[INDOLOGY] Who in Bonn in 1914 would have wanted to see this manuscript?

Tue Nov 15 18:54:39 UTC 2016

I considered the possibility of a request for Th. Stcherbatsky some months ago. The account of Stcherbatsky’s life and career at http://www.orientalstudies.ru/eng/index.php?option=com_personalities&Itemid=74&person=242 mentions that he mostly read mīmāṃsā treatises in Varanasi during a trip to India in 1910-1911. This report, together with the report in the same article that he began teaching at the Department of Sanskrit in St. Petersburg University in 1900, seemed to me to make it unlikely that he would have asked his former teacher in Bonn to ask for the manuscript on his behalf. He would have in my opinion asked for it on his own. Stcherbatsky mentions having looked at manuscripts in the then library of the Queen’s College while in Varanasi, but he does not mention having looked at the nyāyakaṇikā manuscript (A short report on the trip to India, in Harish Chandra-Gupta, translator, Further Papers of Stcherbatsky, Calcutta, 1971, pages 3-8).

I recall having read "Über die Nyāyakaṇikā des Vācaspatimiśra und die indische Lehre vom kategorischen Imperativ", in: Beiträge zur Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte Indiens. Festgabe Hermann Jacobi zum 75. Geburtstag (11.2.1925), dargebracht von Freunden, Kollegen und Schülern, ed. by Willibald Kirfel. Bonn, 1926, S. 369-380. many years ago. I cannot remember if I have a xerox copy. If a list member can provide a pdf, I will be most grateful.

I looked at Stcherbatsky’s Buddhist Logic, but failed to find any reference to his interest in a manuscript of nyāyakaṇikā. He used the printed edition that appeared before his 1910-1911 trip to India.

Elliot M. Stern
552 South 48th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19143-2029
United States of America
telephone: 215-747-6204
mobile: 267-240-8418
emstern at verizon.net

> On 15 Nov  2016, at 12:58, Christophe Vielle <christophe.vielle at uclouvain.be> wrote:
> 
> Maybe Jacobi ordered the manuscript for his former student Stcherbatsky who, later, published on the Nyāyakaṇikā in the Festschrift Jacobi (Bonn, 1926).
> See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Shcherbatskoy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Shcherbatskoy>
> and Ref. SARDS:
> Stcherbatsky, Th.: "Über die Nyāyakaṇikā des Vācaspatimiśra und die indische Lehre vom kategorischen Imperativ", in: Beiträge zur Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte Indiens. Festgabe Hermann Jacobi zum 75. Geburtstag (11.2.1925), dargebracht von Freunden, Kollegen und Schülern, ed. by Willibald Kirfel. Bonn, 1926, S. 369-380.
> 
> 
> Le 15 nov. 2016 à 17:51, Elliot Stern <emstern at verizon.net <mailto:emstern at verizon.net>> a écrit :
> 
>> Dear list members:
>> 
>> I inquired about a manuscript in the reading room of Sarasvatī Bhavan in Varanasi early in my work on nyāyakaṇikā. This manuscript appeared in the earliest published catalogue (ca. 1888). The catalogue description of the manuscript: (page 358)}:
>> 
>> (103) nyāyakaṇikā| pa. 3-274 paṃ. 10 ślo. 5000 likā. ?| prā. śu. ga.  saṃpūrṇakalpā |
>> 
>> I interpret this to mean by comparison with other entries to mean:  (103) nyāyakaṇikā~| pattrāṇi 3-274 paṅktayaḥ 10 ślokāḥ 5000 lipikālaḥ ?~| prācīnam śuddham ga. sampūrṇakalpā~| In English: folia 3-274 10 lines extent 5000 ślokāḥ time of copying ?~| early correct ga. (interpretation unknown) nearly complete.}\\
>> 
>> The manuscript reading room librarian or supervisor found a copy of this first catalogue near his desk, and reported to me that it contained a handwritten notation showing that the library sent the manuscript to Bonn in 1914, and that a  request for return of the manuscrIpt, last made around 1930, yielded no reply. 
>> 
>> Several copies of this manuscript found in libraries in India and Nepal were made after the catalogue appeared.  The editio princeps published in the Pandit refers to this now lost manuscript as 1 pu. I have used two of the copies in my edition. I consider it likely that the manuscript traveled on a ship  that sank under attack in the Mediterranean Sea early in World War I.
>> 
>> The question I put forward to fellow list members is this. Who in Bonn in 1914 would have had interest in this manuscript? Hermann Jacobi traveled in India in 1913 and 1914. I doubt, however, that he would have had a particular interest in this manuscript. It is possible that a junior colleague or a student at Bonn had some interest it, but I do not know who were colleagues or students at Bonn at that time.
>> 
>> Wilhelm Rau suggested during my visit to Marburg July through November 1982 that I write to Walter Ruben. Ruben was a student at Bonn in the 1920s. I did not follow through on this suggestion, in part for lack of a specific address. Many years later, I learned that Ruben died in November 1982. 
>> 
>> 
>> Elliot M. Stern
>> 552 South 48th Street
>> Philadelphia, PA 19143-2029
>> United States of America
>> telephone: 215-747-6204
>> mobile: 267-240-8418
>> emstern at verizon.net <mailto:emstern at verizon.net>
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> INDOLOGY mailing list
>> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info <mailto:INDOLOGY at list.indology.info>
>> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing committee)
>> http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or unsubscribe)
> 
> –––––––––––––––––––
> Christophe Vielle <http://www.uclouvain.be/christophe.vielle>
> Louvain-la-Neuve
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20161115/e1e54d42/attachment.htm>