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INTRODUCTION
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partly because the grammatical standards were nebulous and the copyists took liberty with the readings sometimes due to their ignorance, preconceived notions or their understanding of a particular word.
Studying the variations in words and changes in lines, verses or prose passages, in most of the cases J presents a better version than P; and it is quite likely that the author himself improved on the first draft at a second thought. The basic exemplars of J and P have been independently revised: that alone can explain certain alternative passages and what look like additions in one or omissions in the other. Some longer additions must have been made when the basic exemplar of J was revised, and these revisions did not find place in the basic exemplar of P. In the context of philosophical discussion (pp. 230 f.) the author seems to have revised his earlier draft possibly to improve on or supplement the text. It would not be very wrong to presume that many Mss. of the Kuvalayamālā were not prepared and circulated, and the text also does not seem to have been as widely studied as the Samarāiccakahā of Haribhadra.
The Ms. P is not an efficient copy. It is full of scribal omissions. But even there some omissions have significance, for instance, the omission of references to flesh etc., revision of a general term āsīsā into a conventional phrase dharmalābha. Possibility of a revisionist's hand, even other than that of the author himself, is not altogether ruled out in such contexts, because the text in P has passed through more transcriptions at the hands of copyists than J. And, as shown below, it is the text of P that lies at the basis of its stylistic Sanskrit digest by Ratnaprabha-sūri.
As to the prasasti of the author, the one in P is the first draft and that in J is a revised draft, because the latter gives supplementary details. The concluding Mangala is something conventional or just a ritual, and it might have been added at the time of the consecration of a Ms. when it was completed.
3. BROAD PRINCIPLES OF TEXT CONSTITUTION
In view of the variations in the readings of J and P and the possible authenticity of the basic exemplars of J and P, one has to be very cautious in adopting a particular reading and relegating the other to the footnotes. There are only two Mss, available, and their authority (going back perhaps to the author himself) is often very well balanced. Under such a peculiar circumstance an eclectic method had to be adopted to present a readable text. It may often be felt that the readings of both J and P are equally good, authentic and acceptable; but practical necessity demands that one has to go to the footnotes. Then there is a dialectal aspect of the readings; and if they differ chaotically, between the two Mss. as well as in the same Ms., some standard orthography had to be adopted, as a part of editorial discipline, in presenting the text uniformly throughout the work.
As already noted above, the inorganic t (or ta-sruti, as it has come to be called) is profusely used in this Ms. J and sparingly in P. It is quite possible that in the earlier stages when the Prākrits gradually evolved into standardised literary speeches, the t in Sanskrit words might have been retained here and there; but the abundant use of inorganic t in place of elided consonants, almost to the
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