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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
CHAPTER IV
In Part IV, fol. 3a, the interlinear insertion of the phrase na sasaya, which was made by the scribe of Parts V-VII, appears to be marked by a double stroke in a slanting position in line 4. But the interlinear insertions of the syllables pi on fol. 4a3 and bha on fol. 5a5 are not marked by any sign. On fol. 56, the correction of tri to tri is made in the text itself. The favourite method, however, of correcting blundered letters is to deface them, as on fols. 393. 3a5, 564, whero false numerals are defaced. See, also fols. 4a3 and 5a"
3. LACUNA-see Table V, Traverse 5, for Parts I and II. The existence of a lacuna is indicated in the Bower Manuscript by means of dots. The number of these dots is equal to the number of the missing syllables, when the latter is very small. Thus in Part I, fol. 264, there are thrco dots to indicate the absence of three syllables, which the scribe was unable to read in his original, but which can now be identified as pancha cha from the Bhêda Sanhita, the source of the Navanitaka (see Journal, Royal Asiatic Society for 1909, p. 858); also below, Chapter VI, p. lvii. Similarly, ibid., fol. 761, there are two dots to indicate the absence of the two syllables para (see note 61, p. 36). Also ibid., fol. 46, there are two dots indicativo of the loss of two syllables, the identity of which, however, for the present. is unknown (see note 38, p. 32). The case is slightly different with Part 1, fol. 367. Here we have a blank space, partly filled with four dots and enclosed between those double strokes which are the usual mark of the end of a full verse (see ante, p. xxxvii). Here the dots indicate the loss of an indefinite portion of the text in the original manuscript, from which the scribe prepared the existing copy of the treatise.
Dots, however, serve to indicate not only a lacuna in its proper sense, i.e., a gap in the text, but also such gaps, or blank spaces, in the inscribed surface of the leaf as are due, not to the loss of any portion of the text, but to defects of the birch-bark, or to other causes (See Chapter II pp. xviii, xix,). Thus we have three dots at the end of the first line of fol. 76 in Part II, to show that nothing of the text is missing, but that the surface of the birch-bark was not good enough to be written on. The single dot on the third line of the same page serves the same purpose, so also the two single dots on the tenth line of fol. 56, though here their presence is not due to badness of the surface of the bark, but probably to a real lacuna, which the scribe could only partially fill up with the word chitraka, for which reason he put dots into the superfluous blank spaces on either side of that word.
Besides dots, also the lengthwise-comma, or numeral one, is frequently used to mark a superfluous blank space. Thus in Part I, fol. 1b11, Part II, fols. 4a11, 7all, 7610, 865, 1160 25b12, 29611, 31a10, 3161, 9-11, etc. In Part II, at the beginning of the fourth line of fol. 156, the comma indicates a blank space due to the conjunct letter above it.
Finally a more or less lengthy serpentine line is used for the same purpose of indicating a superfluous blank space. It occurs, e.g., in Part II, fols. 6al-11,861, 14a1.
(iii) ABBREVIATION. The practice of abbreviating a word is found only in Part II, and only in application to the two words slóka and pâda, when they are connected with numbers expressed by figures. The word slóka serves as the name of any kind of verse, not of the technically called álóka only: and pâda is the name of a quarter verse. The two names often occur in the colophon of formulæ, to indicate the number of verses, or parts of verses, of which they consist. When so insed, they are usually abbreviated to ślô and på respectively. Thus we have áló 2 on fol. 3a8 (p. 29), and áló 11 på 1 on fol, 5+ (p. 32), etc. Twice, however, álóka is written in full, vis,, kloka 14 on fol, 1865 (p. 55), and flóka 5 on fol. 1962 (p. 57). As part of the text. of course, it is always written in full; thus in verse 498, on fol. 1568, we have ardha-slókasama panaḥ, and in the prose note introducing verse 947, on fol. 29a3, we find tatra slakan.
(iv) SCRIBAL ERRORS. Lapses in writing occur not infrequently in the Bower manuscript. In Parts V and VII, which are written with evident carelessness, they are particularly numerous. In a
