Mahabharata reference

[James L. Fitzgerald]

No, "compassion" is not correct here.  MBh 5.43.8 is a triSTubh
with a coalescence of vowels across the metric boundary of padas
a & b, a not uncommon phenomenon in lists like this one.  Its
text should be read as:

krodhah kaamo lobhamohau vivitsaakRpaasuyaa maanazokau spRhaa ca/
iirSyaa jugupsaa ca manuSyadoSaa varjyaah sadaa dvaadazaite nareNa//8//

The Poona edition always prints each triSTubh pada on a separate
line, but it uses a dash when it wishes to indicate that the end
of one line should be read continuously with the beginning of the
next line.  The editor S. K. De has put the dash here at the pada
boundary after vivitsaa, before krpaasauyaa, and he is obviously
correct to have done so.  I think van Buitenen simply overlooked
it.  NiilakaNTha (at 5.43.16, Citrashala ed.) read it as akRpaa
and glossed it with nirdayatvam; Deussen and Strauss concurred
and rendered it Hartherzigkeit (Vier philosophische Texte des
Mahaabhaaratam, p. 13, #16).  There is no need here to try and
figure out why "kRpaa" would occur in such a list of doSas; it
doesn't.

Jim Fitzgerald, Religious Studies, University of Tennessee


On Thu, 29 Feb 1996 02:42:19 GMT John Grimes said:
>On page 288 of book 5 (5(52)43.7-10 of Van Buitenen's Mahabharata, he lits
>the 12 vices as: anger, desire, greed, delusion, possessiveness,
>compassion, discontentment, pride, grief, lust, jealousy, and abhorence.
>Would anyone be able to tell me whether "compassion" is really one of the
>twelve and if so, what is the sanskrit word it is a translation of? I do
>not have a copy here of the Mahabharata in Sanskrit and thus my request.
>
>I would greatly any information I may receive on this. Thank you.
>John
>
>---
>John Grimes, Dept of Philosophy, NUS
>
>
>