Notes On Manuscript Transmission Of Vaisesika Sutra And Its Earliest Commentaries

Author(s): Harunaga Issacson
Publisher: Harunaga Issacson

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a number of our sources for early Vaiseșika are preserved in single, unique manuscripts.
My plea is therefore in the first place that we should not forget how our knowledge ultimately rests on highly perishable documents, most of which have yet to be studied thoroughly. This is something which some who work exclusively with printed texts may occasionally lose sight of. This does not mean that I advocate all of us immediately leaving our desks to go in search of manuscripts, although I do think that such work should be kept up by a few at least. But we should remember not to accord the editions we have more authority than they deserve. Chance has played too great a rôle in determining which texts are now available to us as printed books, and in what form-the chance of one work surviving while another was lost; the chance of one being transmitted faithfully while another is corrupted by poor scribes or changed deliberately to suit the needs or taste of a later period; the chance of one being discovered while another molders in an unsearched stack of manuscripts; the chance of one finding a competent and sensitive editor while another suffers from the rough hands of an impatient scholar, all too quick to emend what he does not understand.97 With this in our minds, we would do well to be humble about the reconstructions we may arrive at of the thought of writers separated from us by so many centuries and the work of so many scribes.
57 A conservative editor, slow to admit that the text of his manuscripts is corrupt and loath to emend it, is likely to do less damage.
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