) and published in 1923. Contains the first two unmesas and about one-third of the third unmesa, according to De (1961: viii) whose statement is based on the trans cript (J2) supplied to him. To be precise, this ms. ends with the phrase atha va rasasya sansrayo rasena samsrayo yas tasma[a] appearing in the vrtti of karika 3.11, De 1961:160, K p. 147. According to Punya-vijayaji (1972:139), it now carries the number 328 in the palm-leaf mss. collection of the Jain bhanlar established at Jaisalmer by Jina-bhadra-suri of Kharatara-gaccha. The physical details given by Punya-vijayaji are: leaves 300, measurement 12 111 xl lll. He estimates that the ms. was written in the first half of the 14th century of the Vikrama sanvat. 20 J2; A certified transcript of Jl obtained for the Dacca University in 1926 and made available to De. The transcript was made possible by the efforts of the Dacca University authorities and the Resident of Western Rajputana States (De 1961: viii). It is cited as "Ms. B" by De in the footnotes of his edition. Apparently, it was returned to Jaisalmer, although De does not state so. cf. K 1977: Preface 5 and 10 and notes above. It is deposited as no. 379 in pothi 30 of paper manuscripts at the same location as Jl. Punya-vijayaji (1972:217) records that it has 44 leaves measuring 11 11 x 51 (see note 19 above) and containing 14 lines each. The last detail is confirmed by the two photographs printed by K at the beginning of his edition. The date recorded in this transcript is sahvat 1984 (= 1926 A.D.) according to Punya-vijayaji, which piece of information agrees with the fact that De's transcript was obtained in 1926 (cf. De 1961:vi11). A photo copy of this text-source is probably in the possession of K.

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-17 J3: No. 327 of the palm-leaf mss. collection in Jina-bhadra-suri's bhandar in the Fort area of Jaisalmer (i.e. available at the same location as Jl). Described by Punya-vijayaji (1972:138) as having 234 leaves measuring 16 11 x 21 (which, I suspect, is a misprint for 2 I meaning 2 1/4"; see note 19 above) and as probably belonging to the 13th century of the Vikrama samvat (see note 20 a above). Photocopy supplied to and probably still in the possession of K (cf. Preface). Facsimiles before the Introduction in K's edition. Of the 25 facsimiles (nos. 4-28), covering 128 pages and fragments of pages, very few can be actually read. They are not correlated with the printed text and the criterion behind their selection has not been stated. However, it is obvious from the facsimiles as well as Punya-vijayaji's remark in Gujarati (prati akhi bhangi ga-eli ane atijirna che) that the ms. is fragmented and extremely worn out. The exact portion of the VJ available in it is not known, although one can be certain that it extends beyond what is found in Jl and J2, since K explicitly states so and uses it to edit the later parts of the third and fourth unmesas. M: Ms. from which the transcript in the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras, was prepared. It has not been determined if this ms. is still surviving. Its notice (indirectly through that of M2?), as De (1961:1v)says, appeared about 1920 in the Report of the Working of the Peripatetic Party of the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras, during the years 1916-17, 1918-19. Some time prior to 1925, Pandit Ramakrsna Kavi informed De that Ml was discovered, by the travelling pandits of the Peripatetic Party, "in the possession of an adhyapaka who was apparently unwilling to part with it." In a letter dated February 25, 1925, Kavi informed De further as follows: "the owner of the Ms. is printing his edition of the same work = VJ) consisting of five unmesas. He has the advantage of having taught the work several times to his pupils when the MS was in perfect condition, and he is capable of reciting the whole work from memory. His edition may appear in a short time." When De visited the GOML in

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-18 1924, the information contained (or which was to be contained in 1925?) in Kavi's letter was confirmed by the pandits of that Library (De does not specify the extent of confirmation). The additional detail he learned was that Ml was discovered somewhere on the Malabar coast (De 1961:vi-vii). This makes it very probable that the ms. was in some old Malayalam or Granthe script and consisted of palm-leaves. K (p. IX) is, however, convinced that this is the case: "the original Malayalam palm-leaf Manuscript had been irrecoverably lost." K (pp. X-XI) further observes that S. Kuppuswami Sastri in his review of De's 1928 edition (review published in the Journal of Oriental Research, Madras, 1929, pp. 102-105) wrote about how it was he (Kuppuswami Sastri) who discovered the VJ text "through a peripatetic party and announced its discovery in 1920 in his Report of the Working of the Peripatetic Party ...." As some of the phrases in the above collection of information indicate, much has been written about this ms, with a tone of uncertainty. I have also heard scholars speak about it as if the exact location of its discovery was not recorded - as if it was a mysterious find somewhere in the wilderness of Malabar and is unlikely to be recovered unless the area is combed again for mss. Few, if any, seem to have noticed or noted that in Volume IV - Part I, Sanskrit B, . p. 4964, of A Triennial Catalogue of Manuscripts Collected during the Triennium 1919-20 to 1921-22 for the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras, edited by S. Kuppuswami Sastri (Madras : Superintendent, Government Press, 1927), location of the discovery is given with the phrase "M.R. Ry. Kunjukrsna Variyar, Sanskrit Pandit, Zamorin College, Calicut." It is true that the present whereabouts of the manuscript are not known and there is uncertainty about its very survival. However, it does not seem justified to proceed (or rest) on the assumption that nothing short of an ambitious manuscript hunt in the Malabar area will bring the manuscript to light again. An attempt should initially be made to locate the

Page #19
-19 descendents of Pandit Kunj ukrsna Variyar and to exhaust the leads they may be able to provide. M2: The transcript of Ml at the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras. De and K have used the term "Madras MS." for this. S. Kuppuswami Sastri, in his catalogue referred to in the account of Ml above, describes the transcript as follows: "R. No. 3332. Paper. 10 3/4 x 9 3/8 inches. Foll 114. Lines, 20 in a page. Devanagari. Good. Transcribed in 1920-21 from a MS. of M.R. Ry. Kunjukrsna Variyar, Sanskrit Pandit, Zamorin College, Calicut." He then goes on to give some extracts from the transcript. According to those extracts, the transcript ends with the phrase upadesinam mahakavi, that is, with the conclusion of karika 4.26 and the first word of the vrtti thereto (De 1961:245, lines 6-9, K p. 283, lines 2-3). However, De's edition, which had no source other than M2 for this portion of the VJ, extends beyond the phrase by about half a page. So does K's. It is obvious, therefore, that the detail regarding the conclusion of the ms., in Kuppuswami's catalogue is not accurate. M3: A certified copy of M2 forwarded to De in England in 1920 by the Curator of the GOML, through the efforts of F.W. Thomas (De 1961:1v). Probably cited by De, along with M4, as "Ms. A" in the text-critical footnotes to his edition. M4: A copy of the first two unmesas in the Madras transcript prepared by Pandit (later Maha-mahopadhyaya) Ananta Krsna sastri of Calcutta University for De, on being commissioned in 1922 by Sir Asutosh Mookerjee, the then Vice-chancellor of Calcutta University. Ananta Krsna Sastri was helped by Pandit Ramakrsna Kavi who then worked at the GOML.CY De (1961:v) says that this copy threw much light on some of the inaccuracies of M3 and supplied a "gap of about five pages" in M3. The gap corresponds to p. 72 line 12 - p. 77 line 7 (inclusive) of De's (1961?] edition. De first thought that the five pages were "left out apparently inadvert antly." However, when he examined M2 personally in 1924, he noticed that the gap

Page #20
-20 existed in M2. He could not find out from what source Kavi supplied it. M4, along with M3, seems to have been cited by De as "Ms. A" in the text-critical footnotes of his edition. M5: A transcript of M2 deposited at the Adyar Library and Research Centre under the number TR 398. M6: Transcript of a part of M5 received (and probably possessed) by K from the Adyar Library, Madras. Covers the third and fourth unmesas. Editions 1. The Vakrokti-jivita --- by Rajanaka Kuntala with his own commentary. (Chapters I and II). Edited with critical notes and introduction by Sushil Kumar De --- xlviii 5, 120. Calcutta: N.C. Paul, 1923. Calcutta Oriental Series, 8.4 2. Edited and published by Sushil Kumar De. The place of publication probably the same as for 1 above 1928. Contents: first two unmes as and that part of the third unmesa which was available in the transcripts of both the Jaisalmer, manuscript (Jl above) and the Madras transcript (M2). The fourth unmesa and the remaining part of the third unmes a were published in the appendix of this edition only as far as they were intelligible in De's transcript of the Madras. transcript. According to K (p. IX), an appendix in this edition contains De's afterthoughts regarding several readings. 3. Vak roktijivita of Kuntaka. Edited by Sushil Kumar De. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyaya. 1961. Contents: Essentially the same as in 2. Some readings changed and information added. However, K (p. IX) thinks that this edition "is such a mechanical reprint of the 1928 edition that the suggestions noted in the appendix of the 1928 edition are also not fully carried out and it contains several misprints though there is no errata."

Page #21
4. Hindi Vakroktijivita. Edited with a Hindi commentary by Acarya Visvesvara Siddhanta-siromani. Introduction (Bhumika in Hindi) by Dr. Nagendra. Delhi 6, Kashmiri Gate: Atmaram and Sons for the Hindi Anusandhana Parisad Grantha-mala of the University of Delhi. 1955. Contents: same as in De's 1928 edition with an attempt, apparently not based on any manuscripts, to supply the missing portions of unmes as 3 and 4. Visvesvara claims to have corrected several errors in De. However, he adds misprints (cf. K p. XI). Conjectural emendations of this edition have been denounced in edition 5. 5. Hindi Vakroktijlvita or grimad-rajanaka-kuntaka-viracitan vakrokti-jivitam satippana-"prakasa-hindi-vyakhyopetam or Vakroktijivita of Rajanaka Kuntaka edited with the 'Prakasa Hindi commentary by sri Radheyama Miera. Varanasi: The Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office. 1967. Cowkhamba Sanskrit Series, no. 180. Contents: same as in De's 1928 and 1961 editions. Errors of Acarya Visvesvara, commentator and editor of 4, are pointed out. .6. Rajanak akuntaka viracita vakrokti-jivitam, or Vakroktijivita of Rajanaka Chapters I and II, or rimadrajanakakuntaka viracitan vakroktijivitam pratham-dvitiya-unmesa hindi vyakhya anuvada tatha samiksatmaka bhumika sahita. Edited and translated by Dasaratha Dvivedi. Varanasi: Visvavidyalaya Prakasana. Contents: First two unmes as. Another part containing the third and fourth unmesas is contemplated by the editor-translator. Kuntaka. 1977. -21 University of British Columbia ASHOK AKLUJKAR

Page #22
-22 Notes 1. Title on the dust jacket: VAKROKTI JIVITA OF KUNTAKA A complete edition of Sanskrit Text on literary criticism with improved readings, a Complete English translation and introduction. Title on p. 1: THE VAKROKTI-JIVITA OF KUNTAKA Critically edited with variants, Introduction and English translation. Sanskrit title: sri rajanaka kuntakaviracitam vakroktijivitam da ll ke. krsnamurti 1tyanena parisodhitam svaracitarglabhas a nuvadena tippanyadina ca sametam. In my review of K's Essays in Sanskrit Criticism published in Vol. XII (1970), pp. 137-140, of this journal, I was inappropriately severe. Some of the criticism I offer in it should be modified; e.g. on p. 138,' paragraph 3, I should not have expected K to produce evidence to prove an observation of absence, namely, the absence before Ananda-Vardhana's time of the application of the rasa-principle to the Great Epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata). 3. The details about these and other editions of the VJ are given toward the end of this review. 4. On p. XII, K informs that "some facsimiles" of the few broken leaves consti tuting the new ms. "are given at the beginning" of his book. One may ask why only some facsimiles were given and what criteria deter mined their selection. 5. K's account of his text-sources is unsystematic, incomplete and frustratingly ambiguous at crucial points. Whatever few details he has given are scattered in the Preface, Introduction and footnotes. I had to collect them and cor relate them with the scanty information available in De's 1961 edition and Punya-vijayaji's Catalogue [or New Catalogue) of Sanskrit and Prakrit Manu scripts [:) Jesalmer Collection, Ahmedabad: L.D. Institute, 1972, L.D.

Page #23
-23 Series 36. Such a correlation leads me to believe that the transcript photographed for K is item no. 379 on p. 217 of Punya-vijayaji's catalogue. It is a modern transcript prepared in 1926 probably for De's use and returned (a) by him. This guess is confirmed by the photographs of its two pages printed by K between Contents and Introduction which display modern orthography, and (5) by K's phrase in the Preface: "a paper transcript of the work actually supplied to De for his second edition." Only after a correlation of details could I determine that in this phrase the constituent "actually supplied to De for his second edition" qualifies "transcript" and not "work." 6. The element of uncertainty in this observation is again due to the fact that K does not make a clear and comprehensive statement about his sources. 7. The reader is expected to understand this strange procedure from the following ambiguous sentence (p. 1, fn. 1): "Variant readings given in the foot-notes are as in S.K. De's 1961 Edition of the text." This sentence does not mean that K's footnote readings agree with De's footnote readings, but that the readings accepted by De become K's footnote readings whenever they happen to differ from K's sources for the text. 8. I could confirm that the new leaves cover a large part of the pre-resume portion (first two unmesas and a part of the third) of De's edition only after an eye-straining comparison of the photographs printed by K with the text. K's statements and silence about 'J' (= the new leaves) until p. 154 the give the impression that new leaves pertain only to the portion not covered in De's ms. B, that is, only (a) the later portion of unmesa 3 and (b) unmesa 4. This impression, in turn, makes one wonder whether the new leaves are not in fact simply a previously unidentified or unlocated part of De's ms. B - whether K's (p. XII) description of them as "a new Ms." is correct.

Page #24
9. -24 It is possible that K expects the reader to compare his printed text with photographs of the 'new' palm-leaf manuscript 'J' wherever the text differs from De's. If that is the case, should he not have said so and ensured that the photographs are so clear as to present no difficulty in reading? As things stand, we cannot even be sure that all the photographs have been reproduced. According to the Preface (p. V) they are "specimens" and on p. XII they are described as "some facsimiles." Furthermore, even if the photographs had been complete and totally legible, the methodological issue remains: Why should the readings of a transcript and a manuscript coming from one and the same place be always preferred to those of a transcript from another place, if the universal superiority of the former is not established? A resolution of this issue is particularly warranted when the former come from the northern part of India and the latter from the southern. Secondly, is it not K's responsibility as an editor to inform the readers if there are any divergences between the Jaisalmer transcript and the Jaisalmer manuscript and to discuss if they have a common origin or significance as (partly or entirely) independent sources. One time-consuming task of confirming the readings of the printed text by referring to the 'new' ms. photographs may be assigned to the readers (although I am not in favor of it), but to expect the readers to compare two of the editor's sources is excessive. And how are they going to accomplish this comparison when the photographs of only one are printed? If K expects a comparison between his photographs and the readings indicated by De as found in 'B', then this is not only an onorous assignment but largely a futile one, for De has obviously not recorded all that was peculiar or common to 'B'. This is evident from a comparison of the two photographs of the Jaisalmer transcript printed by K with De (1961: 4, line 15 7, line 20). -

Page #25
-25 10. Since ms. no. 328 on p. 139 in Puny avijayaji's catalogue also ends in yas tasma, it is evident that De's B is a transcript of Jaisalmer ms. 328. De seems to have returned B to Jaisalmer where it was made part of pathi no. 30 as no. 379, described by Punya-vijayaji on p. 217. See note 5 above 11. (a) The use of parentheses in the portion preceding p. 147 is very sparing.. (b) On p. 189, an explanation taken from the Kalpa-lata-viveka of a Prakrit verse is put in brackets. Does this mean that K regards it as a genuine part of Kun taka's work? Are we then to understand that the paragraphs given in brackets on pp. 161-62 and 175 are also taken from the Kalpa -lata-viveka? 12. One possible explanation is that the paragraphs in parentheses are the ones which are not available in De's edition and have been brought to print by K for the first time. However, I am not sure that this is always the case. Moreover, K's procedure gives rise to a serious ambiguity. For example, in lines 15-17 of p. 147, we read: atraiva (dus ana ntaram u) pak ramate --- raso Vidyate (tistha) ti yasyeti ---- Here, dusanantaram is K's addition, while tistha is De's (p. 160) addition which K has retained. Are we to understand in the case of tistha that it is found in K's 'new' manuscript - that De's guess is confirmed by the Jaisalmer fragments? If so, why does K read De's ra(savyatiriktam a)nyat in the closely following sentence by removing the parentheses as rasavyatiriktam kim any at? 13. (a) The quality of emendations is to some extent indicated by an instance like 3.163 (illustration): ayan ranas carana-jivitantakit nananda(tus caiva) narasya sainikah/Iha vrato sakti-sirobhir adarat navasidhara na khalutpala-srajah // The plural subject in the second quarter does not agree with its verb in the dual number. The word caiva serves no

Page #26
-26 purpose and is not likely to have been lost in the transcription process. In the unintelligible third quarter, the occurrence of vrata with a masculine suffix is particularly perplexing. K's own text (p. 215) and reference to the Kalpa-lata-viveka (p. 210 fn. 3) indicate that mahasi- must have been an old variant of navasi - in the fourth quarter. Yet there is no clear recognition of any of these problems in K's printing or translation of the text. (b) K (pp. vi and XII) remarks that he got his emendations approved by two traditional scholars. Although I have great respect for the learning of pandits and would approach them more readily for understanding a Sanskrit sastraic text than most professors at Indian colleges and universities, textual criticism is not an area in which I would trust their judgement, unless, of course, they have studied and practiced that science. 14. To some extent, De too is party to this presumption. His decision to give only a resume of a part of the third chapter and of the entire fourth chapter was unfortunate, although understandable. Even if he had printed his corrupt transcript exactly as it was, other scholars would have gradually emended the corrupt parts of the text and Kuntaka studies would have progressed faster. Identification of fragments of the VJ, either in the form of manuscript leaves or in the form of quotations by later authors, would have been facilitated. Bhamaha's Kavyalamkara, from which Kuntaka quotes profusely, would also have received a textual 'face-lift.' 15. Not to be unfair to K, I should mention that De (pp. 200-203) too has not considered here the possibility of confusion in the order of manuscript leaves.

Page #27
-27 16. I have supplied the punctuation on the basis of the vrtti on pp. 153-55. The variant reading available on p. 153 is na preyas tad-viruddhah (or tad viruddhah) syad. However, this reading is not likely to be original. Note the genitives prey as ah and tasya in the vrtti immediately preceding and following the karika. Secondly, the manuscript is obviously broken and damaged at the point where the variant reading occurs. It is likely to be a result of guesswork based on partially preserved letters. 17. As far as I can ascertain, De too is silent about this preculiarity of the manuscripts. 18. On p. 221, K gives an intelligible version of a Pkt. verse which De (1961: * 208) found "too corrupt and fragmentary" in his sources. The same applies to p. 232 corresponding to De p. 214. 19. I assume this stands for 12 3/4" X 1 3/4". 20. (a) This may mean between 1243 and 1293 A.D. or between 1343 and 1393 A.D. In a strict us age, the period including 1301 and 1400 should count as the 14th century of the Vikrama era, but occasionally it is noticed that Indian scholars think of periods such as 1401-1499 as 14th century, etc. (b) Here I am translating from Gujarati. The catalogue contains two more details which read in Gujarati as "samha. sres tha. da. sres tha." Since I could not see in the catalogue any explanation of the short -forms samha and da, I do not know what they mean. As samha is followed by the adjectives srestha, madhyama (p. 1), jira-praya, and atijirna (e.g. on p. 169), I would guess that it stands for samhati 'togetherness, continuity', meaning in effect 'the physical condition of the manuscript leaves,' a device to indicate whether the leaves are holding together, have fallen apart or are about to fall apart.

Page #28
-28 the The other short-form da probably stands for das a meaning in present context 'the condition of writing.' However, a certain ambiguity seems to have prevailed while these descriptive devices were being used. In the description of no. 327 (our J3 below), Punya-vijayaji's catalogue reads "samha. Srestha. da. Srestha" as above, but then goes on to comment prati akhi bhangi ga-elt ane atijirna che 'the ms. is completely broken and very much worn out', which is contradictory, if the interpretation suggested above is assigned to the forms samha and da. Probably, Punya-vijayaji too sensed the difficulty and replaced both sanha and da in the following part of the catalogue with sthi standing for sthiti and meaning 'condition.' K (p. IX) says that S.K. Ramanatha Shastri was also associated with the 21. work of transcribing. He might have culled this detail from De's 1923 or 1928 edition, to neither of which I have access at present. 22. I have reproduced these details from p. 176, entry 1887 of M.B. Emeneau's A Union List of Printed Indic Texts and Translations in American Libraries, New Haven, Connecticut: American Oriental Society, 1935. 23. (a) This guess is based on the fact that Emeneau (see note 22 above) does not record any variation in title. (b) According to Emeneau, the second edition has lxviii + 270 pages.

Page #29
Addendum regarding J2 and notes 5 and 10: In his letter of 7 September 1982, K kindly informs me: "Two copies of the same Ms were prepared at Jaisalmir by one scribe; one of which was sent to De and the other preserved at Jaisalmir." Although K does not specify what his source for this information is, it makes good sense. Generally, scholars who have been issued transcripts are not expected to return them to the issuing library. It is, therefore, not very likely that De returned his copy and the copy paste one was made no. 379 of the collection. Secondly, since Jl is such a valuable document, it is very probably that a scribe was asked to make two copies of it, one for De and one for internal use. The one for internal use then became no. 379. Thus, if K is right, we should speak of J2a (supplied to De), J2b (= no. 379), and J2c (photo-copy of J2b in K's possession).