[Y-Indology] laghu eighth syllable in Vasantatilaka

[Guest guest]

I am looking at the 1913 Nirnayasagara edition of RtusaMhAra

with maNirAma's commentary. As I read the commentary on the

two verses you have cited, the grammatical explanations offered

by the commentator would require the 8th syllable to be laghu,

and this is simply unacceptable. I don't have a comparative

opinion of this commentator, but his explanations on these two

verses (as printed in this edition) don't do justice to the metrical

structure.

 

Madhav Deshpande

 

INDOLOGY, Phillip Ernest

<phillip.ernest@u...> wrote:

> Quoting deshpandem <mmdesh@U...>:

>

> > You are right. The commentary gives an impression of a

reading with

> > the 8th syllable as being laghu. However, either the editor

did not

> > read the mss correctly, nataa for aanataa, or the

commentator is

> > simply mistaken. The definition of (ta-bha-ja-ja-ga-ga) and

the

> > practice of Vasantatilaka does not allow the 8th syllable

being laghu.

>

> Thank you, this is very interesting to me. So aanata is likely to

have been

> Manirama's real text, what he actually wrote, possibly mistaken

by the setter

> of this text? But I think the fact must be that Manirama is

mistaken, as you

> suggest, because he did not ruciraatanu into rucira atanu,

either, in the other

> verse, apparently. Is Manirama an extraordinarily inattentive

commentator, at

> least where metre is concerned, or is this kind of 'sloppiness'

not too

> uncommon amongst commentators?

>

> Phillip

[Guest guest]

Quoting deshpandem <mmdesh:

 

> I am looking at the 1913 Nirnayasagara edition of RtusaMhAra

> with maNirAma's commentary. As I read the commentary on the

> two verses you have cited, the grammatical explanations offered

> by the commentator would require the 8th syllable to be laghu,

> and this is simply unacceptable. I don't have a comparative

> opinion of this commentator, but his explanations on these two

> verses (as printed in this edition) don't do justice to the metrical

> structure.

 

Thanks, professor, to both you and PKR for your responses. i remember, years

ago, when I read van Buitinen's introduction to one of his Mahabharata volumes,

in which he mildly criticized the then ongoing russian translation of the

Bharata for being too dependent on the commentaries, as I recall. I found this

a remarkable and rather hubristic comment at the time, but this does seem to be

a hubris that one must cultivate so that one can at least tell the best class

of commentators from the rest, or at least assess commentaries for what they

are strong and weak in.

 

Phillip