Halas Sattasai

Author(s): Hermen Tieken
Publisher: Leiden

Page 16

Sattasai and that of the Sanskrit commentaries, Hemacandra's grammar and the two dictionaries, there must have been a certain period of relative neglect of, or unconcern with, the text; a period, moreover, long enough to lose sight of the original intention of many of the Gathās and of the meaning of many of the words occurring in them.
The interpretations of the individual Gathās is often difficult. They contain associations or refer to practices and ideas which are not otherwise known. Many Gathās do not have parallels outside the text itself. A further context is provided by the text as a whole, which seems to have been compiled with the specific aim of amusing well-to-do city-dwellers and courtiers. Practically each Gāthā seems to have to be understood in this way, which occasionally may indicate a way out to arrive at a possibly correct interpretation. This broader context, provided by the text as a whole, will be discussed in Chapter 1 of Part II together with a few related problems concerning the compilership of King Hāla and the choice of a Prākrit dialect rather than Sanskrit.
At this stage I have refrained from making a complete word-index of the Gathās edited. I have restricted myself, instead, to preparing an index of words and an index of grammatical points discussed in the Notes.
The numbers of the Gathās refer to Weber's edition of 1881. However, when preceded by an asterisk it concerns a particular Gāthā in the part of the text edited here. In the lists in the stemma (Part I) I refer throughout to Weber's above-mentioned edition.