Tibetan Citations Of Bhartaharis Verses And Problem Of His Date

Author(s): Hajime Nakamura
Publisher: Hajime Nakamura

Page 9

BHARTRHARI'S VERSES
129
(paramata) in the verses beginning with v. 144. As an instance of the latter, he writes as follows:
yathoktam :::
yathā visuddham ākāśam timiropapluto janaḥ / samkirņam iva mātrābhiś citrābhir abhimanyate // tathedam amstam brahma nirvikāram avidyayā / kaluşatvam ivāpannam bhedarūpam vivartatah //
ji skad du/
ji ltar nam mkhah dag pa la/ rab rib kyis bslad skye bo yin/ rab rib sna tshogs dag dan ni / Idan pa bshin du mnon par rlom // de Itar bdud rtsi hgyur med pahi/ tshans pa hdi ni ma rig pas/ rñog pa bshin du hgyur ba ste / tha dad no bor rnam par hgyur //
shes bśad pa lta buho / 10 (In the Sanskrit original of the foregoing Tibetan version, the final word seems to have been vivartate instead of vivartatah.)
Ganganatha Jha's translation : ...
“ This has been thus declared :: ::
‘Even though Ākāśa (Space) is pure, yet obsessed by darkness, people come to regard it as limited and made up of diversified parts; in the same manner, though Brahman is immortal and unmodifiable, yet It appears to be sullied by Nescience and hence diversely modified'.11
The foregoing verses, moreover, nearly completely correspond to two verses of the Brhadāranyakopani şad-bhāsyal2 by Sureśvara, a disciple of Sankara. (In the latter, amalam occurs instead of amstam, prakāśate instead of vivartataḥ, upal akşayet instead of abhimanyate ; otherwise the passages completely the same. These two verses are also cited by Prabhācandra, the Jain scholar, in a passage of the Prameyakamala-mārtanda where he criticized 13 the doctrine of the sabdabrahmavādins. (In this text, amalam occurs instead of amȚtam, bhedarüpam prapaśyati instead of bhedarūpam vivartataḥ). Once again, the same verse is cited by Abhayadeva, the Jain scholar, in his work Tattvabodhavidhāyini (p. 388), as a doctrine of the sabdabrahmavādins. (amalam instead of amstam, vivar
10 The Der-ge edition, Bstan-hgyur, vol. 293, 187b.
11 The Tattvasangraha of śāntarakṣita with the Commentary of Kamalašila, tr. into English by Ganganatha Jha, vol. I, Baroda 1937, p. 126.
12 Ad III, 5, 43; 44. p. 1246, Anss. 13 p. 12 b, NSP.