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Paul Dundas
Jambū-jyoti
The equivalent passage in the critical edition of the Rāmāyana 7. 88. 10, prior to Sītā's rescue by the goddess of the earth, is comparatively abrupt and does not employ the word satya : yathāham Rāghavād anyam manasā 'pi na cintaye | tathā me Madhavi devi vivaram dātum arhati || However, the apparatus gives a variant somewhat similar in shape to Ravisena's version : manasā karmanā vācā yathā Rāmaṁ samarthaye yathaitat satyam uktam me vedmi Rāmāt param na ca ||
According to Söhnen-Thieme, op. cit. p. 241, there are no real attestations of an act of truth in the original main stories of both epics, however often the motif occurs in subordinate tales and legends : “Sītā's satyakriya, which she uses to disappear forever, is a quite pessimistic and unheard of use of the "truth act”,
perhaps reflecting the lateness of book seven of the Rāmāyaṇa.” 24. See Franklin Edgerton, The Panchatantra : Volume 1. Text and Critical Apparatus,
New Haven : American Oriental Society 1924. Patrick Olivelle, The Pañcatantra : The Book of India's Folk Wisdom, Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press 1997 is a recent translation of Edgerton's reconstructed text. The bibliography of this book should be consulted for the scholarly literature voicing scepticism concerning Edgerton's methodology. For the problems entailed in the reconstruction of another narrative text, see Donald Nelson, "Brhatkathā Studies : The Problem
of an Ur-text”, Journal of Asian Studies 37 1978, pp. 663-76.. 25. See Johannes Hertel, The Pañchatantra : A Collection of Hindu Tales in the Recension,
called Panchākhyānaka, and dated 1199 A. D., of the Jaina Monk, Purnabhadra, Harvard Oriental Series Vol. 11, Cambridge, Mass : Harvard University 1908. For a recent English version of Purnabhadra's recension, see Visnu Śarma :
The Pañcatantra, translated by Chandra Rajan, Penguin Books 1993. 26. See Edgerton op. cit. p. 55: are papa ko mām mahāsatīm virūpayitum samarthah.
śrnvantu me lokapālāh, yady ahaṁ kaumāram bhartāram muktvā n'ānyam
parapuruşam manasā 'pi vedmi, tad anena satyenā 'vyangaṁ mukham astu. 27. Harry Falk, Quellen des Pañcatantra, Wiesbaden : Otto Harrassowitz 1978. 28. Hertel's edition, p. 30 (punctuation added) : "tad yadi mama satītvam asti, tad ete
devā bhūyo 'pi tādrgrūpāṁ nāsikāṁ kurvantu. atha vä manasāpi parapuruso bhilasitah, tan mām bhasmasān nayantu" iti. evam uktvä bhūyo 'pi tam äha, bho durātman, paśya, me satītvaprabhāvena tādrg eva nāsikā saṁjātā”.
DOD
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