2023-02-16 14:47:06 by ambuda-bot
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2
EDITOR'S PREEACH
the detachment of Anatole France's Johannes Talpa (Ile des Pingouins
III-iv), a new distraction presented itself in the sudden eruption of India's
long-repressed struggle for the transfer of power from the British to the
Indian bourgeoisie.. Months passed in unorthodox activities such as aid to
the wounded; helping an occasional "underground" worker no matter how
silly his plans and how meagre my dwindling resources; trying to persuade
some groups of students that wrecking the college, where I then lectured on
sufferance while they were supposed to be receiving an education, would
be ineffective as a method of forcing the British to quit India.
Sukthankar's unexpected death on January 21, 1943 destroyed one of
the major premises upon which my work was to be based, namely the
availability of his profound experience and brilliant guidance. In the
event, the other two assumptions which he had made also turned out to
be unjustified. Instead of being a good way of learning classical Sanskrit,
it is actually necessary to forget Paninian rules in order to edit Bhartrhari
properly. Finally, the chronic ill health and financial ruin which I
had to face for three long years force the rueful admission that a critical
edition of this particular text cannot be recommended as a pastime for
the indigent amateur, especially in a period of war shortages and inflation.
The editorial work was not actually taken in hand till July 1943.
Sukthankar often called his Mahabharata text "fluid" without
defining the adjective more closely: if that be admitted, then mine can
only be qualified as nebulous, so great is the difficulty of pinning down the
Bhartrhari tradition from the enormously variable MS evidence. After
being trained to the rigid logical discipline of a science that specializes
in exactitude of statement and numerical accuracy, I find it peculiarly
vexing that a precise answer cannot be given even to the simplest of
questions about our present text. For example, how many MSS have
I studied? My count is 377, whether in original, photostat, microfilm,
direct copy, or in some cases a pratīka index. But some were mere
fragments, down to a single folio - nevertheless of great importance as for
example ISM Gore 144. Some, like BU 41/4 and Mysore 223, contain many
Bhartrhari stanzas, but are certainly not Bhartyhari MSS, being mislabelled
collections. Occasionally, as in my W2 or VSP, three separately tied and
numbered pieces are clearly by the same hand and portions of one MS,
whereas BORI 331 shows two entirely different MSS belonging to different
versions and scribes catalogued as one. Thus, my total of 377 gives an
exaggerated notion of precision. Similarly for the total number of stanzas,
where we have all possible degrees of variation from the trifling seribo's
error to a complete paraphrase, so that stanzas like bhoge rogabhayam rob
an exact count of meaning.
Apart from this lack of a sharp focus, there are other difficulties
peculiar to Bhartrhari. There is no guiding thread of a narrative as in the
Mahabharata, or the frame story of the Pañcatantra. Though the
southern recension does make a feeble attempt at logical grouping of verses
EDITOR'S PREEACH
the detachment of Anatole France's Johannes Talpa (Ile des Pingouins
III-iv), a new distraction presented itself in the sudden eruption of India's
long-repressed struggle for the transfer of power from the British to the
Indian bourgeoisie.. Months passed in unorthodox activities such as aid to
the wounded; helping an occasional "underground" worker no matter how
silly his plans and how meagre my dwindling resources; trying to persuade
some groups of students that wrecking the college, where I then lectured on
sufferance while they were supposed to be receiving an education, would
be ineffective as a method of forcing the British to quit India.
Sukthankar's unexpected death on January 21, 1943 destroyed one of
the major premises upon which my work was to be based, namely the
availability of his profound experience and brilliant guidance. In the
event, the other two assumptions which he had made also turned out to
be unjustified. Instead of being a good way of learning classical Sanskrit,
it is actually necessary to forget Paninian rules in order to edit Bhartrhari
properly. Finally, the chronic ill health and financial ruin which I
had to face for three long years force the rueful admission that a critical
edition of this particular text cannot be recommended as a pastime for
the indigent amateur, especially in a period of war shortages and inflation.
The editorial work was not actually taken in hand till July 1943.
Sukthankar often called his Mahabharata text "fluid" without
defining the adjective more closely: if that be admitted, then mine can
only be qualified as nebulous, so great is the difficulty of pinning down the
Bhartrhari tradition from the enormously variable MS evidence. After
being trained to the rigid logical discipline of a science that specializes
in exactitude of statement and numerical accuracy, I find it peculiarly
vexing that a precise answer cannot be given even to the simplest of
questions about our present text. For example, how many MSS have
I studied? My count is 377, whether in original, photostat, microfilm,
direct copy, or in some cases a pratīka index. But some were mere
fragments, down to a single folio - nevertheless of great importance as for
example ISM Gore 144. Some, like BU 41/4 and Mysore 223, contain many
Bhartrhari stanzas, but are certainly not Bhartyhari MSS, being mislabelled
collections. Occasionally, as in my W2 or VSP, three separately tied and
numbered pieces are clearly by the same hand and portions of one MS,
whereas BORI 331 shows two entirely different MSS belonging to different
versions and scribes catalogued as one. Thus, my total of 377 gives an
exaggerated notion of precision. Similarly for the total number of stanzas,
where we have all possible degrees of variation from the trifling seribo's
error to a complete paraphrase, so that stanzas like bhoge rogabhayam rob
an exact count of meaning.
Apart from this lack of a sharp focus, there are other difficulties
peculiar to Bhartrhari. There is no guiding thread of a narrative as in the
Mahabharata, or the frame story of the Pañcatantra. Though the
southern recension does make a feeble attempt at logical grouping of verses