Studies in Jain Literature

SR No.: 001868
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: V M Kulkarni
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre
Publication Year: 2001
Total Pages: 114
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Literature, & Story
File Size: 14 MB

Page 314

296 STUDIES IN JAIN LITERATURE passages to their original form; and they also revealed how the commentator very often bodily lifted the passages from his sources, at times adopted them and occasionally combined passages of different authorities or of the same authority found at different places in that work. I then wrote a review article and gave it to Prof. Parikh for preview-later it was published in the Journal of the Oriental Institute, Baroda in 1961. This is how I set up an anti-corruption Bureau which is still functioning. Prof. Parikh was obviously impressed, for, within a couple of weeks, he invited me to join him as co-editor in bringing out a second revised edition of Acarya Hemacandra's voluminous work, Kavyanusasana. I availed of this opportunity, carefully went through almost all the sources of Hemacandra, recorded all significant variants from these sources in the footnotes and traced a large number of illustrations to their primary or secondary sources. This edition has been welcomed by scholars as a standard edition. Now, Sanskrit alamkarikas (poeticians) quote as illustrations, with a view to explaining various points of Poetics, passages in verse or prose from Sanskrit, Prakrit or Apabhramsa works. A number of works from which they cited illustrations are no longer extant. Consequently, the learned editors, when confronted with corrupt readings or passages, in the absence of the source books, contented themselves by planting question marks (in brackets) immediately after the corrupt readings, or showing lacunae (missing portions, small or big gaps) by three dots or simply reproducing the corrupt passages as found in the manuscripts, the jumbling of verses or groups of verses as mere prose passages. They, as a rule, added Sanskrit chaya below the Prakrit (or Apabhramsa) passage. In some cases it is noticed that the chaya did not agree with the Prakrit text, often partly and on occasions wholly. In the footnotes the editors simply remarked durbodha or aspasta or avisada iyam gatha, and thus expressed their helplessness in rendering the Prakrit gatha intelligible. Owing to want of sufficient knowledge of Prakrit and Apabhramsa languages, some perpetrated ludicrous blunders while translating these verses into English or modern Indian languages. The following noteworthy works, either text-books or commentaries, are disfigured by corrupt readings and passages : Abhinavagupta's commentary on Bharata's and his commentary on Anandavardhana's Dhvanyaloka called Locana, Kuntaka's Vakroktijivita(VJ), Bhoja's Srrgaraprakasa and Sarasvatikanthabharana with the commentaries of Ratnesvara and Jagaddhara, Somesvara's commentary Samketa on Mammata's Kavyaprakasa, Ruyyaka's Sahityamimamsa and Alamkarasarvasva