Two stanzas in the Kunalavadana

Sat Oct 11 18:42:02 UTC 2003

I agree with Michael's brilliant comments in all major points; especially his conjecture mara.nam
aa"su (instead of mara.na.m maatu) on the basis of the Tibetan translation (myur du = aa"su), which
has not been at my disposal, is simply cogent.

Please allow me just one provisional minor remark:

sajjanajanadhikk.rtena can be understood as "despised by virtuous (sajjana = Tib. dam pas) persons
(jana = Tib. skye bo)"; cf. stanza 13 of the Prakrit anthology Chapa.n.nayagaahaao (ed. by Nalini
Balbir and Mildrède Besnard in Bulletin d'Études Indiennes 11-12, 1993.94), where the Prakrit
compound sajja.naja.na is used in exactly the same sense. The whole Tibetan expression bdag smad
gyur pa'i seems to render -dhikk.rtena, in which case bdag does not mean "I myself" but rather
"substance, essence" (cf. bdag nyid); cf., also, Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo, Vol. 2, s.v. bdag
dman pa.

What remains is the more serious problem svargasya dharmalopo.

With kind regards,
Roland Steiner