Book Reviews

SR No.: 269677
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong
Total Pages: 48
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 5 MB

Page 28

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discussion. The footnotes contain discussions on points of grammar, references to alamkāraśāstras, identifications of quotations, critical discussion of translations by Pangarker, Cappeller and Kale, study of the realia occurring in the text or the commentary, discussions of variant readings, etc. The footnotes number more than 2500, and the fact that they are not placed at the foot of the page but in a separate section (pp. 369-525) makes it very difficult to consult them together with the text to which they refer. It would have been easy to print the footnotes immediately following the translation of the commentary on each stanza. It is perhaps much more expensive to print the footnotes as footnotes but in this case it is difficult to see why the publisher has not adopted such an arrangement, which would have been so much more agreeable for the reader.
As can be expected from a specialist in vyakarana, Roodbergen's notes contain detailed references to Panini and his commentators. They give the full derivation of grammatical forms. Furthermore, the notes extend to all matters of relevance to the text itself and to Mallinātha's commentary. The great number of notes testifies to the immensity of this task. No scholar before has tried to do something similar, even on a much more modest scale. In his introduction Roodbergen promises a translation of the remaining part of the commentary. It is very much to be hoped that he will be able to carry out this plan. As many matters have been dealt with already in the notes to the first six cantos, the study of cantos 7-18 will probably not reach the same dimensions.
Roodbergen's translation is based upon the 1954 Nirnaya-Sāgar Press edition but he has also consulted the 1889 edition of the same press. He rightly remarks that the choice of an edition was not a matter of great importance since he was not concerned with the textual tradition of Mallinatha's commentary. Roodbergen's notes show that a critical edition of it would be very desirable.
For instance, in the commentary on 5.1, the 1889 edition has ophala aunnatyao, but the 1954 edition has ophalavišiştaunnatyao. The 1847 Calcutta edition has Ophalavišiştā aunnatyao. Roodbergen follows the 1889 edition because it presents the lectio difficilior (p. 483, n. 9). It is only by consulting manuscripts that it will be possible to see whether the readings of the 1847 Calcutta edition and of the 1954 edition are found in manuscripts or are due to editors tampering with them, as suggested by Roodbergen.
Roodbergen's bibliography does not mention F. W. Thomas' review of Cappeller's translation (JRAS, 1917, pp. 869-877). One would like to have had Roodbergen's opinion on Thomas' suggestion to see in adeśam iva (3.30) a grammatical allusion.
We hope that the publication of the second part of this great work may be expected in the not too distant future. Once completed, Roodbergen's work will be an indispensable standard work for the study of commentaries on kavya texts.