Again Kunalavadana

[Michael Hahn]

I am very grateful for the remarks of Roland Steiner and Harunage
Isaacson about my proposed emendations mara.nam aa"su for mara.na.m
maatu and k.rpa.nena instead of the second dhikk.rtena and the qualms I
had with sajjana-jana and svargasya dharmalopo.
        As for sajjana-jana I am now fully convinced that this is the
original wording and also the Tibetan translation needs no alteration;
cf.  Roland's explanation. After I had mailed my remarks it occurred to
me that the second jana could also be taken as a plural marker, as in
strii-jana. I had some difficulties in taking sajjana- as an adjective,
perhaps because I was spoiled by reading too many sajjana- and
durjana-paddhatis in the various Subhaa.sitasa.mgrahas. This prevented
me from checking the dictionaries. However, both Apte and Boehtlingk
define durjana- and sajjana- also as adjectives (Boehtlingk expressly
says of durjana that it is an adjective when followed by jana) and I
should have checked that before casting doubts on the compound.
        As for svargasya dharmalopo I still have my qualms, even after
Harunaga's remarks.  I myself considered a different interpretation of
the expression: " a loss of the entity (dharma) "heaven." This would
justify the genitive, and perhaps this is what Harunaga had in mind. And
similarly it was interpreted by John Strong, "The Legend of the King
Asoka,", p.  271:

"Mother," Kunala replied,

I would rather die,
abiding by the Dharma and remaining pure,
than lead a life open to reproach by good people.
Such a life would be condemned by the wise
and violate the Dharma which leads to heaven,
and bring about my death.

Maybe this is again the original text although the Tibetan translators
and Johannes Hertel (see below) felt a dvandva relationship between
svarga and dharma (and my interpretation would require a different
interpretation of dharma in the first and the second stanza which is
rather unlikely).

The stanzas were also translated into Chinese in the A-yu-wang-zhuan,
see Przyluski, "La légende de l'empereur Acoka," p. 283:

"J'aime mieux mourir en gardent la Loi dans sa pureté que vivre en proie
aux désirs charnels. Celui qui ruine la Voie des hommes et des deva est
blâmé par les sages."

Again this points to a dvandva interpretation!

In his "Critical Remarks on the Text of the Divyavadana" (WZKM XVI, 1902,
pp. 103-130 and 340-361) J. S. Speyer writes on p. 350:

"P. 407, 20 foll. the aaryaa which commences with mama bhavatu is defect
in two places, maatu being adverse to the metre and sajjanajana to the
obvious meaining of the sentence. [So at least I was in good company! MH]
Both inconveniences would be removed, if the stanza be read as follows:

mama bhavati mara.nam amba sthitasya dharme vi"suddhabhaavasya 
na tu jiivitena kaarya.m sajjanagiirdhikk.rtena mama ||

The former of these corrections supposes the fact that amba has been
ousted by its synonym. As to the latter gii(r) may have dropped by an
oversight of some copyist, in the place of which, to fill up the
metrical gap, some other copyist writing a line deficient of two morae
repeated the syllables jana. At all events, something like sajjanagiir-
is the term required by the context, cp. dhigvaada in Jaatakamaalaa, see
Pet. Woerterb. in kuerz. Fassung vii, 351."

Ingenuous (the metrical defects were clearly seen), however too bold in
hindsight. Speyer did not take offence at svargasya dharmalopo and he
overlooked the metrical defect at the end of the following aaryaa stanza.

Hertel, who translated the major part of the Kunaalaavadaana in "Anhang I" of
his book "Ausgewaehlte Erzaehlungen aus Hemacandras Pari"si.s.tparvan",
Leipzig 1908, pp. 250-265, adopted Speyer's emendations:

"Moege mir der Tod werden, Mutter, wenn ich nur 
        mit reinem Herzen auf dem Boden des Gesetzes stehe;
Das Leben hat fuer mich keinen Wert, wenn es durch
        die Rede guter Menschen getadelt wird.
Was soll das Leben, welches mir den Himmel (und)
        das Gesetz raubt?
Welches mich in den Tod fuehrt, von Weisen ver-
        achtet wird und geschmaeht wird?"

The parentheses around "und" seem to indicate that Hertel felt somehow
uneasy with his dvandva interpretation.
        Jonathan Silk kindly sent me the Kensuke Okamoto's Japanese
translation of the two stanzas in question published in the journal of
the Ryukoku University  (Indogaku Chibettogaku kenkyuu 4, 1999, pp.
78-102).  It is a literal rendering of the Tibetan translation, without
any reference to the Sanskrit text or textcritical notes. Again: a
critical edition and comparative study of this relatively short text is
overdue.

Resumée: The two corrections of the Sanskrit text proposed by me were
accepted, my qualms about sajjanajana are completely removed, and
svargasya dharmalopo can also be kept for the time being although
several interpreters belonging to naanaadikkaala (except John Strong)
understood svarga and dharma as dvandva.

I understand that Prof. Satashi Hiraoka from Kyoto plans to publish his
Japanese translation of the Divyaavaadana in the near future. For people
like him these remarks might be useful.

Michael Hahn

---
Prof. Dr. Michael Hahn
Ritterstr. 14
D-35287 Amoeneburg
Tel. +49-6422-938963
Fax: +49-6422-938967
E-mail: hahn.m at t-online.de