Reviews Of Diffeent Books

SR No.: 269555
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ashok Aklujkar
Publisher: Ashok Aklujkar
Total Pages: 7
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

Page 3

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(e) About kärikä 3.14 (abhidhayaḥ prakarau staḥ), K remarks that it "is not found in De's edn.". This remark can very easily be interpreted to mean that De has missed the kärikä - is not aware of its existence. However, De (p. 174) in fact reconstructs abhidhayaḥ prakārau staḥ as a beginning of a karika. A fair remark would have been: "The karika is not found reconstructed in its entirety in De's edn.'. The same is true, to a lesser extent, of K's note 2 on p. 174 regarding kärikä 3.19. On the other hand, K's 3.28 is missing in De (p. 191), but K does not note this. So also is the case with 3.33 ab (ucyate 'tisayoktiḥ...).
(f) There are some cases in which De does not indicate that he has omitted any portion, but K's text contains an additional sentence or two (e.g., De p. 163, last line corresponding to K p. 150, lines 19-20). K neither indicates nor provides an explanation of this fact.
(g) A reverse phenomenon is also noticed in some instances. Between ativartate and karunarasasya of lines 4-5 on p. 165, De gives the fragment... stam eva tad api caturafram. This fragment is mysteriously missing from K's edition (p. 152, lines 6-7).
(h) Although K does not so state, kärikäs like 3.14 seem to be reconstructions based on the vṛtti. Their agreement with De's reconstructions is too close to be accidental.
(i) De's (pp. 186-87) and K's illustrations for the two varieties of rūpaka (pp. 178-79) are reversed. There is not even a mention of this fact in K's edition.
(1) By giving the Sanskrit reconstructions of Prakrit passages in the footnotes and by using words like "the chaya would be," De has indicated that the reconstructions are his contribution and are not found in the manuscripts/transcripts. K has instead given them in the main text without alerting the reader in any way.
The foregoing instances should be sufficient proof of the lack of discipline in K's textual annotation. Unfortunately, this lack is not confined to textual annotation. It extends to wording of general remarks, division of the text, enumeration of verses, punctuation, tracing of quotations and, as I shall clarify below, even to translation. As representative instances of this reluctantly offered harsh evaluation, I submit the following:
(a) As stated above, K's account of his text-sources is severely incomplete and marred by ambiguous statements at crucial points. At least at one point it suffers also from inaccuracy. On pp. XII-XIII, K observes: "It was presumed so long, because of the misplaced palm-leaf pages in the Madras Ms., that the original work extended far beyond the portion now available." First of all, there are no palm-leaf pages in the Madras Ms., which is actually a paper transcript. If by "Madras Ms." is meant the original (presumably from Malabar and written on palm-leaves) of the Madras transcript, we expect to be informed about the details of the misplacing of leaves (at which point, how much, why, etc.). K does not provide this information. It is possible that his remark is based on a faulty recollection of De's (1961 :v) statement regarding a gap of about five pages in the Madras transcript filled mysteriously by Ramakṛṣṇa Kavi. See the account of M4 below.
(b) According to K, 3.23 is a kärikā. To me, it looks more like a quotation in Kuntaka's vṛtti.
(c) The manuscript leaves which formed the basis of K's pages 201-07 were clearly either in a wrong sequence or the writing on them had suffered because of improper sequence in their exemplar. K should have realized this, for the indications are rather obvious: (i) the discussion of tulya-yogita (p. 201 and 204) and ananvaya (p. 204 and 206) is unnecessarily interrupted and resumed; (ii) expressions and examples that do not appear relevant are found in the present sequence (e.g., uditam... dtväsana-bhūmayaḥ of p. 201, lines 13-15); and (iii) a verse (p. 205, lines 19-20) that seems to be related to aśvasana-bhūmayaḥ, both in meaning and metre, remains incomplete. 15
(d) On p. 200, lines 19-22, it is clear from the context that Kuntaka's intention is to cite a definition and an example of prativastupama. It is also evident that the words samana-vastunyasena prativastūpama yatha form a definition and two-quarters of anustubh. Furthermore, even if one missed these obvious things, there is De's (p. 200) remark which would (should) alert one: "Then citing Bhamaha's definition and example of prativastupama (ii. 34 and 36
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respectively), he [Kuntaka)..." What does K do in this situation? He indicates only Bhamaha 2.36 as a quotation and prints samana... as a part of the preceding introductory prose sentence by Kuntaka!
(e) In the third unmea the enumeration of all illustrative passages after verse 59 must be changed in view of the Errata (p. 595) note for p. 163, line 11.
(f) K should definitely receive credit for tracing the sources of some of Kuntaka's passages and for identifying some of Kuntaka's sentences quoted in later works. However, he carries out both these activities in a haphazard manner. For example, in the vṛtri of 1.20, akhyātam sävyaya-karaka-vibesanam vakyam has not even been suspected to be a quotation from the Värttika section of the Mahabhaṣya. Likewise, there is no systematic attempt at collecting as many of Kuntaka's statements quoted by later authors as was possible. The Kalpa-lata-viveka, some subhasita anthologies and Narendra-prabha-sür's Alamkara-mahodadhi are explored for this purpose for the first time, which marks an advance over De's edition. However, the exploration is partial and not comprehensively recorded. Moreover, K makes no significant attempt to identify Kuntaka quotations in works like the Sahitya-mimämsä which De mentions as indebted to Kuntaka (cf. K, p. XXVIII). There is also no system in presenting the information on explicit and implicit references to Kuntaka. It is partly presented in the Introduction and partly in the footnotes. The same lack of consistency characterises the record of quotations made by Kuntaka. In commenting on them, many valuable details available in De's footnotes have been dropped. For example, De traces illustration 1.23 (rad-vaktrendu...) to the play Töpasa-vatsa-raja-carita despite the fact that the play was then known only in manuscript form and was not accessible to him. He also notes that the same illustration occurs in Abhinavagupta's Locana and Hema-candra's Kävyänutäsana. K does not even refer to the source of the illustration until it is partially quoted again under kärikäs 1.49-51 (p. 65), and there too he does not specify the source with De's exactitude. One should also compare K's (p. 27) note on the verse ramo 'sau with De's on the same. The latter is much more informative and precise. On the other hand, K's note is likely to mislead an uninformed reader to the anachronistic conclusion that Kuntaka quotes from Mammața!
The original extent of the VJ has been a problem for a long time. In the mss. known at present the work extends to four unmesas. The fourth unmera looks incomplete; any remark (colophon, benedictory verse, etc.) which would indicate its conclusion beyond doubt is not available. On the other hand, De (1961:vi-vii) was informed by Ramakṛṣṇa Kavi that the owner of the Malabar ms. knew the work as consisting of five unmesas. K is inclined to the view that the work as available at present is nearly complete. (In other words, we should not trust Kavi's information.) As far as I can see, he (pp. XII-XIII) gives only two arguments to support this conclusion. One is based on the premise that he has been able to arrange properly the leaves misplaced in the "Madras manuscript." I have indicated above that there is no substance in this premise. Even if it were valid, K has not demonstrated how the rearrangement of leaves serves to dispell the impression that the available VJ is incomplete. The second argument (expressed with precision by De 1961: vil, 246) is that with the fourth unmesa the discussion of all the varieties of vakrata is nearly over; why would Kuntaka need another chapter? This argument, while better than the first one, can hardly be called conclusive. It is possible, for example, that Kuntaka compared his view of literature with those of others in an additional chapter or that he tried to establish that additional varieties of vakrata are not needed. After all, Kuntaka does not say that discussing kavi-vyapara-vakratva is his sole objective. He (1.2) has declared it to be writing of a work of poetics. He would have been perfectly justified, for example, in discussing artha-vaicitrya after discussing sabda-vaicitrya in the form of the varieties of vakrata.
Thus, it should not be taken as a settled fact or probabilistic truth that the VJ came to an end with the fourth unmesa. What surprises me in the whole speculation is that neither De nor K has taken the trouble of deciding the issue of the extent on the basis of the internal references or cross-references of the work. Such an exercise may not prove anything decisively, but it will at least lend completeness to the discussion. For example, in lines 12-13 on p. 38 of K's