Notes On Manuscript Transmission Of Vaisesika Sutra And Its Earliest Commentaries

Author(s): Harunaga Issacson
Publisher: Harunaga Issacson

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hārasya dvitvāvacchinnapşthaktvād evopapatter iti kecit. Since we are here speaking of vyavahara, the reading dvau prthag is clearly to be preferred. And in fact this is exactly what the palm-leaf manuscript (see below) of V reads, so that the reading dvipsthag in this case probably originated as an error in the Devanāgarī transcript which was Thakur's sole source for V. .
Thakur's judgement of the relationship between these two texts is therefore most probably to be accepted. Though we should certainly remain aware of some problems and difficulties, his characterization of V as an abridgement of BhV,44 retaining especially the portions of direct relevance to the interpretation of the sūtras and omitting many lengthy discussions and digressions, is clearly more accurate and helpful than the mere statement that both works are indebted to Udayana and use similar versions of the Sūtra text.145
"It might be objected that Bh V could equally well be an expanded version of V. This possibility cannot perhaps be completely ruled out, but the probabilities are weighted very heavily against this in my opinion. It seems unlikely that Bhatta Vadīndra should omit to compose one or more opening verses for a commentary on the VS, even a brief one. Nor does it seem plausible to me that he should have made the commentary of another author the basis for his own fuller one, following it so faithfully as to hardly omit a word in it, and yet fail to acknowledge the fact. Bhatta Vādīndra is I think too much an original scholar and indeed idiosyncratic thinker for that. In addition, I suspect that there is internal evidence which points to V indeed being an abridgement made on the basis of BhV. I must however postpone discussing this point, which is obviously complicated by the fact that both texts are only available to us in mutilated and sometimes corrupted forms. Another question which is more difficult to settle is whether Bhatta Vadīndra is himself responsible for abridging Bh V into V or whether this is the work of another hand. And in the latter case, is the abridgement none the less roughly contemporaneous with the composition of BhV-is it for instance an extract made by a student of Bhatta Vadīndra for his own use or is it a much) later recast? This question is of importance for our evaluation of the occasional sentences in V which do not seem to have a counterpart in BhV. Once more, I can not present evidence in full-an attempt to settle the matter would require very close study of the two texts together with the other extant works of Bhatta Vādīndra, and would in effect almost have to be preceded by re-editing both versions-but I personally feel that it is quite unlikely that the abridgement is authorial.
45 Halbfass 1992, 84 n.25. Also in the other passages of this important book where Halbfass refers to Bhatta Vādīndra's commentary, it appears that he regards BhV and V as completely different texts. Thus on p. 75, he speaks of 'several apparently older commentaries; that is Candrananda's Vịtti, Bhattavādindra's Värttika, and the anonymous commentary edited by Anantalal Thakur,' and on p. 79 he calls V 'an anonymous Vyakhya, which may be several centuries older than the Upaskāra.' Nowhere does Halbfass give his reasons, if there are any, for differing from Thakur's judgement. I do not however wish to imply that there are no discrepancies at all between the two commentaries. But I suspect that most of the cases where they seem to differ in substance (as opposed to mere variation, usually slight, in wording) are to be explained as resulting
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