Prakrit Dhammapada

SR No.: 020564
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Benimadhab Barua, Sailendranath Mitra
Publisher: Satguru Publications
Publication Year: 1988
Total Pages: 331
Language: Sanskrit
Classification: Book_Devnagari
File Size: 14 MB

Page 123

www.kobatirth.orgAcharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
( 44 )
(to each), we will have eight commencements as against eight ends, and all will appear to agree.
But the fragments A vi and A v, which hold together, apply with certainty to the ends of lines 42-45. It will be necessary then that the beginning yo upat should belong to verse 12. Now, if vikaya and saithu correspond well, which I cannot doubt, to vigayha and osadhehi of the Suttanipâta, the commenceinents yo upa° and yo mana, indisputably continued by Fr. B x, can only belong to 11. 43 and 44. This adjustment is, it will be seen, confirmed by the lines that follow.
It implies the omission not of one but of at least two verses. The fragments B IV and B 111, which make up the rest, should be joined to the commencement yasarana. The uncertainty which the comparison with Pâli might raise on this last point and on the connection of the end of line kapa...with the commencement yo necasari of 1. 48, does not appear to me to counterbalance the possibilities which I have pointed out. The real difficulty lies elsewhere.
The figure on the margin of 1. 49 gives 40 as the number of the stanzas in this chapter. In our arrangement we should have 42. It is not probable that a figure marking the units should have been dropped. By supposing the loss of a single verse this contradiction can be partly reduced. It has been seen that verse 14 occurs twice. It might be said that our copyist has committed a very gross mistake and that the cipher was right. But the hypothesis of a gap of two verses does not support this explanation; for it must be 41. It only remains for us to take the cipher as a mistake. I understand how extreme this procedure is. But I have found no means as yet to avoid it. It is important, at all events, to remember that the agreement of Fr. Bx with the commencement of lines 43-44, that of Fragments B vi and B XIV with the commencement of lines 45-47 and 48-50, and that of Fragments B XIII, A vi, A v, BII, Bv and B VII with the ends of lines 11-48 are equally unassailable.
I beg to be excused for having entered into such long details in connection with fragments which are very incoherent and of middling interest; but it should be the duty of an editor not to neglect them.
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