Emendation Of Some Verses In Bhrtharis Trikandi

Author(s): Ashok Aklujkar
Publisher: Ashok Aklujkar

Page 11

Emendation of some verses in Bhartṛhari's Trikāṇḍi
and kasyapā ivemäḥ pratikṛtayaḥ. The first is likely to be employed in speaking of the arrangement of an army for a battle. If the elephantriders in the army are arranged in an eaglelike formation, an observer may say, "These elephants are like an eagle'. But suppose the observer is viewing images or statues of the members of the Kasyapa family. Will it be proper if he says käsyapa ivamāḥ pratikṛtayaḥ instead of kāśyapāḥ ivemāḥ pratikṛtayah? If the singular garuḍah is acceptable in the other expression, why not use a singular here as well? Bharthari points out that in the first expression a group of elephants is compared with an eagle on account of the specific shape of the group. However, images are not compared through some specific feature with the group of Kasyapas in the second expression. Therefore, the only proper usage will be the one with the plural kadyapäḥ. Helārāja explains this point accurately, but, to derive it from the verse, he takes saha in the unattested sense tulya 'equal' and construes the verse as ekasya api kāśyapasya bhinnä pratikṛtiḥ saha (= tulya) pratiyeta33. This is clearly strained. I would like to suggest that saha and kayapasyeti should be replaced by sadrk and käsyapas ceti. The k of sadrk could have been dropped in dictation or uninterrupted writing, as another follows. Then the remaining sady, being an ungrammatical expression, could have been easily mistaken for saha. The emendation suggested for kalyapasyeti is also transcriptionally probable. Thus, spurred by the awkwardness of Helārāja's explanation, we can guess that the first sentence in the verse is to be read as kasyapab iti ca35 ekasya api bhinnä pratikṛtih sadrk pratiyeta, and to be understood as: 'And, in the case of [the singular
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33 Prakirna-prakãán: yadi kalyapa ivemaḥ pratikrtayaḥ käéyapa ity eka-vacanäntam upamanam prayujyate tada garuḍasyeva hastino vyuhena tulyaḥ [...] kāśyapasya nānā-bhūtā pratikṛtiḥ kenacit samniveśādinā dharmeņa saha tulya vijñāyeta. na tu pratyekam upamanam gamyeta. sahasabdas tulyarthaḥ. tad-yoge kasyapasyeti şaşṭhi. tasmat pratyekam upamanabhāva-pratipattyartham atra kasyapa-sabdaḥ pratyupameyam bhedenaivāva
tisthate.
34 The iti in kasyapasyeti cannot possibly be indicative of quotation. A construal of the form 'kasyapasya' iti ekasya api bhinna pratikṛtiḥ saha/ sadrk pratiyeta is out of question, since the form used in the intended usage (cf. Helārāja p. 420.13) is the nominative kasyapaḥ, not the genitive kāśyapasya. Therefore, if one reads kāśyapasya, one must understand iti in the sense 'therefore' and construe the verse quarters 'abc' as ekasya api kāśyapasya bhinna pratikṛtiḥ saha/sadrk pratiyeta iti. However, such a construing not only throws together ekasya and kasyapasya that are far removed from each other, but also makes the following tena 'therefore' redundant.
35 Insertion of ca before iti (for the sake of the metre) is not strange, as it is noticed in other verses.