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 6

150
REVIEWS
REVIEWS
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Variants, Introduction and English translation. Sanskrit title: Ariranakakuntakawiracitar vakrokriivitam da li ke. krsnamurti iryanena parisodhitam saracitanglabhasanuddene tippan yadina casa metam 2 In my review of K's Essays in Sanskrit Criticism published in Vol. XII (1970), pp. 137-140, of this journal, I was inappropriately severe. Some of the criticism I offer in it should be modified; ex., on p. 138, paragraph 3, 1 should not have expected to produce evidence to prove an observation of absence, namely, the absence before Ananda-vardhana's time of the application of the rese principle to the Great Epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata). 3 The details about these and other editions of the VJ are given toward the end of this review. * On P. XII, K informs that "some facsimiles" of the few broken leaves constituting the new ms, are given at the beginning" of his book. One may ask why only some facsimiles were given and what criteria determined their selection. S K's account of his text-sources is unsystematic, incomplete and frustratingly ambiguous at crucial points. Whatever few details he has given are scattered in the Preface, Introduction and footnotes. I had to collect them and correlate them with the scanty information available in De's 1961 edition and Punya-vijayaJi's Catalogue (or New Catalogue of Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts 1: Jesalmer Collection, Ahmedabad: L.D. Institute, 1972, L. D. Series 36. Such a correlation leads me to believe that the transcript photographed for K is item no. 379 on p. 217 of Punya-vijaya/l' catalogue. It is a modern transcript prepared in 1926 for De's use and returned by him. This guess is confirmed (a) by the photographs of its two pages printed by K between Contents and Introduction which display modern orthography, and (b) by K's phrase in the Preface: paper transcript of the work actually supplied to De for his second edition." Only after a correlation of details could I determine that in this phrase the constituent "actually supplied to De for his second edition" qualifies "transcript and not "work." 6 The element of uncertainty in this observation is again due to the fact that K does not make a clear and comprehensive statement about his sources 7 The reader is expected to understand this strange procedure from the following ambiguous sentence (p. 1, fn. 1): "Variant reading given in the foot-notes are as in S. K. De's 1961 Edition of the text." This sentence does not mean that K's footnote readings agree with De's footnote readings, but that the reading accepted by De become K's footnote readings whenever they happen to differ from K's sources for the text.
I could confirm that the new leaves cover a large part of the pre-résumé portion (first two un mesas and a part of the third) of De's edition only after an eye-straining comparison of the photographs printed by K with the text. K's statements and silence about 'J' ("the new leaves) until p. 154 give the impression that the new leaves pertain only to the portion not covered in De's ms. B, that is, only (a) the later portion of unmesa 3 and (b) imesa 4. This impression, in turn, makes one wonder whether the new leaves are not in fact simply a previously unidentified or unlocated part of De's ms. B - whether K's (p. XII) description of them as "a new Ms." is correct.
It is possible that K expects the reader to compare his printed text with photographs of the 'new' palm-leaf manuscript 'T' wherever the text differs from De's. If that is the case, should he not have said so and ensured that the photographs are so clear as to present no difficulty in reading? As things stand, we cannot even be sure that all the photographs have been reproduced. According to the Preface (p. V) they are "specimens" and on p. XII they are described as
some facsimiles. Furthermore, even if the photographs had been complete and totally legible, the methodological issue remains: Why should the readings of a transcript and a manuscript coming from one and the same place be always preferred to those of a transcript from another place. If the universal superiority of the former is not established? A resolution of this issue is particularly warranted when the former come from the northern part of India and the latter from the southern. Secondly, is it not K's responsibility as an editor to inform the readers if there are any divergences between the Jaisalmer transcript and the Jaisalmer manuscript and to discuss if they have a common origin or significance as (partly or entirely) Independent sources.
One time-consuming task of confirming the readings of the printed text by referring to the 'new' ms. photographs may be assigned to the readers (although I am not in favor of it), but to expect the readers to compare two of the editor's sources is excessive. And how are they going to accomplish this comparison when the photographs of only one are printed? If K expects. a comparison between his photographs and the readings indicated by De as found in 'B', then this is not only an onorous assignment but largely a futile one, for De has obviously not recorded all that was peculiar or common to 'B'. This is evident from a comparison of the two photographs of the Jaisalmer transcript printed by K with De (1961:4, lines 15-7, line 20). 10 Since ms, no. 328 on p. 139 in Punya-vijayaji's catalogue also ends in yas tasma, it is evident that De's B is a transcript of Jaisalmer ms. 328. De seems to have returned B to Jaisalmer where it was made part of pothi no. 30 as no. 379, described by Punya-vijayaji on p. 217. See note Sabove. 11 (1) The use of parentheses in the portion preceding p. 147 is very sparing
(b) On p. 189, an explanation taken from the Kalpe-late-viveka of a Prakrit verse is put in brackets. Does this mean that Kregards it as a genuine part of Kuntaka's work? Are we then to understand that the paragraphs plven in brackets on pp. 161-62 and 175 are also taken from the Kalpa-latd-viveka? 11 One possible explanation is that the paragraphs in parentheses are the ones which are not available in De's edition and have been brought to print by K for the first time. However, I am not sure that this is always the case. Moreover, K's procedure gives rise to a serious ambiguity. For example, in lines 15-17 of p. 147, we read: atrale (
dernarem peremeters widyate (tha) yaryeri... Here, důranántaram k's addition, while she is De's (p. 160) addition which has retained. Are we to understand in the case of tha that it is found in K's new manuscript that De's guess is confirmed by the Jaisalmer fragments? If so, why does Kread De's ra(savyatiriktam a nyar in the closely following sentence by removing the parentheses as rasavyatiriktar kim anyar? 13 (a) The quality of emendations is to some extent indicated by an instance like 3.163 (illustration): ayam ranas cdrane iwitántakt nanande-(nucle) narare sinikah/tha vrato takri-dirobhir ederdt navaridhari na khalúpale-srajah // The plural subject in the second quarter does not agree with its verb in the dual number. The word care serves no purpose and is not likely to have been lost in the transcription process. In the unintelligible third quarter, the occurrence of wrata with a masculine suffix is particularly perplexing. K's own text (p. 215) and reference to the Kalpa-lata-viveka (p. 210 fn. 3) indicate that mahast- must have been an old variant of navdsl- in the fourth quarter. Yet there is no clear recognition of any of these problems in K's printing or translation of the text.
() K (pp. Vi and XII) remarks that he got his emendations approved by two traditional scholars. Although I have great respect for the learning of pandits and would approach them more readily for understanding a Sanskrit fdstrale text than most professors at Indian colleges and universities, textual criticism is not an area in which I would trust their judgement, unless of course, they have studied and practiced that science. 14 To some extent, De too is party to this presumption. His decision to give only a résumé of a part of the third chapter and of the entire fourth chapter was unfortunate, although under standable. Even if he had printed his corrupt transcript exactly as it was, other scholars would have gradually emended the corrupt parts of the text and Kuntaka studies would have progressed faster. Identification of fragments of the VJ, either in the form of manuscript leaves or in the form of quotations by later authors, would have been facilitated. Bhimaha's Kivilarkira, from which Kuntaka quotes profusely, would also have received a textual "face-lift." 15 Not to be unfair to K, I should mention that De (pp. 200-203) too has not considered here the possibility of confusion in the order of manuscript leaves. 16 I have supplied the punctuation on the basis of the vytti on pp. 153-55. The variant reading available on p. 153 is a preyar tad-viruddhah (or tad iruddhah) sydd. However, this reading