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 315

DISCOVERY THROUGH RESTORATION 297 with the commentary of Jayaratha, called Vimarsini, and Sobhakaramitra's Alamkara-Ratnakara(Ratnakara). If the text, whether Sanskrit, Prakrit or Apabhramsa, is not restored to its original form, the verse remains obscure and the very purpose of explaining or making clear by examples the points of Poetics is defeated. Of all the works, the A.Bh., the VJ, the srngaraprakasa, the Sarasvatikanthabharana(SK) with its commentaries, the Sahityamimamsa, the Vimarsini, and the Ratnakara pose a real challenge to one's critical ability, scholarship, patience and industry, for a very large majority of Prakrit and Apabhramsa passages are presented in these works in a very corrupt and confounding form--some of them are indeed corrupt beyond recognition. I think it is the duty of modern research scholars to present the text of the corrupt passages in their correct or original form. These corrupt passages from works on Alamkara haunted me all along. I decided to do my best to restore them to their correct form. During several years past I endeavoured to restore the corrupt passages in the above works. In restoring many corrupt readings and passages the following three works have rendered invaluable services: Hemacandra's Kavyanusasana(Kas), Ramacandra and Gunacandra's Natyadarpana(ND) and Ambaprasada's Kalpalataviveka(KLV). The authors of these three works have freely drawn on A. Bh., Dhvanyalokalocana, VJ, SK, Srrgaraprakasa, etc. Hemacandra has preserved intact the ideas and the language of some of the long sections from Abhinavabharati on the key chapters of the Natyasastra, the Rasadhyaya (Ch. VI), the Bhavadhyaya (Ch. VII), the Dasarupakavidhana (Ch. XVIII) and the Samdhyadhyaya (Ch. XIX) by incorporating them in their original form without abridging them or paraphrasing them in his own language. Ramacandra and Gunacandra too have freely used A.Bh. on almost every page in the course of their treatment of the various dramatic topics. Ambaprasada too has incorporated many long passages from the Dhvanyaloka, the Locana commentary on it and the A.Bh. (on Ch. VI and Ch. VII) in his KLV. These works are of supreme importance, especially from the point of view of restoring corrupt passages and readings because their authors had access to more reliable or correct manuscripts than we now possess. We may consider here, by way of example, the case of A.Bh. Its text has been badly preserved in its available manuscripts. The first editor of Bharata's Natyasastra along with the commentary Abhinavabharati, Ramakrishna Kavi, remarked : "...even if Abhinavagupta were to descend from Heaven and see the MSS, it would not be easy for him to restore his original text." Stud.-38