Story Of Merchant Champaka

Author(s): Johannes Hertel
Publisher: Johannes Hertel

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Introduction.
For the convenience of quoting my text I give the numbers of its tales in Roman figures in the margin. These figures are included between brackets after an emboxed story, where the main story continues. For the same reason I have divided the body of the text into 90 sections (S), the numbers of which are similarly given in the margin, but in Arabic figures.
My critical notes contain not only the complete variants of my MSS., but also a great part of their blunders. No serious mistake has been omitted in the varia lectio. For these blunders, the mention of which might seem to uncritical readers at first sight superfluous, are of the highest value to the scholar, inasmuch as they give him the key to the relations which exist between the different MSS., and as they often afford the very basis for critical work). A later editor who perhaps will have more and better MSS. than I, will be enabled, by studying and comparing with the readings of his materials the blunders recorded in my notes, to insert his own MSS. in their right place in the pedigree given above, and in case his MSS. show no relation whatsoever to , to give a text which comes nearer to the MS. written by the author himself than my present edition. It would, however, have been impossible to note down all the blunders of my MSS., especially those of the very faulty copies B and C. Clerical errors as प्राहः, अथ:, °सक्त्या for •शक्त्या, सुतस्स for सुतस्य (a Prakritism of the copyist's), लगने for लमे, स्वयं for स्त्रियं प्रतिहं for प्रत्यहं, द्वयो ऽपि for द्वयोरपि and the like I have neglected in my notes, wherever they occur in one single MS. and in cases where they cannot give rise to any new reading. In § 54 I therefore give from B the clerical error the right reading
1) In this respect I may mention the fact, that it was before all by obvious blunders which had passed from MS. to MS. and from recension to recension that it was possible to clear up the history of the Sanskrit Pañcatantra. A learned scholar like Gopal Raghunatha Nandargikar in his edition of Kalidasa's Raghuvamsa (Bombay 1891) p. 5 says: 'On the other hand, some European Sanskritists, particularly those who are not perfect masters of their subject and are nevertheless conscientious, follow a different rule [viz. different from that laid down by Max Mueller]: they jot down all the blunders they meet with, not excepting printers' mistakes, as varietas lectionis. In very ancient, and in archaic, unintelligible works, such as the Vedas and Chanda's poems [!], this is ordinarily a safe rule to follow, but, strictly enforced, it results in a Chinese tailor's work, copying patch and all. It cannot lay claim to the credit of intelligent critical editing.' To these word. I beg to object, that the texts of the Vedas are known to be handed down with considerably greater accuracy than mediaeval texts, especially mediaeval prose texts. For the Veda was believed to be a divine literature, whereas in profane works most copyists permitted themselves slight or even serious alterations. Very often a blunder leads to the original reading, whereas correct readings are often the result of conjectural restoration of a faulty passage. For conjectural criticism was practiced by the mediaeval pandits as well as by European editors.