kArikA cont.

[Birgit Kellner]

At 11:01 1996-04-28 BST, Dan Lusthaus wrote:
>I've been watching this thread with interest. So far, however, the
>discussion has overlooked other texts titled kArikA -- several texts of
>NAgArjuna pop to mind: mUlamadhyamakakArikA, SUnyatAsaptati-kArikAnAma and
>pratItyasamutpAdahRdaya-kArikA being the best known.

I cannot give any further references to earlier texts with "kaarikaa" in the
title, but a brief glance into my files came up with (at least) the
following later Buddhist texts: 

'Subhagupta's (ca. 720-780 A.D.) Baahyaarthasiddhikaarikaa (on which he also
wrote an auto-commentary), Sarvaj~naasiddhikaarikaa,
'Srutipariik.saakaarikaa, Anyaapohavicaarakaarika, Ii'svarabha.ngakaarikaa; 

'Sa.nkaranandana's Pratibandhasiddhikaarikaa,
Laghupratibandhasiddhikaarikaa, Suuk.smapraamaa.nyakaarikaa,
Madhapraamaa.nyakaarikaa, B.rhatpraamaa.nyakaarikaa, Anyaapohasiddhikaarikaa
(on which he wrote an auto-commentary), Dharmaala.nkaarakaarikaa,
Praj~naala.ngkaarakaarikaa, plus several others, partly with auto-commentaries. 

To add another question on the matter - where does the title of a text
actually come from? Colophones, historical works, otherwise transmitted
lists of works, references in other works? How is this situation with
reference to those texts which were already mentioned in this thread?

It seems to me that this can be quite a tricky question. Yuushoo Miyasaka,
for example, gave his edition of Dharmakiirti's Pramaa.navaarttika the title
"Pramaa.navaarttikakaarikaa". This may be an appropriate title for his
edition, which is an edition of the verses alone (the Tibetan translations
also separate the verses from the first chapter's auto-commentary and call
the work "tshad ma rnam 'grel gyi tshig le'ur byas pa", i.e. -kaarikaa.). 

But as far as I can see at the moment (with limited access to sources), this
title is not attested in any of the Sanskrit editions. The matter is further
complicated by a so-called "auto-commentary" (sva-v.rtti) on the first
chapter (in prose), which is held to have been an independent earlier work
of Dharmakiirti, later incorporated and updated into the whole body of PV.
Be all that as it may (describing the situation any further on this list
would probably equal the infamous transport of coal to Newcastle), it
appears that PV would have been considered to be a "-kaarikaa" by some parts
of the "tradition" (i.e. the Tibetan translators), but not by others (i.e.
the Sanskrit editions). Now, what is an editor to do? 




Birgit Kellner
Department for Indian Philosophy
University of Hiroshima