COMMERCIAL EDS. + CRIT. EDS.

[Dominik Wujastyk]

S. Vidyasankar says that printed editions of advaita texts such as 
those put out by the Mathas are as good as critical editions.  How do 
we know?

Well, the whole problem is that we can't know, can we, until we actually
collect manuscripts systematically and globally, and read them.  *Only*
then is someone in a position to make claims about the fidelity of a 
given text.

It would be wonderful indeed if a comparison of the manuscripts of
Sankara's works produced no variant readings of any substance.  Then
the critical edition of the work would be mostly text, and hardly any
apparatus.  But the fact that all the manuscripts had been weighed and
-- where necessary -- read, would indeed make such an apparatus-less
edition critical.  

Going on past experience (I have edited Sanskrit texts from manuscripts), 
the chances of this happening are vanishingly small.  Whenever you 
look at multiple manuscripts  of a Sanskrit work, however venerated and 
however many times it has been printed, you always find substantial 
variations.  That's just the way it is.  Actually, it is a matter of 
enormous interest to think about these variations, and learn from them.

Dominik