Shataka Trayadi Subhashit Sangraha

Author(s): Bhartuhari, Dharmanand Kosambi
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Page 81

INTRODUCTION
qe ofreetal "May this book, painfully written with broken back, loins, and neck, forehead cramped down upon the fist, be guarded with an effort".
III. Analysis And Grouping of The MSS 3.1. The chart. The most noticeable feature of Bhartrhari MSS is their variability, particularly in the order of the slokas as well as the choice of the stanzas included. It is generally possible to divide the MSS into two classes at sight, the amorphous northern and the logically arranged southern recension. Within the recensions, however, the variability is still enormous, making it necessary to have finer grouping. The uses of MSS are two: first, as testimonia for the inclusion and order of stanzas; and this can be served by any MS purporting to be of the complete satakatraya no matter how corrupt, or even by a translation; for the scribes always give generous measure, well over the 300 as a rule. The second purpose is the determination of the precise text of any given stanza, for which even a MS fragment may help if it be reasonably correct. Of course, with increasing evidence, it is possible to make use even of corrupt MSS for determining the readings, if the principles on which the scribe's pen slips can be established; moreover a fragment gives evidence about the omission of a stanza if the possible displacements of a sloka in its version are known. However, the totality of MSS is so large that the problem is to choose a representative sample of convenient size. To this end, therefore, it was decided to base the actual edition ay far as possible upon MSS which could fulfill both functions, being fairly correct copies of all the three gatakas together. In this, we are helped by the discovery that MSS which report stanzas in the game order generally tend to have the same readings for individual stanzas.
The first step in the examination of such a complete śatakatraga MS is to make a synoptic chart of the stanzas, with the pratīkas written down in alphabetical order. Unfortunately, even this apparently simple task is unusually complicated for Bhartshari. In the first place, it is necessary to have a fairly good acquaintance with the stanzas themselves, for there are different beginnings possible for the same stanza---as for example să ramya nagarī = bhrātaḥ kastam aho [169]. Grouping these under different pratākas would obviously give misleading testimony, Secondly, no chart can keep pace with the extra slokas which appear almost with every new MS, and certainly with MSS from every new centre. The method finally adopted was to use a supplementary card index, and to leave plenty of gaps in the chart proper where the pratīka of a now sloka could be noted for the MS in question. There is no possibility of exhausting all such extras, and ignoring them is equally out of the question as they have an annoying habit of turning up in the middle of some other Bhartrhari text. In charting, the sataka and the number of the stanza has to be entered, but this is again complicated because almost every MS makes some slip in the numbering, and many of them make such mistakes regularly. The final procedure was to enter both the actual number, and in brackets the number given in the MS where it differed from the one in my count. Otherwise, one misses valuable parallels and fortutious omissions. The neglect of this precaution makes it impossible to use