Notes On Manuscript Transmission Of Vaisesika Sutra And Its Earliest Commentaries

Author(s): Harunaga Issacson
Publisher: Harunaga Issacson

Page 22

most of the leaves are damaged, usually resulting in the loss of a few akşaras, but in some case rather more than that. Only in a few places does it appear that syllables which were in Thakur's transcript, and hence presumably legible in the palm-leaf manuscript when the transcript was made, have now been lost, due to further crumbling of the margins. Several folios have been considerably darkened, most probably due to the effects of smoke, but this has not led to text becoming illegible. The hand is early Malayalam, perhaps of the seventeenth century. 48 In addition to the commentary we are concerned with, it contains the Nyāyadīpāvals and a commentary thereon. Bhatta Vādīndra's commentary covers folios 110-147. At the end, some stray folios occur containing part of the end of Śaktibhadra's well-known play, the Āścāryacūdāmaņi.
As was to be expected, a comparison of the palm-leaf manuscript with the printed text brought to light a substantial number of cases where corrections are possible. The transcript undoubtedly contained a number of misreadings, and also has on occasion omitted passages, usually due to homoeoteleuton or homoeoarcton. Furthermore, where the original was damaged, the transcript probably did not indicate the number of syllables which may have been lost, so that some of Thakur's conjectures are less plausible simply in view of the space they would have taken up. Given that Thakur was unable to make use of the original manuscript itself, this sort of problem was of course well-nigh inevitable. One helpful feature of the palm-leaf manuscript is that the sūtras are usually set off from the commentary by the addition of tiny dots at their beginnings and ends. These are the only punctuation marks found in the manuscript. Thakur's statement that 'the manuscript does not distinguish the sūtras from the commentary49 thus applies only to the transcript, and demonstrates the fact that he never saw the original manuscript.
But even with the palm-leaf original at our disposal, to establish a satisfactory text is a formidable task-in several cases an impossible one. The manuscript contains a rather large number of scribal errors, and numerous passages are viciously corrupt. Larger lacunae can certainly never be restored with anything approaching certainty, unless another manuscript should come to light. The character and style of the text also does not make
Such would be my guess, and in this I find myself in agreement with Sharma's estimate of the age of the manuscript as some three hundred years (cf. Sharma 1951, 226).
"From the English introduction, p. 9. The sentence has no parallel in the Sanskrit bhumikā.