Notes On Manuscript Transmission Of Vaisesika Sutra And Its Earliest Commentaries

Author(s): Harunaga Issacson
Publisher: Harunaga Issacson

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that Jambūvijaya's edition is an impressive achievement. Nonetheless, reexamination of the manuscripts does frequently bring to light readings which were either overlooked or wrongly reported in his edition. Regardless of whether or not the text of a new edition were to differ in many places from Jambūvijaya's edition, it would be sufficiently justified, I feel, if it succeeded in reporting the manuscript evidence more accurately, and thus allowed the user of it to judge the authority of the text for himself. Furthermore, I am happy to say that the manuscript basis for a new edition can now be extended somewhat further. In the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, there are in fact two manuscripts of Candrānanda's commentary which apparently have hitherto escaped notice. One of these, No. 403 of 1875-76, is a manuscript in Sāradā script, while the other, No. 99 of 1873– 74, is in Jaina Devanāgarī script and is dated samvat 1931 (A.D. 1874). The latter proves to be of very little significance, for as I hope to demonstrate in detail elsewhere,29 it is virtually certain that it is an apograph of the manuscript in Ahmedabad. The Sārada manuscript, however, seems to be a new witness for the text. It is closely related to the Sāradā manuscript used by Jambūvijaya, sharing quite a number of common errors, but each has errors and omissions of its own which rule out the possibility that either is an ancestor of the other. Instead, the evidence strongly suggests that both are descendants (I suspect even direct apographs) of a single hyparchetype; a manuscript which is lost or at least has not yet been brought to light.
On the basis of all the manuscript evidence, conclusions differing from those of Jambūvijaya are sometimes possible not only in the text of the commentary but also as to the reading of some sūtras. A single example. In 2.2.26 the reading accepted by Jambūvijaya is adityasamyogād bhūtapurvād bhavisyato bhūtāc ca prāci. In the critical apparatus he notes that O the Sāradā manuscript in Baroda) reads samprayogād instead of samyogād. This is correct, and I may add that the other Sāradā manuscript, in Poona, reads the same. What Jambūvijaya has however failed to record, either in the critical apparatus on the page or in the urddhipatrakam, which contains additional variants for the text of the sutras, is that the portion of the Jaina Devanāgarī manuscript which gives the sütrapātha separately also reads samprayogād. It is therefore only in the sūtra as found within the
2 In the introduction to my forthcoming edition of Candrānanda's commentary.
30 This vrddhipatrakam is introduced by Jambūvijaya with the words asmin granthe O. P. PS. madhye ye sutrapāthabhedās te tatra tatra tippaneşūpadarsitāh | tathāpy asmadana. vadhānād ye 'vasistāḥ pramärjaniyā vā pāthabhedās te 'tropadarśyante katipayānām sutrāņām granthāntareșüddhrtena sūtrapathena saha tulană catropadarśayis yate. (p. 227).
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