Bhaagavata-puraa.na commentary MS

[Vielle Christophe]

In looking at the very interesting J. Brockington's A Descriptive Catalogue
of the Sanskrit and other Indian Manuscripts of the Chandra Shum Shere
Collection in the Bodleian Library, vol. 2: Epics and PurANas, Oxford,
1999, p. 147-9 (n° 370-81), a rich collection which is representative of
the content of a single library from a pandit in Benares at thye beginning
of the 20th century, it appears that there were there several manuscripts
with the BhAgavata-PañcAdhyAyI as an autonomous piece, with or without
commentaries. Among the commentaries, KAzInAtha's ToSaNIsArasaMgraha and
DhanapatisUri's GUDhArthadIpikA appear several times. The catalogues of
SSUL and Benares Hindu University should be also checked.
Regards

>Respected members of Indology,
>
>We are trying to identify a MS in a collection here in Denmark.
>The MS is incomplete, many of the folios are damaged and the
>numbering of the folios is not altogether clear.  The abbreviated title
>given is: "bhaa pa.m".  We have concluded that the text is a
>commentary on (a part of?) the Bhaagavata-puraa.na.  However,
>none of the commentaries on the BhP mentioned by Ludo Rocher
>in his book about the Puraa.nas match the abbreviated title given
>by the scribe.  The available folios all contain explanatory text and
>glosses for stanzas in the following chapters of the BhP's tenth
>book: 31, 32, and 33.  (The MS does not cite the stanzas, only
>explain them and provide a gloss.)  These chapters all belong to
>the Raasa-pa~ncaadhyaayii section of the BhP, and we are
>suspecting that the text is a commentary on the Raasa-section
>only and that the abbreviated title could mean something like
>"bhaagavata pa~ncaadhyaayii".
>
>We have compared the MS with the BhP commentaries of
>Sridharasvamin, Sanaatana, Jiiva, Vi;svanaatha Cakravartin, and
>Naaraaya.na Bha.t.ta, but have found no match.
>
>I am hoping that someone will be able to help us identify the text.
>Below I have included a small section taken from the MS, which
>will hopefully be enough to identify it (if not I can provide more
>excerpts).
>
>Thank you very much.
>
>Sincerely,
>Toke Lindegaard Knudsen
>
>---
>
>The MS's commentary on BhP 10.32.1 begins:
>
>(I am typing directly from the manuscript; I have put hard-to-read
>characters in brackets.)
>
>eva.m (sva)sya(sva)syagu.naruupamanosaarikiirtanaana.mtara.m
>ki.m cakrur iti jij~naasu.m dar;sanaadaane
>ki.mci(d)bhagavatikaa(.t)inyamaaropyamaa.na.mraajaata(.m)pratikv
>aci(du.m)da.mtpra(cm)utamaci.mtayet ... (I am leaving out a small
>section here) ... itiiti bho raajan / gopya.h
>sukhara.m rurudu.h samyak ...
>
>The commentary on 10.33.1 includes the following:
>
>raasotsava iti / daasotsava.h taasaa.m madhye k.r.s.nena
>saprav.rt(or: tt ?)a.h // ;sriiraadhaak.r.s.nayor utsava.h /
>
>(So, Raadhaa is mentioned in the text and that may give a clue in
>identifying it.)


Dr. Christophe Vielle
Centre d'Etudes de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud
Institut orientaliste
Place Blaise Pascal 1
B - 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
BELGIUM
Tel. +32-(0)10-47 49 54 (office)/ -(0)2-640 62 66 (home)
E-mail: vielle at ori.ucl.ac.be