[INDOLOGY] Visuddhimagga

[Gleb Sharygin]

From: Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk at gmail.com>

> To: Indology <indology at list.indology.info>
> Cc:
> Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2014 21:44:20 +0100
> Subject: [INDOLOGY] Visuddhimagga
> The Visuddhimagga was edited and then published twice in Roman script in
> the first half of the 20th century.  By Caroline A. F. Rhys Davids for the
> PTS, published 1920 & 1921, and by Henry Clarke Warren for HOS,
> posthumously published in 1950.  Neither edition refers to the other.
>
> Did Warren not know about Caroline Rhys Davids' work?  Warren met him in
> Oxford in 1884, as Lanman's *Memorial* notes, and was greatly influenced
> by him.  Warren's work was done long  before that of Caroline Rhys Davids,
> since Warren died in 1899.  But why wouldn't Dharmananda Kosambi have
> mentioned Caroline RD's edition in his 1927 preface to Warren's?  It's
> understandable that Warren's brother Edward wouldn't have known about
> Caroline RD's edition, when he wrote his pathetic Foreword in 1927, since
> he was not an indologist.  Why did Warren's edition take 23 years to be
> printed, even after Kosambi had finished his editing of the MS?  1950 looks
> like five years after the war, which is understandable.  But that doesn't
> explain the twelve years of inaction before the war (and after the
> editing).  Since Warren had paid for the HOS to exist, one would have
> thought some priority might have been given to publishing his work.
>
> And why didn't Caroline RD mention Warren's work?  Warren had used one of
> her husband's manuscripts of the VM, so there would surely have been some
> awareness of Warren's work.  And Thomas Rhys Davids was alive until the end
> of 1922, and was aware of his wife's work on the VM, since she gave him
> some pages for checking, some time before the end of 1920 (mentioned in her
> foreword).  Caroline RD also knew that Warren had published an subject
> analysis of the VM in the JPTS in 1892, but appears not to know his article
> "Buddhaghosa's VM" of the same year, or his "Report of Progress" on his
> work on the VM, published in 1894.   She mentions Warren in her afterword
> on p. 767, but only as the author of Buddh. in Tr. (1896), which
> incidentally contains a 50 passages  translated from the VM.
>
> Has someone worked out all these matters?  I would have expected Ñanamoli
> to say something about this in his translation, but he doesn't.  He just
> says he's using both editions.  Perhaps there are book reviews from the
> later 1920s or 1950s that explain matters, I haven't looked yet.
>
> Has anyone systematically compared the two editions for variants?
> Caroline RD's edition is a reproduction of four earlier printed editions,
> two from Rangoon, two from Ceylon; Warren worked from MSS, two Burmese and
> two from Ceylon.  One of Warrens' MSS came from the India Office and one
> from T RD's private collection, as mentioned, so it must have been known in
> England, and to T RD, that he was working on this text.
>
> Best,
> Dominik
>
>
Dear Dr. Wujastyk,

There is a great paper by Steven Collins, dealing with exactly these
matters:

Remarks on the *Visuddhimagga*, and on its treatment of the Memory of
Former Dwelling(s) (pubbenivāsānussatiñāṇa)
Journal of Indian Philosophy (2009), 37:499–532.

Please find it attached.

Interestingly, it contains in a large footnote №22 surprisingly severe
criticism of the E. Frauwallner's academic method.

With best regards,
Gleb Sharygin.


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