________________
-15
the text bristles with problematic passages, it runs as if there are no problems.
There is no indication of uncertainty, no attempt to alert the reader, and no explanatory notes for some of the world's subtlest thoughts. Of course, even in
such a translation something useful is always to be found, for it is quite likely
that what 'stumps' a reader like me has lent its secrets to K. However, the
situation cannot certainly be described as ideal. Consider, for example, the
following sample (pp. 214, 504): tad-visesanatvad eva samase 'smin nilotpala
-sabdasya pūrva-nipatah saptamī-visesane bahu-vrīhāv 1ti. "In a compound word like
dark lily', the adjectival quality is required to come first because it is
adjectival only. Or the adjective will relate itself to the possessor in the
locative case if it should be a possessive compound."
There is no recognition
in the translation of the fact that saptami-vises ane bahu-vrihau is quoted from
Panini (2.2.35), or that there is nothing corresponding to "Or" in the original.
K clearly does not distinguish between sabda and quality, or visesana 'qualifier, adjective' and the quality or property which a visesana signifies. I suppose, if one were to translate texts in this manner, one could translate a number of them
in one life-time.
This review has been largely negative. The intention behind it was not to
magnify K's failures, but to ensure that his work does not lull the specialists
of Sanskrit poetics into a feeling of complacency. Kuntaka's insightful and
delightful work needs to be edited and translated again. What K has achieved is
not sufficient.
I hope I have not been unfair in recording the real refinement
he has brought to Kuntaka studies.
I would like to conclude this review with a positive contribution. Since K
does not provide a comprehensive account of the material known to be available for
editing the VJ, it would be useful to gather in one place the information I have
been able to cull about VJ manuscripts, traze cripts and editions.
It may save a
future editor some hours of work.
