Vakrokti Jivita Of Kuntaka

Author(s): K Krishnamoorthy
Publisher: K Krishnamoorthy

Page 2

In 1923, 1928, and 1961, Sushil Kumar De published the text of Kuntaka's
remarkable and rare work, the Vakrokti-jivita (VJ).
Since for the last two
chapters (unmeşa) of that work only one corrupt and fragmentary ms, was acces
sible to De in the form of a transcript, De did not include those chapters in
his 1923 edition and included only relatively better preserved portions of those
chapters in his 1928 and 1961 editions. This was one serious deficiency in his
otherwise valuable accomplishment. Another significant short coming was that De
had to depend on transcripts - one of the transcript at Madras of a Malabar ms.
that could not be traced and the other of a ms. in one of the Jain bhandaras at Jaisalmer (also spelt "Jesalmer," and "Jes almere").
Now, some time between 1974 and 1977, a scholar of a later generation like
K comes to know that there are at Jaisalmer some previously unknown ms. leaves which cover most of that portion of the VJ for which De had only one transcript. K happens to be deeply interested in the VJ. He wishes to prepare a 'critical'
edition of it. What would we expect him to do? I suppose minimally the following:
1
Acquire photocopies of the newly discovered leaves.
Acquire photocopies of the previously known VJ ms. at Jaisalmer and
of the (first direct) Madras transcript of the Malabar ms., if not of
the Malabar ms. itself because of lack of information about its where
abouts.
Establish a relationship between the previously known and newly
discovered ms. material at Jaisalmer.
Establish a relationship between the Jaisalmer mss. and the Madras
transcript of the Malabar manuscript.
5.
Arrive at a text of the VJ according to the objective criteria of
textual criticism.