Shataka Trayadi Subhashit Sangraha

SR No.: 002915
Original Sutra Author: Bhartuhari
Author: Dharmanand Kosambi
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
Publication Year: 1948
Total Pages: 346
Language: Hindi, English
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Literature
File Size: 22 MB

Page 96

INTRODUCTION
in doubt; we have three separate virtues, of which one develops according to the environment; the difficulty arises from the extreme compression and is characteristic of the Bhartyhari nucleus, for the poet generally takes syntax and grammar in his stride. The southern reading is so obviously a paraphrase emendation that it is hardly necessary to state that the N variant could never have arisen from it. On the other hand, there are onses where the s reading must have been the original, the most notable being sakayuvati- in 257. The simile describes piper-betel leaves, of which the common variety is a dark green, which agrees with the otherwise senseless northern reading sukayurati-, But it is not generally known that there exists a rare superior variety, beloved of the connoisseur, grown only in a few places (as in one near Benares 1 which has a pale golden colour that coincides exactly with the highly prized pale golden complexion of the now forgotten Saka maidens,
The reading that best shows the need for applying the method to constitute our text letter by letter is perhaps param devatā in 70°. The general N text gives param daivatam as against parā devata in S, so that it would have been necessary to invent the reading had it not been found in Ao.1 It, a few Jain anthologies, and one MS used by K. T. Telang. No grammatical difficulty remains if paran is taken adverbially in the sense of eva, though even the A commentator neglects to do this.
Decidedly un-Pāņinian is rūgādhikkyatamostha- in 119. There is a minor difliculty the samdhi -tama + ostha which should normally have become tamaustha, but is optional (Vānt. Pān. 6. 1. 94) in the present case without the diphthong. However, this would naturally cause an inclination to take the preceding ending as participial, -tam in place of the superlative -tama, which really constitutes the major difficulty. The noun has so inferior a position to the verb in Sanskrit that adding -tama even when an adjective is not indicated is permissible, as in strītarā, strītamā, in our dictionaries, or kumāritara, brāhmaṇitami in the Kasikā on Pāņ. 1. 1. 22. We have dvijamukhyatamah in Mrochakatika I. 3, suhrilama in Mudrārākşasa I, aśvatama in Pañcatantra V. 10. The real objection is to having two taddhita affixes, for ādhikya is already so developed. The meaning not being in doubt, and the emendations so palpable, I prefer to take this as another of the poet's short cuts, rather than a vedio survival.
Other dificulties are easier to resolve. In 152, kşudhitair narair tends to form a unit "hungry people", i. e. beggars, which gives rise to the variants, particularly niranna-, as a matter of fact, kşudhitair qualifies śiśukair, and the narair is emphatically in the sense of Cato's viros alienos, that one's wife should not be seen in so desperate a plight by other men. The variants for manorathoparicita in 196o derive from the tendency of paricita, a strong compound, to form a unit; the correct resolution, as indicated by our hyplen, is manoratha + upari + cita-. It 98° sumanasah has clearly been mistaken for an incorrect nominative plural “flowers", which should have been sumanumsi; the original meaning, however, seems rather to have been the genitive singular of sumanas taken to mean “the man of good mind", to go with madam in d, for we already have kusumāni in b; of course,