There's a new wrinkle on the editing history of the Visuddhimagga, not mentioned in Steve Collins' article, but kindly brought to my attention by Christophe Vielle (thanks!).Dharmanand Damodar Kosambi (not to be confused with his son Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi) worked on Warren's edition of the Visuddhimagga. Dharmanand's work was finished in 1911, but the book took until 1950 to appear.
Meanwhile, Dharmanand went back to India, and in 1940 he published in Bombay an edition of the Visuddhimagga in his own name, work that he had begun in 1909. It was based on the same manuscripts as Warren's work, plus reference to two printed editions from SE Asia, perhaps the same as those used by Caroline Rhys Davids. Dharmanand said, in his Preface,The sources used for the present edition are primarily the same as those employed for the Harvard edition, consisting of four excellent manuscripts: two Burmese, two Singhalese. In addition, I have used one printed edition in Burmese and one in Siamese Characters ; while generally not so good as the first of the Burmese manuscripts, these contain an occasional superior reading. To reduce the bulk of this volume, I have omitted all variants ; the best alternative readings, however, will be given with my own commentary-in the volume to follow.So there are three editions of the Visuddhimagga published between 1920 and 1950, with entangled editorial histories:Warren's actual editorial work on the text preceded that of both the others. But it was only published after their editions.
- Caroline Rhys Davids, 1920, based on 4 printed editions
- Dharmanand Kosambi, 1940, based on 4 MSS and 2 editions
- Henry Clark Warren, 1950, based on 4 MSS
Warren died in 1899, leaving his edition almost complete. Kosambi was invited by Lanman to bring it to a publishable state, which he and Lanman did together, completing that between 1910 and 1911. Nothing then happened for fifteen years. Then Lanman and Kosambi settled some dispute, and Kosambi saw the work through the press in 1926-1927. But the work remained unpublished until 1950 [Preface].For his 1940 edition, begun in 1909, Kosambi used the same MSS as Warren had used 40 years earlier. Two of these MSS were personally procured by Warren from England, by correspondence with Thomas Rhys Davids and with Dr Richard Morris [as Lanman says], and a third was personally lent by Henry Rigg. Did Kosambi really, separately, gain access to the very same privately-owned MSS? Or were they still in Cambridge MA when he worked there after Warren's death? Or did Kosambi use Warren's unpublished text in constituting his own edition. It is hard to imagine that he would not do so, since the work was done and lay there before him.I should mention that for all these editors it was a matter of importance that their editions were produced in this or that script. Caroline Rhys Davids' edition was mainly undertaken in order to produce a Roman-alphabet version of the pre-existing Burmese- and Ceylonese-script editions. She showed little engagement with actual text-critical tasks. Warren was engaged with both text-criticism and with the idea of transliteration. Warren's edition prints MS readings. Kosambi also cared about script, producing his edition in Devanagari, thus intending specifically to reach a readership in India. Kosambi also engaged in text-critical tasks to the extent that he applied Paninian grammatical thinking to the construal of the text, especially in matters of sandhi. But Kosambi omitted to print any variants from the manuscripts, which means that his edition cannot be used as a critical edition, since he denies the reader the opportunity to think critically about his editorial choices and their alternatives.Best,
Dominik
--The secondary literature contains references to an edition of the Visuddhimagga by Dharmanand Kosambi (and not Warren) published by OUP in London in 1950. I think this is probably just an error.
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