Vinaya Texts

SR No.: 007684
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids, Hermann Oldenberg
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1881
Total Pages: 2523
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 47 MB

Page 440

xxiv
UPANISHADS.
before expunging even the most modern-sounding lines from the original context of these Vedântic essays 1.
The mention of Dhâtri, creator, for instance (Kath. Up. II, 20), is certainly startling, and seems to have given rise to a very early conjectural emendation. But dhâtri and vidhâtri occur in the hymns of the Rig-veda (X, 82, 2), and in the Upanishads (Maitr. Up. VI, 8); and Dhatri, as almost a personal deity, is invoked with Pragâpati in Rig-veda X, 184, 1. Deva, in the sense of God (Kath. Up. II, 12), is equally strange, but occurs in other Upanishads also (Maitr. Up. VI, 23; Svetâsv. Up. I, 3). Much might be said about setu, bridge (Kath. Up. III, 2; Mund. Up. II, 2, 5), âdarsa, mirror (Kath. Up. VI, 5), as being characteristic of a later age. But setu is not a bridge, in our sense of the word, but rather a wall, a bank, a barrier, and occurs frequently in other Upanishads (Maitr. Up. VII, 7; Khând. Up. VIII, 4; Brih. Up. IV, 4, 22, &c.), while âdarsas, or mirrors, are mentioned in the Brihadâranyaka and the Srauta-sútras. Till we know something more about the date of the first and the last composition or compilation of the Upanishads, how are we to tell what subjects and what ideas the first author or the last collector was familiar with? To attempt the impossible may seem courageous, but it is hardly scholarlike.
With regard to faulty or irregular readings, we can never know whether they are due to the original composers, the compilers, the repeaters, or lastly the writers of the Upanishads. It is easy to say that adresya (Mund. Up. I, 1,6) ought to be adrisya; but who would venture to correct that form? Whenever that verse is quoted, it is quoted with adresya, not adrisya. The commentators themselves tell us sometimes that certain forms are either Vedic or due to carelessness (pramâdapâtha); but that very fact shows that such a form, for instance, as samîyâta (Khând. Up. I, 12, 3) rests on an old authority,
No doubt, if we have the original text of an author, and can prove that his text was corrupted by later compilers
1 See Regnaud, Le Pessimisme Brahmanique, Annales du Musée Guimet, 1880; tom. i, p. 101.
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