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J. BRONKHORST
vārtika
141
(or a) 'Varttikakāra' who is then named 'Katyāyana' (nityo hy asya nasabdasya subantasambandhena samasa iti varttikakāro bhagaran katyayano manyate smadvacananarthakyan canabhāvasiddhatvad iti (P. 2.1.1 vt. 2]). The information that the Vårttikakira was called 'Katyāyana' can be derived from the Bhasya on P.3.2.118 (cf. KIELHORN 1876a: 26), with the implication that the author of the Bhåşya was someone else. The MahabhĂşya is repeatedly quoted in the Mimamsabhagya (GAROR 1952: 23-25), but never mentioned by name; its author is usually not mentioned either, but the words dodrya and abhiyukta are used once each in this connection. The impression is here created that neither the work nor its author had a generally accepted name.
This brings us to the remarkable fact that the names "Patanjali 20 and Mahabhasys do not seem to have been used in connection with grammar in any work older than the Vrtti on Bharthari's Vakyapadiya They occur for the first time in VP 2.482 and 485, verses which are really part of the Vrtti (BRONKHORST 1988: 123f.). Were these names invented in order to fill the lacuna which came about when it was discovered that more than one author had composed the Mahabhagya as it was known, viz., with varttikas! 3.1. The striking agreement between the use of the word varttika in the Yuktidipika and in Bharthari's Mahabhâsyadipikā, and the agreement which must consequently have existed between their views on the Mahabhâsyal explain how 'Värttika' could for some time come to denote & category of literary compositions in which short nominal sentences alternate with their explanations in a more verbal style, as exemplified in the YuktidTpika and the Tattvarthavarttika (both of which are also called Rajavarttika). It may also explain something else which has long puzzled modern students.
I-ching, the Chinese pilgrim who visited India at the end of the 7th century, mentions in his chapter on the Sanskrit grammarians a work which he calls 'Vrttistra' and ascribes to Jayaditya (BROUGH 1973:
255f.,cf. TAXAKUSU 1896: 175f.). This work consists of 18,000 ilokas and "supplements its sūtra-text, and discusses in detail numerous (possible) interpretations. ... It discusses fully the grammatical) usages current in the world, and investigates the rules of the language addressed to the gods"??, The Vittisätra is commented upon in the Corni. The Corni, which contains 24,000 slokas, "is a work of the learned Patañjala”. This, again, cites the former Stras". The Corni is again commented upon in the 'Bhartrharisastra!
At an earlier occasion (1983: App. I) I tentatively proposed that JayAditya collected the vdrtikas and virttika-like statements found in the Kašikā, and perhaps composed some of them. In this way, I suggested, l.ching's obvious confusion of Katy yana and Jayaditya would become understandable. 'Vrttisatra' would then be a name both for Katyāyana's vārtikas and for the värttika-like statements in the Kasika.
The present investigation has made another interpretation far more probable. Since we have now come to think that at this early date Katyāyana's vårttikas were not looked upon as a separate work by themselves, I-ching cannot have heard about this as a separate work and then made a mistake about its authorship. Rather, he may have heard of the twofold division of the Mahabhāsya which we now think was current at that time, viz. the division into a 'Varttika' which contained far more than just nominal sentences, and the remainder of the Bhasya.
It appears that I ching knew just this division, and used the names vttisülra and crni for them. The first of these two names is peculiar in this context, but I-ching's account leaves us no choice. The name clini for the Mahabhraya, or much of it, is already familiar to us.
We see that according to I-ching's testimony the Vrttisutra is smaller, but not much smaller, than the Corni. Together they count 42,000 slokas, & number which may be less than half the real total number of the Mahabhigya, but which is at any rate far closer to the truth than the number of 24,000 slokas said to be contained in the Carni
* Note that VP 2.482 and 485 have plaljali, not 'Pataljali'; see BONKHORST 1983: section 73. Another early mention of the name, possibly designating the author of the Mahabhigya there as well, occurs in the Pali Calavamsa 37.217; here the spelling is plaijal. The Yuktidepika refers to a Sankhya philosopher of this name on a few occasions. Normally it has "Patanjali', once (p. 121, 19 (with fn. 2)) palanja!", it seems. The Yoga Bhasya (3.44) has 'Patanjali'. See further WEBER 1862: 147n.
* The modern view is already present in Jinendrabuddhi's Nyas where it explains I p. 4): bhasyam kalydyanaprastlanam odkiam virom palat jalipranitom. Similarly Haradatta's Padama jari.
The translation is BROUGH's (1973: 257), who points at the similarity of the second sentence with the opening lines of the MahabhAaya, see below.
3 BROUCH (1973: 257) suggests that the Chinese transcription "has apparently arisen from a confusion between the name of the author, Patanjali, and a designation of his work: 1-ching must have heard some such form as Paianjala-bhagya". If I-ching heard 'Patanjali' rather than Patanjali' (see note 20 above), the confusion becomes even more intelligible.
* I-ching does not seem to have had much idea of what a soka was see BROUGH 1973: 249 n. 8.
