[INDOLOGY] privative a with finite verb?

[Malhar Kulkarni]

Dear Professor Kapstein,

I thank you very much for sharing this interesting discussion from the
archives of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1906, to all. I also
thank Victor Davella for sharing it to you.

As I see with the limited access, this discussion involves the discussion
on a vārttika on Aṣṭādhyāyī (A) 2.2.6. There is no clue about the source
text, both the scholars are referring to. One source could be the text of
the Kāśikāvṛtti (KV). The printed text of the KV that they could have
access to, could be, perhaps, the 1876 edition. This edition has this
vārttika on A 2.2.6, indeed!

It is noteworthy however, that the Hyderabad edition of the KV does not
have this vārttika in the main body of the text of the KV on A 2.2.6. Also
the edition of the KV on A 2.2.6 published by me on the basis of 70
manuscripts does not have this vārttika in the main body of the text of the
KV on A 2.2.6.

Interestingly, the manuscript which is amongst those which added this
vārttika in the main body of the text of the KV on A 2.2.6, seems to be one
of the sources of the 1876 edition.

with regards,

On Sat, Oct 11, 2025 at 6:18 PM Matthew Kapstein via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Many thanks to all who replied. I am grateful for the grammatical
> references.
> As others may be interested, i include here the link, kindly sent to me by
> Victor Davella, to an informative discussion about the issue between two of
> the warhorses of Raj-period Indology:
>
>
> https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-asiatic-society/article/abs/negative-a-with-finite-verbs-in-sanskrit/D0CCACADA75B64DAD5603ADDDFE6ADB1
>
>
> <https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-asiatic-society/article/abs/negative-a-with-finite-verbs-in-sanskrit/D0CCACADA75B64DAD5603ADDDFE6ADB1>
> Matthew
>
> Matthew T. Kapstein
> Professor emeritus
> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, PSL Research University, Paris
>
> Associate
> The University of Chicago Divinity School
>
> Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
>
> https://ephe.academia.edu/MatthewKapstein
>
> https://vajrabookshop.com/product/the-life-and-work-of-auleshi/
>
>
> https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501716218/tibetan-manuscripts-and-early-printed-books-volume-i/#bookTabs=1
>
>
> https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501771255/tibetan-manuscripts-and-early-printed-books-volume-ii/#bookTabs=1
>
> https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/60949
>
>
> Sent from Proton Mail <https://proton.me/mail/home> for iOS.
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> On Saturday, 10/11/25 at 11:27 Matthew Kapstein <mattkapstein at proton.me>
> wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> In the 2500-line Prajñapāramitā i find expressions such as:
>
> nâtra kiMcid vidhyate nâvidhyate, “here nothing is penetrated nor
> unpenetrated”.
>
> So far as I can determine, in avidhyate the initial a can only be taken as
> privative.
> Is this uniquely a peculiar Buddhist usage?
>
> thank you for your thoughts,
> Matthew
>
> Matthew T. Kapstein
> Professor emeritus
> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, PSL Research University, Paris
>
> Associate
> The University of Chicago Divinity School
>
> Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
>
> https://ephe.academia.edu/MatthewKapstein
>
> https://vajrabookshop.com/product/the-life-and-work-of-auleshi/
>
>
> https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501716218/tibetan-manuscripts-and-early-printed-books-volume-i/#bookTabs=1
>
>
> https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501771255/tibetan-manuscripts-and-early-printed-books-volume-ii/#bookTabs=1
>
> https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/60949
>
>
> Sent from Proton Mail <https://proton.me/mail/home> for iOS.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>


-- 
Malhar Kulkarni,
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences,
IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai-400076
malhar at hss.iitb.ac.in
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20251012/34884190/attachment.htm>