textual sequence

[petra kieffer-Pülz]

Dear Stefan,

thank you for your comments, especially for those on the Niddesa,  
etc. This seems to be comparable to the chapter headings originally  
also given in the end. I think this is the solution for my passage,  
which strictly speaking is not a commentary, but the introduction to  
a commentary.

Thanks also to all others for their comments.
Petra


My description was not fully correct, because the
Am 21.05.2009 um 03:44 schrieb Stefan Baums:

> Dear Petra,
>
> in Gāndhārī commentary manuscripts (1st c. BCE to 2nd c. CE), root
> verses are identified at the beginnig of commentary sections by
> their first pāda, and prose root texts by their first few
> words. This is then followed by the body of the commentary with
> pratīkas (usually without iti and often without any indication of
> their root status) interspersed. The root text is nowhere quoted
> in full, neither before nor after the commentary, which probably
> means that readers were supposed to know it by heart and just
> needed their memory jogged.
>
> Over on the Pali side, I think that if you look at the Niddesa,
> the original order is for a full quotation of a root verse to
> follow the commentary as you describe. Each of the commentary
> sections is introduced by a quotation of the first pāda of the
> verse in question, just like in the Gāndhārī manuscripts. Now
> modern editions of the Niddesa (and recent manuscripts?) _also_
> print the root verse before its commentary section, but such a
> double full quotation seems rather clearly secondary, and it is
> the full quotation after the commentary body that is syntactically
> linked to the preceding (by the phrase “tenāha bhagavā ... ”),  
> so
> that is presumably the more original one of the two. One could
> further compare the Udāna and similar texts, where the root verse
> likewise follows the explanatory prose, introduced by a linking
> phrase “atha kho bhagavā ... imaṃ udānaṃ udānesi ... .”
>
> All best wishes,
> Stefan
>
> -- 
> Stefan Baums
> Asian Languages and Literature
> University of Washington

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Dr. Petra Kieffer-Pülz
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