________________
Some Sanskrit fragments
97
and Vrtti, the foundation-stone of the whole tradition, and the only commentary on it known, Jinendrabuddhi's Viśālāmalavati, to mention but a few works of major importance. Besides this host of works, transmitted in their Tibetan translation only, we find a great number of Sanskrit fragments, partly in Buddhist works, partly in Nyāya and Vaiśesika works and above all in works of the epistemological and logical tradition of the Jainas. And in the same way as the Tibetan translations can be used to improve upon the condition of the Sanskrit texts, these Sanskrit fragments can be used to enhance the source-value of the Tibetan translations.
In this respect there are some good and obvious reasons for collecting the Sanskrit fragments of works extant in their Tibetan translation only : In general, they may or may not confirm the quality of the translations and their value as reliable sources. And in particular, their dignity as original phrases and statements is unsurpassable even by the usually very neat and scrupulous Tibetan translations of the cpistemological literature. For, due to the schematic and conceptorientated simplified wording, these translations are paradoxically quite often ambiguous, lacking the conceptual colours of the corresponding Sanskrit expression in the originals. And finally, depending on the amount of material that can be collected it is possible to regain some texts and textpieces in their original. Here even fragmentary recovery would be particularly useful, for the fragments such text-pieces would consist of, have been transmitted as quotations in other works, and by having been quoted at all these texts prove to be valuable as carrying an interesting contribution of their author to a philological or systematical issue. And as such they are textual marks for our research into the development of the school. '
Re-translations into Sanskrit, often mistakenly and misleadingly published under the style of "reconstruction", are no substitute for the original or fragments of the originals. The
