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The Story of Merchant Campaka.
Critically edited osoby Johannes Hertel.
Introduction.
I. Weber's edition. Two recensions of the
Campaka śreşthikathānak a.
The f u which is published in the following pages was known to European scholars as early as 1883, when Prof. Albrecht Weber published the text of a single MS. of this little work in the Sitzungsberichte der Kgl. Preuß. Ak. der Wissenschaften, ph..h. Cl., p. 567 ff., with additions p. 885 ff. Besides the Sanskrit text this editor gave an introduction, emendations and explanations, a German translation and supplementary matter supplied to him chiefly by 0. von Böhtlingk, G. Bühler, J. Gildemeister, R. Köhler, E. Kuhn and E. Leumann. Böhtlingk published further corrections of Weber's text and translation in Mélanges Asiatiques. tome IX (1880-1885), pages 75 to 86 ("Tiré du Bulletin, T. XXIX', and dated 27th Sept./9th Oct. 1883).
As Weber's text, being based on a single MS., must needs be faulty in many places, I have thought it worth while to publish this pretty and well told story, which is highly interesting to students of folklore, as well as to Sanskrit scholars of the West and of the East, on a somewhat larger basis and in a way which would make it easily accessible to European and American, as well as to Indian, friends of Sanskrit literature. For the use of folklorists I give below a German translation with some references to Asintic and European off-shoots and parallels.
According to the last sentence of the text as given in Weber's MS., the author of the faith would have been a Suri named fogaita. But, as none of our other MSS. confirm this statement, which in Weber's MS. is given not in an author's prasasti, but in a simple copyist's note, the authorship of Jinakirti is very uncertain. But, even if we assume, that the author's name has been correctly handed down to us in this note, we are not
Zeitschrift der D.M.G. Bd. L.XV.
