Notes On Manuscript Transmission Of Vaisesika Sutra And Its Earliest Commentaries

Author(s): Harunaga Issacson
Publisher: Harunaga Issacson

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commentary in the later portion of the Jaina Devanāgarī manuscript that the reading accepted in the text is to be found. Since samprayogād, on the other hand, is attested in both the streams of transmission, it must be accepted as the reading most probably followed by Candrānanda. In the commentary on the same sūtra, the word reoccurs; Jambūvijaya again reads ādityasamyogād, with the Jaina Devanāgarī manuscript, and this time fails to report that his Sāradā manuscript once more has ādityasamprayogāt, a reading which, again, is shared with the Poona Sāradā manuscript. The very fact that the most wide-spread recension of the text, that of ŚM, reads ādityasamyogād in the sūtra, renders it at least marginally more plausible that the Sāradā manuscripts preserve the 'original' reading. It is interesting to note that ādityasamprayogad is also supported by the manuscript in Malayalam script described in the previous section, T (see the third example quoted in section III above). This reading thus does not seem to be a purely local, Kashmiri one.
Finally I should mention that there is a possibility that still other manuscripts of Candrānanda may survive. Only recently I learned of the existence of a Sāradā manuscript of a Vaišeşikasūtravștti in Ujjain and a Devanāgarī manuscript said to bear the same title in Jammu.32 There is more than a slight chance that one or both of these manuscripts may turn out to contain the text of Candrānanda's commentary. I hope to have an opportunity to examine these manuscripts in the near future.
I turn now to the next oldest extant commentary on the VS, that by Bhatta Vādīndra. The situation with regard to the commentary by this scholar is somewhat complicated (as may be witnessed by the fact that even some very recent publications seem to have fallen victim to a certain confusion) and the scope for textual improvement here is considerably greater than with Candrānanda's commentary, as I hope to be able to show.
In 1957 a slin volume appeared containing the text of the VS together with what the title called an anonymous commentary.33 As the editor, A. Thakur, informs us in the introduction, the text was based on a Deva
31 In general, I think it is not unfair to say that Jambūvijaya is less careful in reading and reporting his Sāradā manuscript, O, than he is with his Jaina manuscript, and that he also seems slightly biased at times in favour of the readings of the latter.
3?I am indebted for this information to Mr. Dominic Goodall, Wolfson College, Oxford.
33 For the details of this publication see under V in the first section of the bibliography below.
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