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AUGUST, 1876.]
ON THE MAHABHASHYA.
243
second book of Bhartrihari's Vákyapadiya we are told that at the time of king Abhi. manyu of Kashmir all that remained of the original text of the Mahabháshya were frag- ments, from which Chandra charya and others reconstructed a new (or second) text.
To the first reason Professor Weber himself does not appear to attach any very great importance; but it may be admitted that if the South Indian MSS. really did contain a text considerably different from that which is given by MSS. from other parts of India, a fact such as this might prove, at any rate, the existence of different recensions of the Mahabháshya. All, however, I find Dr. Barnell to have stated regarding the difference of the text in the South Indian MSS., is this: that in the introductory Alnika the latter "omit the quotation from the Atharvaveda ;" moreover, on p. 91 of his essay on the Aindra School of Sanskrit Grammarians, the same scholar deliberately states "that the Northern and Southern MSS. of the Mahabhúshya differ to no great extent, though various readings occur." I may add that in the course of the last ten years I have examined MSS. from nearly every part of India, and that I have not been able to discover any traces of the existence of several recensions of Patanjali's great commentary.
I now proceed to verse IV. 487 of the Rajatarangini, which in the Paris edition is given thus:
of the text, as having been brought about at the instance of Ja y å pida.
If, for argument's sake, we were to admit that the word a s did convey the sense of
incomplete' or existing in fragments,' which has been ascribed to it, and that under Jaya. pida fragments were all that was to be found of the text of the Mahabháshya in Kashmir, would there be any reason for assuming the same to have been the case all over India ? Do we not know of numbers of works of which fragments only exist in one part of India, while complete copies are to be found in others? And supposing that fragments only of the text existed in Kashmir, what possible good could Jayapida have done when he desired to encourage the study of the Mahabhashya by sending for interpreters ? For as to the meaning of at there can, I presume, be no doubt whatsoever.
In reality the context in which the term part is employed in the above passage, as well as the manner in which arest and rest are used elsewhere, show that the former cannot in the above convey the meaning which has been assigned to it. Sanskțit writers frequently speak of arutate , and call the study of a text विच्छित्रसंप्रदाय; and in accordance with this usage I maintain that विच्छित्रं महाभाष्यम् can only mean "the Mahabháslya which had ceased to be studied" and was no longer understood in Kashmir, and that the whole verse must therefore literally be translated thus :-"The king, having sent for interpreters from another country, brought into use in his realm the Mahabhashya, which had ceased to be studied" (in Kashmir, and was therefore no longer understood).
Before I proceed, I find it necessary to point out two slight inaccuracies in Prof. Weber's remarks concerning the history of the Mahabhashya. Prof. Weber has stated more than once (see above, and this journal vol. IV. p. 247), and has apparently laid great stress on the fact, that the Mahabháshya on three different occasions has received the epithets viplávita, bhrashta, and vichchhinna. In reality vichchhinna occurs in the verse of the Rájatarangini quoted above, and the words viplávita and bhrashta are found, as will be seen below, in one and the same sentence of the Vakyapadiya, although not in one and the same verse. Moreover, the epithet
देशान्तरादागमय्य व्याचक्षाणान्क्षमापतिः।
प्रावर्तयत विच्छिन्नं महाभाष्यं स्वमण्डले।। On p. 167 of vol. V. of the Indische Studien this passage has been translated—"The king (Jay âpida) caused interpreters to come from other countries, and set the split Bhashya again going in his realm ;" and from the remarks which immediately follow this translation it is clear that Prof. Weber, when first quoting and translating the passage, understood it to re- late the introduction' or 're-introduction of the Mahabhashya into Kashmir, and not a * reconstruction of the text of the work. This view has been abandoned in vol. XIII. of the Ind. Stud., for in the latter Prof. Weber speaks on p. 315 of a 'remodellation, and on p. 320 (where the word MT 'is rendered by knowing' or 'expert men') of a 'reconstruction
