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NAKAMURA ON BHARTRHARI
by
ASHOK AKLUJKAR
Vancouver
1.1 An article by Professor Hajime Nakamura, “Bhartshari The Scholar", was published in the fourth volume of the Indo-Iranian Journal (1960:
282-305). That article was a revised translation of a part of Nakamura's · Kotoba no Keijijogaku, which is regarded by many scholars to be Naka
mura's important contribution to the study of Vedanta in general and to Bhartshari studies in particular. Naturally I was very surprised to find in it, as I shall presently demonstrate, a large number of inaccurate translations, remarks, conclusions, and comparisons. My purpose in demonstrating what I consider to be Nakamura's mistakes is, of course, purely that of śāstra-śuddhi "purification of a branch of learning"; the positive aspects of the present article, namely the correct translations of some of the key verses in Bhartphari's Trikāņdit (TK in abbreviation) and a correct understanding of Bhartshari's position, are more important in my view than the refutation of the contents of Nakamura's article.2
1 (a) It is generally believed that the title of the work to which I refer as the Trikāndi is Vākyapadiya. In a recent article (Aklujkar, 1969: 547-555), I have argued that Vāk yapadiya was originally the title of only the first two books of Bhartshari's magnum opus and that Trikāņdi is the only ancient name that can refer to the work under study as a whole. (b) Some scholars advocate the view that the composition referred to as Vrtti (as V in abbreviation) is not Bhartphari's work and that it is much later than the verses (kārikā) which alone form the genuine TK. I see absolutely no reason to subscribe to this view. In my paper, “Authorship of the Vāk yapadiya-yrtti", read at the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society (1969) (to appear in Wiener Zeit schrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens, vol. xvi, May 1972), I have exposed the weaknesses of the arguments on which this view is based, and I have shown with unmistakable internal evidence that the traditional ascription of the V to Bhartshari cannot be doubted by any unprejudiced mind. 2 (a) My practice in the following is to quote Nakamura's words first, then to reproduce the Sanskrit original, and then to translate the Sanskrit original as I think it should be translated. In general, I do not adduce any additional evidence or refer to the ancient commentators when it is quite obvious that my translation follows the Sanskrit original more closely than Nakamura's. It should also be noted that I italicize all Sanskrit words for the sake of uniformity. Nakamura's practice, which is justifiable
