Book Reviews

Author(s): J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong

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REVIEWS
tained in Candrakirti's great Prasannapada commentary written in the 7th century, in other words about half a millenium after the time of Nagarjuna. LVP's edition was most certainly a highly meritorious achievement which has rendered excellent service to scholars. But because of the insufficiency of the manuscript materials then available its readings were sometimes doubtful or corrupt; moreover, since there were several identical lacunae in the three MSS (indicating that they derive from the same original), certain passages had to be conjecturally restored by LVP on the basis of the Tibetan translation.
Some years ago Professor G. Tucci procured from Nepal a manuscript which fortunately contains almost all the passages missing in the other three MSS; and it may accordingly be concluded that the Rome MS is independent of their immediate original. For the preparation of the present edition a photocopy of this MS has been used by Professor J. W. de Jong (J) in addition to LVP's edition and the Tibetan translation of Candrakirti's Prasannapada. And J has therefore been able either to corroborate LVP's emendations or to offer improved readings, as well as to fill up lacunae in the older edition.
J's edition comprises 447 kārikās as against LVP's 448 since what the older edition had printed as verse 7 of Chapter iii is excluded here because it is a quotation from the Ratnavali (iv. 55) omitted in all other commentaries on the MMK. (Neither editor has included the two so-called introductory verses anirodham anutpadam... vande vadatām varam in the text of Chapter i.)
Improvements in reading as compared with LVP's edition are, for example, vigamanam (ii.3, instead of dvigamanam) and ajyate (instead of the unintelligible ucyate in ii.11, 22 and 23 and uhyate in xxv.17 and 18, this latter reading corroborating our conjecture in JIP 5 [1977], p. 63 n. 67). In xviii. 7ab J corrects LVP's nivṛttam abhidhātavyam nivṛtte cittagocare to... nivṛttas cittagocaraḥ; however, Candrakirti explains that pada b gives the reason for what is said in pada a, and a Tibetan version has brjod par bya ba ldog pa ste // sems kyi spyod yul Idog pas so (I do not quite understand J's note in IIJ 20, p. 227, where he writes that pas so serves to connect the first half of the verse with the second half; such a construction usually serves to express a reason and this fits Candrakirti's explanation). In xxii. 11 LVP and J both read sūnyam... aśünyam... ubhayam... nôbhayam; that is, they (no doubt rightly) have the neuter ending, although the context refers to tathagataḥ and in his Cinq chapitres de la Prasannapada (Paris, 1949), p. 80, J accordingly translated 'Ne peut dire ni qu'il est vide, ni qu'il est non-vide, ni qu'il est vide et non-vide à la fois, ni non plus qu'il n'est ni vide ni non-vide à la fois' (see our remarks in JIP 5 [1977], p. 63 n. 55). In xxiv.13 where the type is broken in the review copy of the present edition, LVP read sa sunye. In xxiv.25 both editors read duḥkhanirodhatvāt; although the Tibetan translation appears to presuppose something else (see LVP's note ad locum), the Sanskrit text adopted in both editions accords with Candrakirti's explanation (J has no comment on this passage in his text-critical notes in IIJ 20). In xxv.14cd, instead of LVP's conjecture na tayor ekatrâstitvam alokatamasor yatha, J reads with the Rome MS tayor abhavo hy ekatra prakāśatamasor iva; this case provides an instructive example of how difficult it can be even for as competent and meticulous an editor as LVP to reconstruct a Sanskrit reading accurately in the absence of reliable manuscript evidence and on the basis only of the Tibetan translation, even if he does succeed in conveying the approximate sense. On the other hand, in xxvii.lab LVP's conjecture abhum atītam adhvānam nabhum iti ca dṛṣṭayaḥ came remarkably close to abhum atītam adhvānam nâbhūvam iti dṛṣṭayah in J (who slightly corrects the reading of the Rome MS).
The text of the MMK is followed by an index of the Kärikäs (pp. 45-57). This edition contains no critical notes or apparatus, and the reader can locate J's changes only by comparing it carefully with LVP's edition and the text-critical notes on the Prasannapadā (and the MMK) being published by J in this Journal on the base of the fourth Nepalese MS now in Rome and the Tibetan translation (see IIJ 20, pp. 25-59 and 217-52). It would have been most helpful to the reader if in his text-critical notes J had marked the verses of the MMK by a typographical device and a reference to the Kärikä-number.