Utilising printed edition for a critical edition

[Dipak Bhattacharya]

INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
24mr12
There
was a well-meant advice: <While it may be necessary to collate printed
editions, it may not be required to report their readings in a critical
edition> But this raises some questions.
There
is an understood assumption here that the editor has distinguished between an
emendation effected on the previous edition and an original MS reading retained
in that and has represented the previous goings on without creating any
misconception about MS readings. In actual practice this understood rule has
often been flouted often leading the reader to wrong ideas about
MS-readings.  
I
can give two examples where the rule has been flouted.
Caryācaryaviniścaya H.P.Śāstri
Bangiya Sahitya Parishat, Calcutta 1916 
CaryāgītikoṣaP.C.Bagchi and Śānti Bhikṣu
Śāstrī, Visva-Bharati 
When
H.P.Ś retains an MS-reading and Ś.B.Ś emends he reports the 1916 edition’s
reading with H. This creates the impression that H.P.Ś had emended the MS
reading while the same has been retained by Ś.B.Ś. But the opposite is the case. 
Thus,
vs. 1d, païṭho MS; Ś.B.Ś. païṭhā; Ś.B.Ś critical apparatus marks païṭho with H meaning that it is the reading selected by H.P.Ś.  But there was no selection to make because it
was the MS reading. All such MS-readings retained by H.P.Ś have thus been
marked with H. There are seven such reports in the first five verses alone.
On
the other hand MS readings emended by H.P.Ś. with notice in the Critical
apparatus have not been reported as emendation and the MS reading can be found
only in the 1916 edition. Thus Commentary vs.1d sadvartmovagamāya MS; *sadvartmāvagamāya H.P.Ś;   Ś.B.Ś repeats H.P.Ś without
mentioning the MS reading.
Such
lapses will be found in the VVRI edn. Of the AVŚ too.
AVP 18.22.10c jātaṃjātrīr yathā
hṛdā́; Visva Bandhu edits the parallel AVŚ 20.48.2c as jātáṃjánir yáthā
hṛdā́. The c.a. just notes jātrī́r yáthā śaṃ.pā meaning S.P.Pandit’s
edition has jātrī́r while Whitneyreadsjánir. It is missed that Whitney’s mss too
read jātrī́r. Since the twentieth kāṇḍa was not translated by Whitneyonly those
who have access to the 1856 edition will know that the reading jātrī́r is the uniform AVŚ reading that is confirmed as the original AV reading by the
AVP and that jánir is an emendation by Whitney.
 
In
both cases unscientific reporting of the printed text reading creates wrong
impression about the original reading.
Best
DB


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20120325/27deb879/attachment.htm>