Notes On Manuscript Transmission Of Vaisesika Sutra And Its Earliest Commentaries

Author(s): Harunaga Issacson
Publisher: Harunaga Issacson

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matters any simpler. Bhaṭṭa Vādīndra's style is often intricate, 50 and his thought, influenced by Udayana, sophisticated. His explanations of sūtras are often surprising, not to say unnatural. Still, with care, it should be possible to arrive at superior readings in a great many cases. Here I shall confine myself to giving a few examples which are relatively clear and should not require too much discussion.51 More extensive lists of corrections and emendations are intended to be published elsewhere.
First a few cases where text has inadvertently dropped out in the printed edition. The reading of the edition is given first. References are to the page number and line of Thakur's 1957 edition (rather than to the reprint in the appendix of his edition of BhV). The portions between square brackets in the quotes from the edition are Thakur's proposals for filling up real or conjectured lacunae.
1 In the commentary on VS 1.1.3 (tadvacanad ämnāyasya prāmāṇyam), āmnāyasya is explained by Bhaṭṭa Vādīndra by adding śrutismṛtitihāsādeḥ (2.17). Thus the edition; the manuscript has śrutismṛtītihāsapurāṇādeḥ, the same reading as is found in BhV (p. 13 line 2).
2 In the long (even in the abridged version!) and intricate commentary on the sutra kriyavad guṇavat samaväyikāraṇam iti dravyalakṣaṇam (C's 1.1.14, numbered 1.1.15 in the edition of V and 1.1.14 in the edition of BhV52) we find a sentence which reads as follows. näpi vṛddhavyavahärad eva dravyasabdavacyatvasiddhe[r anumanasya vaiyarthyam, ekasādhanenänyasādhanasya, anyatha anumanena dravyasabdavacyatvaprasiddhe]r vṛddhavyavaharavaiyarthyasya durváratvā! (8.7-9). Thakur deserves full credit here for realizing that the text available to him was corrupt and for correctly diagnosing the location and cause of the corruption: loss of text due to homoeoteleuton. The manuscript reads napi vṛddhavyavaharad eva dravyaśabdavacyatvasiddher vyatirekiyaivayyartthyam (read vyatirekivaiyarthyam) tasyänupajfvyatva; anyatha vyatirekeņaiva dravyasabdavācyatvasiddher
50 Though at least the abridged version makes for easier reading than the long one. 51 For keeping discussion of the often considerable problems at a minimum here I must plead shortage of time and, above all, space.
52 Here there is a discrepancy between V and BhV that cannot be easily accounted for. But na tu karyābhāvāt kāraṇābhavaḥ which is numbered in V as 1.1.14 is no doubt not to be taken as a sutra which is meant to go here. It is a quote of 1.2.2. Perhaps text has been lost in BhV which contained this quote and the following passage in V which seems to have no equivalent.
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