Notes On Manuscript Transmission Of Vaisesika Sutra And Its Earliest Commentaries

Author(s): Harunaga Issacson
Publisher: Harunaga Issacson

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6 6.2.2 is read as follows in the edition: abhiṣecanopavāsabrahmacaryagurukulavasavanaprasthayajñadanaprokṣaṇadinakṣatramantrakalaniyamas cadṛṣṭāya. C and SM have vanaprasthya for vanaprastha°. The palm-leaf manuscript indeed reads as printed by Thakur. In the commentary on this sutra, however, we find the following remark: vanad vanam pratisthata iti vanaprasthaḥ | sa tu tṛtīyāśrami tasya karma vanaprastham (61.10-11). The manuscript has sa tu for na tu, and vanaspatyam for vanaprastham. I suggest that we should read and punctuate vanad vanam pratiṣṭhata iti vanaprasthaḥ | na tu tṛtiyaśrami tasya karma vanaprasthyam. Bhaṭṭa Vādīndra's intention is, I believe, to explain that the neuter noun vanaprasthya is derived from the masculine noun vanaprastha by addition of the taddhita suffix SyaN in the sense of the activity or occupation of a person (karma), in accordance with Pan. 5.1.123. And the masculine noun vanaprastha is to be understood as meaning 'one who goes from forest to forest,' i.e., presumably, a wandering ascetic, and not as someone in the third stage of life (as the word would ordinarily be taken), who would be-as Candrananda says-one who leaves from his house to the forest. Compare Candrānanda's commentary ad loc.: sastravidhinã gehän niḥsṛtyaranyam prasthito vanaprasthaḥ, tasya karma vānaprasthyam (C p. 48 1. 13-14). If I am correct, we should then also emend the sutra to read vanaprasthya° with C and SM. It should be noted though that A and T both have 'vānaprastha".
VI
The previous sections have done little more than present some notes on the manuscript tradition of the VS and the commentaries by Candrananda and Bhaṭṭa Vādīndra. A more thorough treatment would require very much more time and space than is at my disposal just now. Nonetheless I hope that some of the readings discussed above, and the corrections of printed texts proposed on the basis of manuscript readings, may prove of interest to fellow students of the Vaiseṣika. To conclude, I should like to venture onto what is in a sense even trickier ground, and offer a few general remarks on questions of method. My apology for the fact that most of my observations are obvious, not to say banal, can only be that I know from my own experience that such basic points, or their implications, can all too easily be forgotten. I hasten to add also that I am most painfully aware of how far the work presented above, which can at best be described as preparatory,
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