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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
Menandros-Pushyamitra on one side, Abhimanyu on the other, or, in round numbers, between 140 B.C. and 60 A.D. The statements about Pushyamitra's sacrifices would lead us nearer to the first term, whereas those on the "Yavana'-if Kanishka is to be understood-nearer to the second; or if, after all, a Greek prince is to be sought under the Yavana,' we are drawn of course quite near to the first term. But all this only under one condition, viz. that these statements are certainly not to be subjected to the possibility that they also represent examples found by Patanjali in previous works!! Even in this very indistinctness this result is still a very important one, if we consider the unhappy state of the chronology of Indian literature in general; and the other statements contained in the various examples thus acquire also a prominent value."
"It is true that here also the critic must still for the present raise his warning voice and ask, What guarantee have we that the work, as we now have it, is really still the same as that which, according to the Vakyapadiya, was reconstrued (wieder hergestellt) by the efforts of " 'Chandrâchârya and others," after misfortunes of some duration by which it was viplávita,-what happened, according to the Rajatarangini, just under king Abhimanyu (see Ind. Studien, vol. V. pp. 159-160) P And if the assumption is decidedly not to be denied that already at this reconstruction there may have crept into the work secondary additions, originally foreign to it, how is it further with regard to that second statement of the Rájatarangini, according to which in Jayâpida's time, the end of the eighth century, the work was, in Kasmir, again vichinna, and was introduced there anew by skilled men, whom the king ordered to come from another country? Already, in treating of this question for the first time (Ind. Studien, vol. V. pp. 168-169), I have pointed out these difficulties, and called it "audacious to judge on the thorough authenticity of the present text of the Bhashya already at this time, when we have before us only so small a piece of it." But even now, though we have the whole work before us, I must abide by the same opinion, and I feel obliged to single out the possibility that one or the other statement, which in the sequel we will draw out of the context of the work, does not testify for Patanjali's time, nor for that of Abhimanyu, but merely for that of Jayâpida. On the other hand, we are allowed at present to speak also of an impression founded on the totality of the work, and that is decidedly favourable to its originality. As Goldstücker has already stated it, and was the first to do so, the red thread going through the
[OCTOBER, 1877.
whole work is the polemic against the várttikakára. Now one may ask indeed, Was this really so also originally ? or may not rather the fact that we have in it, after all, not so much a commentary on Panini, as one to the várttikas of Katyayana, be simply the consequence of the work being preserved to us only partially, in such fragments as were still procurable in the eighth century, when it was vichinna again? Such a question could not, indeed, be negatived directly, still there is one point against it which appears of considerable importance. And this is just the special restriction of the work essentially to those sutras which had been assailed by Kâtyâyana. Its deductions thus attain a unitary character, viz. that of selection. In case the present text was really only a text of fragments, collected in the eighth century, of a commentary on the whole work of Pânini, such a restriction would be very difficult to explain; we ought then to miss some books and chapters wholly, and have others complete, but we should not have something out of all of them, and moreover not those parts only which relate to the várttikas. Truly one may object here,-Well, how do we know that Katyayana did not write várttikas to the other rules of Pânini also? should he not rather have written such to all rules which gave anyhow occasion for it ? and when there are preserved only those we have, should this not be simply explained by the Bhashya's having been preserved to us only in fragments? Now all this might really happen to be so; but the unitary character of the work would not suffer on account of that, as it would continue even then just in that special relation to Katyayana; and it is this very restriction, after all, that appears to testify for its composition by one author, and thus also for its authenticity and originality.
"Truly, it might even thus, in its present form, be "more the work of his pupils than of Patanjali himself." Though one of the arguments which I brought forward in this respect (Ind. Studien, vol. V. pp. 155, 168), viz. that in the body of the work "Patanjali is spoken of only in the third person, and his opinion is introduced several times by सु. that is, by पश्यति त्वाचार्य:, " no longer holds good. For on one hand we now find in it also many statements expressed in the first person, in the singular or the plural form, in the present or relating to the sequel in the future: thus for instance ज्ञास्यामि IV. 666, प्रत्याययिष्यामि III. 136, VIII. 76, very often, for 'I,' I. 84a, 122a, 150a; III. 7a; IV. 20a; V. 3b; VI. 4 f. 11a; VIII. 2b; अनुक्रमिष्यामः I. 113a; भाषयिष्यामः VII. 490, They would argue, after all, though not for Patanjali himself, still for the time of Abhimanyu.
