Notes On Manuscript Transmission Of Vaisesika Sutra And Its Earliest Commentaries

Author(s): Harunaga Issacson
Publisher: Harunaga Issacson

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bhaga na vidyante. C, V23 and SM all read yutasiddhyabhävät karyakaranayoh samyogavibhāgas na vidyete. A reads yutasiddhyabhävät karyakaranayoḥ samyogavibhago na vidgate, but this should probably be taken to be a scribal error for ... samyogavibhāgau na vidyete.
7 In 7.2.16 T agrees with C and V, as well as A in reading gune ca bhāṣyate. ŚM reads guno 'pi vibhavyate.
8 7.2.17 is read unanimously by C, V, SM and A as niṣkriyatvät. In T we find the following: sbhayopagamanan nişkriyatväd atītānāgatapratyayabhāvāt prasamgat. We cannot be certain, but this should perhaps be taken as four separate sutras, three of which are not known to me from any other source. If they have been introduced from some commentary, it must be one which has not yet been discovered, for I could find nothing in the commentaries by Candrananda, Bhaṭṭa Vādīndra or Sankara Miśra which even vaguely resembled these sutras.
9 The eighth, ninth and tenth adhyayas are not divided into āhnikas in T.
From the above examples it will be gathered that T is an interesting and rather eccentric manuscript. Its differences from the other recensions are usually more radical than those of A. Like A, it contains many features which make an older impression than the text of ŚM. Despite the fact that the manuscript is not a very correct one, the divergent readings and extra sūtras it appears to contain deserve to be taken seriously and judged on their own merits. The possibility that the recension represented by T is an old one cannot be ruled out; as far as we can tell, different versions of the VS were in existence already at an early period.
IV
In addition to manuscripts containing the text of the VS alone, those containing the sutras together with a commentary should also be collected and examined as thoroughly as possible. It may not be vain to hope that one day a hitherto unknown commentary, that of Atreya for example,24 may
23V should be corrected to read thus, as indicated by Nozawa 1974, 471, and in fact already by Thakur himself in the second appendix (giving the sutrapatha) of his edition. The edition itself, as well as the reprint of the text in the appendix of Thakur's edition of BhV, reads vidyate for vidyete.
24 The best source of information on this commentary to date is formed by the fairly numerous quotations or references to it in the commentary by Bhaṭṭa Vädīndra.
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