COMMERCIAL EDS. + CRIT. EDS.

[Dominik Wujastyk]

Mani Varadarajan says:

> Another important point made by Mr. Vidyasankar, implicit
> though it may have been, is that the subcommentatorial tradition
> in Advaita Vedanta has in all probability preserved the words
> of Sankaracarya as best as anyone could have.  We are speaking
> here of philosophical treatises such as his Brahma-sutra
> and Upanishad bhashyas, of course, and not his stotras and
> other possibly apocryphal compositions.
> 
> Since nearly each word of the bhashyas was elucidated in
> great detail by commentators such as Anandagiri and others
> within a couple of centuries of Sankara's passing, I would
> wager that any variations in the text of the Acharya's major
> works would be philosophically unimportant. The critical
> edition would shed no new light on Sankara as a thinker or
> as a writer.

I wonder how much you would be prepared to wager?  I sense the 
chance to make a small profit here.  :-)

Two hundred years, Mani, is roughly the lifetime of a manuscript in
Indian conditions.  Most manuscripts were probably recopied every century 
or so, which means that after two hundred years you would be looking at
the third generation of manuscripts of Sankara's works.  Perhaps.  
All scribes make mistakes.  All authors create various versions of their
works, although not all versions necessarily get into circulation.

Again, there is little point in guessing about these matters.  Sit down
with some manuscripts of the commentaries, read for a while, and then
decide.  My experience with reading commentaries of important classical
works is that the *scribes themselves* are well aware that they 
are in receipt of a textual tradition which contains variations.  
Cakrapanidatta, who commented extensively on the classical medical texts,
himself records variant readings as well as variant interpretations.

> The task of putting together such a critical 
> edition would probably serve no use other than as an academic 
> exercise.

Phew!  That's all right then.  I am an academic, and spend my life in
academic exercise, and I can think of few things more profitable for 
academic progress than critically editing a text.  :-)

Dominik