Indian Antiquary Vol 02

SR No.: 032494
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 428
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 71

FEBRUARY, 1873.]
CORRESPONDENCE, &c.
63
as indeed the perpetual contest between this latter and other Buddhist schools (cf. Hiuen Thsang I. 172) gave occasion to the great council held under Kanishka, which was intended to effect a reconci- liation. And although, according to the Rajataren- gini, Någârjupa's influence was in full bloom under Abhimanyu, yet it would still have been quite possible that under his predecessor, Kanishka, the predominant feeling might have been hostile to Nagarjuna, asin point of fact the latter appears never to have had any share in the council held under the presidency of Pârs'va and Vasumitra. With respect to No. 3, the composition of the Mahâbhâshya, we will in the first place bring forward here what can be gathered from other sources regarding the author, Patanjali. According to Goldstücker, the names Gonika putra and Gonardiya, with which in two passages of the Mahâbhâshya the view in question is supported, are to be referred to Patanjali himself, seeing that the commentaries (Nages'a on "Gonik@putra," Kaiyyata on "Gonardiya") explain them by the word " bhashyakára." As a matter of fact, Patanjali never speaks in the first person, but he is always spoken of in the third person, and his opinion is several times introduced by tu (pas'yati tv acharyah, in Ballantyne, pp. 195, 196, 197, 245, 281, 303, 787): it is also quite possible therefore that the words "Gonardiyas tv aha" do really refer to Patanjali. Ono only, however, of those two identifications can be correct; the other must to all appearance be false. For according to & communication for which I am indebted to Aufrecht's kindness, Gonardiya and Gonikaputra are two different persons, whom Vatay Ayana, in the introduction of his Kamasutra, celebrates side by side as his predecessors in the teaching of the ars amandi : in a very surprising fashion: the one, namely, as author of a manual thereon, showing how one should behave in this matter towards one's own wife; the other as author of a work treating of the proper procedure in reference to strange women: Gonardiyo bharyadhikarikam, Gonik&putrah paradarikam (namely, kamasutram samchikshepa): Bee Aufrecht, Catalogus, p. 215. In the body of the work Gonardiya is specially quoted five times, Gonikåputra six times. It would be delightful to get here so unexpected a glimpse into the private life of Patanjali. It may serve to get our minds at rest with reference to his moral character to remember that it is only the comparatively modern Nages's who identifies him with the Don Juan Gopikaputra, while by Kaiyyata, almost a thousand years earlier, the contemporary of the author of the Trik&ndas esha and of Hemachandra, he is compared with the honoured Gonardfya. As regards the name of the latter, Goldstücker, pp. 235-286, calls attention to a passage of the Kasika, I. 1, 76, in which the word "Gonardiya" (or "Gonardiyas," as the Calo. Schol. has it) is adduced as an instance of a place situated in the east (präch&m dese); and also to the
circumstance that Kaiyyata sometimes designates Patanjali as "Acharyadesiya," i. e., as countryman of the Acharya, or rather, contrasts him with the latter, i. e., Kâtyâyana, the author of the Vârttika; and that as Katyayana belonged to the east, Patanjali is also hereby assigned to the east. Mention should also have been made here of the special statement :-Vyavahite 'pi purvasabdo vartate, tad yatha, pûrvam Mathurâyâh Pâtaliputram (Ballantyne, p. 650) "Pataliputra" lies before Mathura, which is intelligible only in the mouth of a man who lived behind Pataliputra, and consequently decides for the eastern residence of Patanjali. In case, therefore, that "Gonardiya" is really to be understood as his name, the word can in fact be referred only to that "prâchâm des'a," not to the Kashinirian kings called Gonarda, as Lassen's opinion is, II. 484, and still less to the people of the same name mentioned by Varkhamibira, XIV. 12, as dwelling in the south, near Dasapura and Kerala. Now, according to what has been remarked with reference to Nos. 1 and 2, the work of Patanjali must have made a name for itself with great rapidity, in order to have been able to be introduced into Kashmir so early as in the reign of Abhimanyu. We come back again to this question further on : meanwhile we turn to what is in fact a highly inte. resting representation of the history of the Mahabhashya, which Goldstücker adduces for the elucidation of that verse of the Rajataraiigini which refers to the services rendered to the cominentary by Abhimanyu, from the second book of the V&kyapadiya of Bhartrihari, containing the so-called Harik&riks.
After this long digression on this passage, which seemed to be demanded by its importance, we turn now again to the proper question which is specially engaging our attention here, and on account of which it was was cited by Goldstücker. There can evidently be no doubt that the recovery, described therein by Hari, of the Mahabhashya by "Chandra and the others" is the same to which the statement of the Rajatarañgif I. 176 (some five or six centuries later) refers regarding Abbimanyu's caro for the work :Chandrach&ryAdibhir labdh(v) 4" dee'am tasmat
tadagannam Pravartitam mahâbhashyam, svain cha vyAkara
nam kritam Now, when Goldstücker translates "After that Chandra and the others had received command from him (Abhimanyu), they established a text of the Mahabh&shya, such as it could be established by moans of his MS. of this work, and composed their own grammarl," this translation rests partly upon an application, demanded by nothing in the passage, of the meaning which, without sufficient grounds, he has attached to the word Agama, vit., "M8. ;"partly upon the quite gratuitous assumption