2023-02-16 14:47:07 by ambuda-bot
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8
EDITOR'S PREFACE
of ślokas they believed to belong to Bhartrhari. That the compiler borrowed
stanzas from the Pancatantra seems to me a fantastic conclusion; for that
matter, Hertel's studies of the Pancatantra itself have a much less secure
foundation of MS study than would be neccessary for such a popular work.
Finally, it is known that the Pañcatantra did not remain unchanged through
the ages so that comparing it with a steadily growing Bhartṛhari text would
need far more detailed chronological data than is available to-day to the most
fortunate scholar,
C
It is not claimed that the present odition overcomes all these obstacles.
Just as the older mathematics domanded as well as supplied an exact prediction
for any physical theory, older text-criticism under happier conditions could
claim to have restored the original text. Problems like ours arise very rarely
in Europe. If Homer is represented only by MSS centuries later than the
time of composition, the number of codices and hence their variation is small,
while we havo careful notes by the Alexandrians. In the case of Virgil,
we know that the author did not live to complete the work according to his own
plan. There is ample historical and archaeological evidence to supplement the
text of Tacitus's manuscript, so that the problem is one of minor emendation.
The Latin Vulgate Bible docs exist in a large number of medieval copies, but
here the work is known to be a translation, with fairly accurate specimens
of the original, and the sole difficulty might be in restoring usages of St.
Jerome's day, for which there is a great deal of external evidence. With
Danto, every detail of the author's life has been studied, and the stanzas
themselves are not in doubt, the major problem being of contemporary Tuscan
orthography for the volgare, which was in any case not crystallized and which
can be studied from innumerable documents that still exist. Stripping off
Berni's addtions from Boiardo's unfinished epic, or showing that Torquato
Tasso's own improvements were on occasion rejected-quite properly-by public
taste, or applying inner criticism to Shakespeare's plays are almost trivial when
compared to the task of determining the text of a loosely strung collection of
verses, with violently conflicting order as well as contents in different versions,
and where nothing is reliably known of the author's life or date. Under
these circumstances, the most I can claim is to have prepared the first critical
edition. This is all that Sukthankar claimed for his own masterly edition of
parts of the great epic, though the formidable bulk of the Mahābhārata makes
it doubtful that even the first critical edition thereof will be finished in a
manner as satisfactory to scholars as to weight lifters; to expect with
Sukthankar a succession of critical editions which would later be forthcoming
appears today rather a poor sarcasm. With Bhartrhari, a succession of critical
editions can certainly be expected provided the editors realize, in the absence
of the accidental discovery of some very ancient text of unquestionable authen-
ticity, the parallel between this sort of an editorial method and modern physics
or statistical theory which obtain quite reliable conclusions from strongly vary-
ing observations, though without the clockwork (and fictitious) certainty of
EDITOR'S PREFACE
of ślokas they believed to belong to Bhartrhari. That the compiler borrowed
stanzas from the Pancatantra seems to me a fantastic conclusion; for that
matter, Hertel's studies of the Pancatantra itself have a much less secure
foundation of MS study than would be neccessary for such a popular work.
Finally, it is known that the Pañcatantra did not remain unchanged through
the ages so that comparing it with a steadily growing Bhartṛhari text would
need far more detailed chronological data than is available to-day to the most
fortunate scholar,
C
It is not claimed that the present odition overcomes all these obstacles.
Just as the older mathematics domanded as well as supplied an exact prediction
for any physical theory, older text-criticism under happier conditions could
claim to have restored the original text. Problems like ours arise very rarely
in Europe. If Homer is represented only by MSS centuries later than the
time of composition, the number of codices and hence their variation is small,
while we havo careful notes by the Alexandrians. In the case of Virgil,
we know that the author did not live to complete the work according to his own
plan. There is ample historical and archaeological evidence to supplement the
text of Tacitus's manuscript, so that the problem is one of minor emendation.
The Latin Vulgate Bible docs exist in a large number of medieval copies, but
here the work is known to be a translation, with fairly accurate specimens
of the original, and the sole difficulty might be in restoring usages of St.
Jerome's day, for which there is a great deal of external evidence. With
Danto, every detail of the author's life has been studied, and the stanzas
themselves are not in doubt, the major problem being of contemporary Tuscan
orthography for the volgare, which was in any case not crystallized and which
can be studied from innumerable documents that still exist. Stripping off
Berni's addtions from Boiardo's unfinished epic, or showing that Torquato
Tasso's own improvements were on occasion rejected-quite properly-by public
taste, or applying inner criticism to Shakespeare's plays are almost trivial when
compared to the task of determining the text of a loosely strung collection of
verses, with violently conflicting order as well as contents in different versions,
and where nothing is reliably known of the author's life or date. Under
these circumstances, the most I can claim is to have prepared the first critical
edition. This is all that Sukthankar claimed for his own masterly edition of
parts of the great epic, though the formidable bulk of the Mahābhārata makes
it doubtful that even the first critical edition thereof will be finished in a
manner as satisfactory to scholars as to weight lifters; to expect with
Sukthankar a succession of critical editions which would later be forthcoming
appears today rather a poor sarcasm. With Bhartrhari, a succession of critical
editions can certainly be expected provided the editors realize, in the absence
of the accidental discovery of some very ancient text of unquestionable authen-
ticity, the parallel between this sort of an editorial method and modern physics
or statistical theory which obtain quite reliable conclusions from strongly vary-
ing observations, though without the clockwork (and fictitious) certainty of