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32
S: The Southern and Western Recension
This is shorter than N, and more logically arranged by paddhati divisions that attempt to group together stanzas of similar content. Individual readings are generally much smoother, and fit Papinian granimatical rules.
INTRODUCTION
Archetype 7.
This consists essentially of a single western [ Mahārāṣṭrian] Version W which has as its feature a deficient Vairagya of 86 [properly 85] slokas, though plenty of inflated copies exist which are to be discounted for lack of uniformity, repetitions of previous stanzas and, in general, absence of the commentary [though this is sometime variously written in ]. Even with an N of 110 stanzas, the total is 296. Moreover, there is every reason to suspect the last eight of N as later additions, for the final karmapaddhati ends at bhimam vanam N 102; the rest belong to no paddhati at all, and are almost always labelled "pratyantare slokāḥ", stanzas from another version. The last two of S may also be added later. The original version must, therefore, have been one of the shortest, hence oldest, preserved. Though it is valuable for testimonial-purposes as the sloka number and order aro well-determined, the actual readings are almost useless, for most copies are corrupt or heavily emended. The commentary is so sketchy that when it exists at all it is difficult to distinguish a divergent commentary reading from gloss in important cases; the most plausible interpretation of this divergence is that the original readings agreed better with N, but the text having been modified by more elegant versions of S, these readings now survive only in the commentary.
The commentary itself is anonymous in the several dozen W MSS I have been albe to examine personally, though it has been ascribed to Maheśvara on the colophon found in a single fresh Bengali copy of the Niti, as described bp Rajendralal Mitra, Notices IX. 2837. I suggest that this is incorrect, possibly by confusion with our Y1 commentator. In the first place, the center of the distribution is unquestionably Maharaṣṭrian, most of the numerous Bhartṛhari MSS found in Mahārāṣṭra belonging to this version. Further, wherever we can trace the provenance of W MSS from other parts of the country, they show Maharaṣṭrian associations as for example the Benares collection, made by Maharaṣṭrian pundits, as also the Ujjain and SVP lot; Baroda 787 was, according to its colophon, copied at Devagadh-Baria in Gujarat for one Narayana Kaceśvara Ekabote; another at Chindwara in C. P. comes from the collection of Prabhakar Sastri Roḍe. Incidentally, PU 516, whose commentary Poleman misinterprets as being by Bhartṛhari himself, is merely the ordinary W Śṛngara. Finally, even the mistakes are characteristically from Marathi, as 177 sa tu bhavatu daridrī, and 325 vistirne sarvasve, which occur even in our Telugu W4 and Śrigeri 9/15, which is a devanagari paper MS copied by some Gujarati scribe. ISM Kalamkar195, Punjab 2885, and RASB 9510 are misch-codices, preponderantly
W.
All the MSS collated have both text and commentary, being:
W1- Anandasrama 6384; size 10-1/2" x 5"; fol. 63, numbered separately
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