Interpreting Vakyapadiya Historically

SR No.: 269648
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ashok Aklujkar
Publisher: Ashok Aklujkar
Total Pages: 21
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

Page 16

596
THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN
and Haryakşa had deprived them of information necessary for a proper understanding of the Mahābhäsya (not necessarily of the Astādhyāyī; see Aklujkar 1978: 18-9). It is this information they must have tried to get, and their success in getting it or a significant part of it must constitute the āgama-lābha. Since they could not have got the information unless they searched for pre-Patañjali works, works incorporating contents of pre-Patañjali works, and works directly (as commentaries) or indirectly relevant in the study of the Mahābhāsya, and studied whatever materials became available to them, āgama-lābha amounts to search and understanding of nearly-lost relevant works and fragments thereof.19
19 (a) If müla-bhūta in the Tikā explanation (fn. 9) is taken as a simple descriptive or emphatic adjective (fns. 10, 12 and 13), my interpretation may be said to agree with the Țikā interpretation in spirit, although certainly not in details. Both the interpretations would then converge to the extent of describing the recovered āgama as fundamental, as basic, to the understanding of the Pāņinian tradition in general and of the Mahābhāsya in particular, as one having general relevance as well as immediate specific application. The details of the Țikā explanation I would eschew would then be upala-tale, rāvana-viracitaḥ, and brahma-raksasānīya dattah.
(b) My interpretation agrees with Kielhorn's (1876:245) in that he too attempts (although implicitly) to divest verse 486 of the supernatural elements associated with it. We differ in our understanding of what Candrācārya and others discovered in the South. According to Kielhorn, the discovered matter was written ... commentaries which gave the traditional interpretation [of the Mahābhāsya'. I find this interpretation too specific to be reconciled with the primary sense of agama and the drift of 481-7. The author of 481-7 is evidently concerned with some knowledge which was common to the Samgraha and the Mahābhāsya, which could be used for understanding or in conjunction with) the principles implicit in the Mahābhāsya (note bhāsya-bijānusäribhiḥ), and