Notes On Manuscript Transmission Of Vaisesika Sutra And Its Earliest Commentaries

Author(s): Harunaga Issacson
Publisher: Harunaga Issacson

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a reprint of the text of V in an appendix. This has however practically no value; it introduces new misprints, contains no improvements (though a number would have been possible on the basis of BhV; cf. below), and does not even incorporate the corrections contained in the list of addenda and corrigenda appended to the original edition of V. Finally, a second appendix contained another welcome editio princeps, this time of the ninth adhyāya of the anonymous commentary on the VS written at the Sena court (S)-yet another text on which Thakur had given valuable information in an earlier article. 42 The commentary on the tenth adhyāya, surviving, like that on the ninth, in a single manuscript in the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, remains unpublished.
Whatever its shortcomings, this publication allowed scholars with no direct access to the manuscript material to compare BhV and V for themselves, at least for a sizeable portion of the text. And in my opinion, Thakur's judgement is most probably correct. The difference in length between the two commentaries is very great indeed. The available portion of BhV covers 256 pages of Thakur's edition; the corresponding text of V, as reprinted in the appendix of the same edition, merely 26. But almost each sentence of V can be found also in BhV, though sometimes with slightly different wording. And in numerous places the published text of BhV allows us to correct what are clearly errors in V.
A small example.3 On p. 3, line 22-23 (p. 156 line 15-16 in the reprint in BhV, appendix 1), we read in V dviprthag ityādivyavahārasya dvitvādyavacchinnaprthaktvād evopapatter iti kecit. The corresponding passage in BhV is to be found on p. 67, line 5-6, where we find dvau prthag ityādivyavaalam script are preserved in the Madras Government Oriental Manuscripts Library. His quotations are all based on transcripts of these manuscripts in the Mithila Institute. I doubt that Thakur used the Malayalam manuscripts themselves. From his description of the extent of the manuscripts, it appears that for a large portion of the preserved text at least two manuscripts should be available. The complete lack of variant readings in the edition is therefore odd. My own guess is that the edition is basically nothing else than a transcript of the largest of the Mithila Institute transcripts, and has not been collated against the other two transcripts.
42 Thakur 1965. This article contains the basic information on the manuscript material which one would have looked for in an introduction to the edition.
43 More significant examples could be given, but would require very much more space to set forth and discuss. Let me just mention here, without a detailed demonstration, that the text of the sūtra numbered 2.1.12 in V (corresponding to C's 2.1.13), as well as the commentary thereon, should be emended in the light of BhV. The reading of the sūtra should be adravyatuena nityatvam uktam. Some other cases where BhV confirms a correction made on the basis of the palm-leaf manuscript of V will be given below.
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