[INDOLOGY] The Sanskrit forgeries of Senarat Paranavitana

Fri Sep 7 17:32:38 UTC 2018

Coningham 1996 ("Passage to India? Anuradhapura and the Early Use of the
Brahmi Script" DOI <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300001608>) cites two
Paranavitana publications.  I haven't yet read the Coningham article
specifically to see whether he has been misled.

--
Professor Dominik Wujastyk <http://ualberta.academia.edu/DominikWujastyk>
,

Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity
,

Department of History and Classics <http://historyandclassics.ualberta.ca/>
,
University of Alberta, Canada
.

South Asia at the U of A:

sas.ualberta.ca

On Thu, 6 Sep 2018 at 11:31, Christophe Vielle via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Dear List,
>
> The following 1994 article by Ananda W.P. Guruge:
> "Senarat Paranavitana as a writer of historical fiction in Sanskrit"
>
> http://dr.lib.sjp.ac.lk/bitstream/handle/123456789/696/Senarat%20Paranavitana%20as%20a%20writer%20of%20historical%20fiction%20in%20Sanskrit.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
> (from the digital repository of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura:
> http://dr.lib.sjp.ac.lk )
> clearly shows the fakeness of the mysterious sources "recovered"  by the
> great Srilankan historian and epigraphist S. Paranavitana (1896-1972) at
> the end of his career (for earlier, more serious, references by the same,
> see:
> http://www.sards.uni-halle.de/?do=query s.v. "Paranavitana" and
> "Paranavitana, Senerat [sic] or Senarat",
> https://books.google.com/books?id=5Xk_AQAAIAAJ - or JRAS 88, 1956, pp.
> 237-40, and 89, 1957, pp. 213-4 , about the Panākaḍuva copper-plate of
> Vijayabāhu I... as... a forgery - his complete bibliography is given in his
> 1978 Commemoration volume pp. 1-19:
> https://books.google.com/books?id=OIceAAAAIAAJ),
> provided and used in his 1964-72 books such as
> https://archive.org/details/TheGreeksAndTheMauryasSParanavitana
>     https://archive.org/details/TheGreeksAndTheMauryasSParanavitana_201807
>     https://books.google.com/books?id=y2lXAAAAMAAJ
>
> https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Story_of_Sigiri.html?id=lo0cAAAAMAAJ
>
> https://books.google.com/books?id=eaBcaFNjkOEC
> (I noted also his article "Newly discovered historical documents relating
> to Ceylon, India and South-East Asia" issued in *The Buddhist Yearly *(Halle
> = Jahrbuch für buddhistische Forschungen / *Buddhist* Centre Halle,
> Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Buddhistische Forschungen in der Deutschen
> Demokratischen Republik), 1967, pp. 26-58, or articles on "A Greek prince
> who was a Buddhist missionary" (item 287 in the B., 1969), and on
> "Traditions about Kālidāsa that were prevalent in Śrīvijaya" (it. 296,
> 1970).)
>
> It sometimes misled scholars: so V. Raghavan in his foreword to C.R.
> Swaminathan's *Jānakīharaṇa of Kumāradāsa* (1977, pp. vii) and S.
> Lienhard about the same *mah**ā**k**ā**vya* in *A History of Classical
> Poetry* (p. 197-8 and fn. 134)
>
> https://archive.org/stream/AHistoryOfIndianLiterature.Vol.IIIFasc.1.AHistoryOfClassicalPoetrySanskritPaliPrakrit.S.Lienhard/A%20history%20of%20Indian%20literature.%20Vol.%20III%2C%20fasc.1.%20A%20history%20of%20classical%20poetry%20Sanskrit-Pali-Prakrit.%20S.Lienhard#page/n207
> In the latter case, Raghavan and Lienhard rely on Paranavitana's
> introduction to the Srilankan 1967 critical edition of the JH (the critical
> edition itself, made with C. E. Godakumbura, appears not affected by the
> forgery):
>
> https://archive.org/stream/JanakiharanaOfKumaradasaParanavitanaS.GodukumburaC.E./Janakiharana%20of%20Kumaradasa%20Paranavitana%20S.%20Godukumbura%20C.E.#page/n51
> The passage invoking a new source being "the continuation of the
> *Suvarṇṇapuravaṃśa*" starts on p. lxi - cf. also p. lxv about the
> *Paraṃparapustaka* and the "other" (invented) lost *mah**ā**k**ā**vya*
>  of Kumāradāsa entitled
> *Śrīghanananda*.
>
> I would be interested to know if other scholars have been mislead by
> Paranavitana's forgeries (not yet openly claimed as such at the time of his
> 1978 Commemoration Volume, even if the end of his obituary p. xi seems to
> not take seriously the results of his last reinterpretation of the history
> of Sri Lanka on the basis of the "so-called interlinear inscriptions",
> which rather demonstrate his "highly imaginative mind").
> I just discover, through SARDS, Paranavitana's posthumous reference (not
> included in his 1978 bibliography): "The Dhvanikārikās in fifteenth
> century Ceylon, in: Journal of the American Oriental Society", 94, 1974, S.
> 131-13 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/599740 ) which obviously is another
> example of his forgeries (like for Kumāradāsa, it aims to establish
> Paranavitana's own views in literary history).
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Christophe
>
> –––––––––––––––––––
> Christophe Vielle <https://uclouvain.be/en/directories/christophe.vielle>
> Louvain-la-Neuve
>
>
>
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