Abstract
The Praśnottararatnamālikā is a small tract containing 62 questions, paired with their answers. It is extraordinary that this text has been transmitted within Hindu, Jaina and Buddhist traditions, in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Tibetan, variously attributed to different authors. The present study examines what is known of the text, which from early on drew the attention of modern scholars, and presents editions of its Sanskrit and Tibetan versions, along with a translation and annotations.
The Praśnottararatnamālikā is a small tract of some 27 or so verses containing 62 or so questions, paired with their answers. In terms of its content, the text is unremarkable, even banal, although some verses are, it is true, rather nice. What is, however, extraordinary is that the text has been transmitted within Hindu, Jaina and Buddhist traditions, in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Tibetan. The correspondences between these versions are extremely strong, and it is obvious that we have to do not with a set of closely related texts but indeed with one and the same text, differentially transmitted with, unsurprisingly, various attributions of authorship. The study below examines what is known of the text, which from early on drew the attention of modern scholars, and presents editions of its Sanskrit and Tibetan versions, along with a translation.1
1 History of Study
The first modern scholarly notice of our text took place quite early, in 1858, with its publication in Tibetan by Anton Schiefner.2 He knew the text under the title Vimalapraśnottararatnamālā, under which it is catalogued in Tibetan sources (see below), and presented it in Tibetan, with a German translation. This was followed in 1867 by Philippe-Edouard Foucaux’s bilingual edition, in which he presented both the Sanskrit text and its Tibetan translation, along with a French rendering.3 It may be the fact that some manuscripts punctuate the text according to its question–answer format that led Foucaux, despite the metrical shape of the Tibetan translation, to print the text as if it were in prose, separating out the individual questions and answers.4 This oversight was almost immediately noticed by a scholar whose work seems to have entirely escaped all subsequent students of the text, namely (Pierre-)Gustave Garrez, whose review published in the same year as Foucaux’s edition was able to correct many errors.5 Among other things, he correctly identified the text as written in āryā meter. This same identification was again made by Albrecht Weber in the next year, in 1868, apparently without an awareness of Garrez’s review. Weber printed the text in metrical form and translated it into German, adding (again, with German translation) another very similar tract, this too having been noticed by Garrez, the Praśnottaramālā attributed to Śuka Yatīndra,6 a work which had, as both Weber and Garrez knew, already been printed in Sanskrit and translated into English in 1847 by John Christian.7 (I refer to some parallels with this text in the edition and translation below.) Late in the 19th c. several scholars discussed aspects of the Praśnottararatnamālikā, especially with regard to its authorship and sectarian location (see below). Just at the end of the century, in 1898, Paolo Emilio Pavolini published a “Prakrit recension” of the text, reedited in the forthcoming article by Melinda Fodor.
After the early rush of interest in the 19th c., the text appears to have fallen out of the sight of scholars for some decades. It was only in 1935 that Kanakura Enshō again paid it particular attention, offering editions in, once again, Sanskrit and Tibetan, with Japanese translation, and a discussion of their mutual relation. Although he was aware of the Prakrit version, he did not include it in his edition. This study has subsequently not been much noticed, and seems to have remained entirely unknown outside of Japan.8 In the twentieth century, it is perhaps Suniti Kumar Pathak who paid most attention to the text, but there is, in essence, nothing new in his study.9
I am not sure when the first modern publication of the Sanskrit Praśnottararatnamālikā took place, and it may have been that of Foucaux. However, especially since it is considered by some to be a work of Śaṅkara, it has appeared in any number of collections, and been repeatedly translated both in print and on websites (and lectured upon extensively on Youtube, also in English). Foucaux refers to an Indian lithograph of 1860, but no further information is available. The earliest Indian publication of which I am aware is that in the Kāvyamālā series published by the renowned Nirṇaya-sāgara press in 1890 (K below), and it has subsequently appeared in multiple editions of the Collected Works of Śaṅkara (S below), the latter version being, as I would maintain, significantly extended,10 containing as it does not 27 but rather 67 verses. With the exception of the edition in the Kāvyamālā series, in the sources available to me no attempt is made to clarify the sources upon which the Indian editions are based. What is more, it seems that the editions of Weber, Kanakura and Pathak exclusively base themselves on the text as printed by Foucaux.11 If nothing else, the present publication is based on a somewhat wider evidentiary basis.
2 Sanskrit Manuscript Sources
A fair number of manuscripts of the text are documented,12 among which the edition here is based on the following sources:
| C: |
Chunilal Gandhi Vidyabhavan, Surat, Shastri Dinamanishankara collection, SDPB0213, 10.5 × 4.5″. 2 folios. Nāgarī. [ |
| D: |
Cod.Palmbl. I 27, in Hamburg (Staatsbibliothek). Janert and Poti 1975 item 1413. Folia numbered 42r–43r of the MS catalogued in the same collection as 1215, 3.7 × 35 cm, 6~8 lines per side, in Telugu script. The 11th of 15 works in the manuscript. The version here has an idiosyncratic ordering of verses. After verse 7 the ordering is as follows: D 8 = 11cd+12ab; 9 = 12cd+10ab; 10 = 8; 11 = 9ab+11ab; 12 = 10cd+14ab; 13 = 14cd+17ab; 14 = 16cd+17ab; 15 = 17cd+18ab; 16 = 30ab+19ab; 17 = 19cd+20ab; 18 = 20cd+21ab; 19 = 21cd+22ab; 20 = 22cd+15ab; 21 = 15cd+13ab; 22 = 13cd+23ab; 23 = 23cd+25ab; 24 = 26. There ends the text. Deciphered by Usha Colas Chauhan. |
| F: |
The text printed in Foucaux 1867. |
| H: |
Harvard University 748. 4 folia. 11 × 25.5 cm. 5 lines per page. 10 lines with interlinear comments in Old Gujarati.13 Nāgarī. After the racitā verse (see below) we read: iti śrīpraśnottararatnamālā prakaraṇaṁ bālā vibodha saṁpūrṇaḥ || sādhvī śrīdarṣaśrīpatanārgha śubhaṁ bhavatu ||. (Generally pc [post correctionem] readings are not accompanied by ac [ante correctionem] readings because these are not legible.) |
| I: |
RE33572b in the Manuscript collection of the French Institute of Pondicherry, 5 folia (165a–169b) on palm leaf, Tigalari script. [ |
| K: |
Kāvyamālā edition, Durgâprasâd and Parab 1890: 121–123.14 |
| L1: |
British Library 160. Add. 26,424a (Bendall 1902: 55). 10 × 4″. 19th c. 13~14 lines per page. Nāgarī.15 |
| L2: |
British Library 311. Or. 3347 (Bendall 1902: 128). Foll. 372b–374b. 16th–17th c. Jaina nāgarī. 9 lines per leaf. |
| N: |
Nepalese National Archives NAK 1–1152 vi. nīti 24 = NGMPP A 23/14 (ID 54639 (0)), 4 folios, 21.5 × 4.0 cm. Palm leaf, in Newari script. [ |
| P1: |
Paris Sanscrit 924: [ |
| P2: |
Paris Sanscrit 1609 [ |
| Penn: |
University of Pennsylvania Ms Coll 390 [bibid: 9959998993503681; Penn MS: |
| S: |
Works of Śaṅkarācārya: Anon. 1910: 87–104, almost identical to Bhagavat 1952: 89–94.18 This version contains 67 verses. No sources for the text are cited anywhere. |
This small sample does not allow us to generalize about the textual tradition of the text as a whole. It is to be noted that the ordering of verses is in several sources slightly different, and in D radically different; only a survey of a broader range of manuscripts would allow an appreciation of how wide-spread this textual diversity is. In terms of lineages, again, our small sample size makes any conclusion difficult, but it is interesting to note that I and Penn, for instance, although written respectively in Tigalari and Nāgārī, clearly belong to the same tradition.
3 The Tibetan Translation
The Tibetan translation of the text to which it gives the Sanskrit title Vimalapraśnottararatnamāli19 is found in found in all five available Tanjurs, in some of them twice (as below). It is given a Tibetan title as follow: bod skad du | dri ma med pa’i dris lan rin po che’i phreng ba zhes bya ba.20 As is evident from the edition below, there is an extremely close correspondence between the Tibetan translation and the available Sanskrit,21 something emphasized in the edition by the editorial choice to select among variant readings of the Sanskrit those that appear to be closest to the Tibetan rendering, all other things being equal. The present edition may in this sense be said to represent an attempt to recover something like the Vorlage of the Tibetan translation.
The Tibetan translation is attributed to a team of two, as mentioned in its colophon:
rgyal po chen po snyan ngag mkhan gyi dam pa slob dpon don yod ’char gyis mdzad pa rdzogs so || || rgya gar gyi mkhan po ka ma la gupta dang | zhu chen gyi lo tsā ba dge slong rin chen bzang pos bsgyur cing zhus te gtan la phab pa’o ||22
Composed by the Mahārāja Paramakavi Ācārya *Amoghavarṣa. Translated by the Indian Ācārya Kamalagupta and the Great Translator Rin chen bzang po, it has been revised and finalized.23
Some attention must naturally be given here to the translators (the author will be discussed below). The team of Kamalagupta and Rin chen bzang po (958–1055) is credited with a number of translations, in addition to our text these being: Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra (Derge [Tōhoku numbering] 121 [below D]); Mañjuśrīnāmasaṅgīti (D 360); Nairātmyāparipr̥cchā (D 173); Catuḥpīṭhayogatantrasādhana (D 1610); Tattvopadeśa (D 1632); Tattvopadeśavr̥tti (D 1632). They are also credited with the Arapacanasādhana (D 3311), but perhaps problematically. The same team, with the addition of Śraddhākaravarman, is credited with translations of the *Paramādyaṭīkā (D 2512); Mañjuśrīnāmasaṅgītiṭīkā (D 2534); and Pañcakrama (D 1802).24 Kamalagupta evidently hailed from Kashmir, and it is possible that this region supplied the base text upon which the Tibetan translation was based, but see below for a discussion of several indicative errors in the Tibetan translation which suggest an Eastern Indic script for the Vorlage.25 As a closing verse demonstrates (see below), the source manuscript used by the translators evidently came from a Jaina milieu. For his part, Rin chen bzang po is of course one of the most renowned translators in Tibetan history.26 When one looks at the list of works Kamalagupta and Rin chen bzang po translated together, however, comprised almost entirely of tantric texts, it is not obvious why they should have chosen to translate the Praśnottararatnamālikā, and the reason and circumstances must, for the present, remain unknown.
Be that as it may, since the translators worked in the far west of the Tibetan Himalaya, it is slightly surprising that a small fragment has been recovered from the site of Khara-khoto, a Tangut town in what is now western Inner Mongolia. The fragment is preserved in the British Library under the shelf number IOL Tib M 135.27 Evidently it had been placed in a stūpa located near the northwestern corner of the town.28 It might not be unreasonable, on palaeographic grounds, to date the manuscript to between the 13th and 15th centuries.29 This also contains some interlinear notes, though only to a few phrases. As the fragment’s reconstruction indicates that this leaf contained almost exactly the first half of the text, we would expect there to have been one additional leaf. As the spacing between the lines of verse is irregular, it is difficult to know exactly how big the leaf would have been. However, the catalogue cites the dimensions of the fragment as 10.5 × 20.0 cm. The photos provided to me have a scale, which allows more precision: the vertical dimension is indeed almost precisely 10 cm, and the length of the longest preserved line is approximately 17 cm. This allows us to calculate an original size to the leaf of approximately 10 × 60 cm.30 In order for the surviving portions to line up, the text most probably would have included both a Sanskrit and Tibetan title, after which the end of the Tibetan title and the invocation survive.
It is noteworthy that a portion of two lines which appear to have dropped out of the Tanjur textual transmission has survived, in the midst of what is numbered here as Tibetan verse 19. What we have in the Tanjurs as the 19th verse reads as follows:
shin tu bde ba gang zhe na ||’du ’dzi kun la ma chags pa’o ||srog chags rnams kyi dga’ bya gang ||don yod ’tsho ba’i srog nyid do || [19]
To the first two lines corresponds Sanskrit kiṁ saukhyaṁ sarvasaṅgaviratir yā, foot b of the Sanskrit verse 12. Similarly, the final two lines correspond to foot d, priyaṁ ca kiṁ prāṇinām asavaḥ. What evidently originally formed part of the Tibetan translation, however, is only partially preserved in our fragment, as follows (on the verso, line 4): /// zhe na || yang dag phan par ’gyur ba’o ||, which plainly represents the Tibetan rendering of foot c, kiṁ satyaṁ bhūtahitaṁ, or perhaps the reading of other manuscripts, kiṁ sādhyaṁ bhūtahitaṁ. Since the question portion is precisely what is missing, we cannot say which of these two readings of the question lay behind the Tibetan translation. The preservation of this verse, albeit partially, in Tibetan is particularly significant in illustrating that, evidently at some point after the production of the manuscript preserved in Khara-khoto, two lines of the text otherwise preserved in the Tanjur somehow disappeared from the textus receptus.
The transliteration below illustrates the context of the surviving portions by quoting whole verse lines; the extant material is printed in roman type, that provided for context is given in italics. As above, a reconstruction taking account of the placement of surviving words allows us to be fairly certain that the text began at the left margin of line 1 of the recto with the title in Sanskrit: rgya gar skad du | bi ma la pra shno ta ta ra ratna mā li nā ma ||. Following this the latter portion of the Tibetan title and the invocation survive: bod skad du | dri ma med pa’i dris lan rin po ce’ ï ’phreng ba | | ’jam dpal gzhon nur gyur pa la phyag ’tshal lo ||. This invocation offering honor to Mañjuśrī kumārabhūta shows that, centuries before the compilation of the Tanjur, at least its translators, or the scribe(s) who copied it, were themselves Buddhist, although, as Prof. Isaacson reminds me, this does not necessarily imply that they considered the text they were transmitting to itself also be Buddhist.31
The remainder is given line by line, beginning with the recto:
2: bcom ldan blang bya gang zhe na || bla ma’i don ldan tshig rnams so || spang par bya ba gang zhe na | [2a–c]3: ’khor ba’i rgyun ni [space] ye gcad pa’o || thar pa’i zhing mchog [sa] bon gang | [4bc]4: bye brag ji zhin phyed pa’o || gdug pa’i dug ni gang zhe na || bla [ma] brnyas [b]ye[d] gang yin pa’o || [6b–d]5: mi srun dgra ’dra gang zhe na || myi bzad pa’i yul rnams so || ’khor pa’i ’khri shing gang zhe na || [8d–9a]6: phung khrol ’d[o]d chags can rnams so || skyes b[u dpa’] bo gang zhe [na || [10d–11a]Verso:1: || tshang tshing myi bzad gang zhe na || bud my[e]d rna[ms kyi spyod pa’o || [13ab]2: don yod tsho ba gang zhe na || kha na ma tho myed pa’o || [skyes bu] glen pa gang zhe na || [15a–c]3: mi brtan myur ’jig gang zhe na || skyes bu rnams kyi lang tsho dang || no[r dang] de [b]zhin tshe nyid do || [17b–d]4: [5 words lost] zhe na || yang dag phan par ’gyur ba’o || srog chags rnams la dga[’ bya gang || [19; see above]5: gang zhig tshul khrims phun ’tshogs pa’o || tshig gi [r]gyan ’gyur gang zhe na | [21bc]6: phongs pa kun ’jig m]khas pa gang || thams cad du ni skal ldan pa’o | [| skyes bu d]mus [long] ga[ng zhe na || [23a–c]
It is very interesting that there are several interlinear glosses in this manuscript.32 Although (see above) some Sanskrit manuscripts contain often copious interlinear commentary, the sparse glosses here seem to be of Tibetan origin, rather than reflecting some pre-existing Sanskrit glosses, although there is no way to be certain about this. That below the first foot on recto 4 is unfortunately virtually illegible, but under the ’dod chags of recto 6 we read ’khrig, sex, intercourse.33 On recto 5 beneath myi bzad pa’i yul rnams so [8d], “The horrid [sense] realms,” we read: dbang po’i yul lam gnas, and then slightly displaced: yul drug gam sdig ’phel ba’o. This might be something like: “The object sphere or condition of the senses,” followed by: “six spheres of the sense objects, or increasing sin.”34 On the verso, it is particularly valuable that the foot otherwise not preserved in the Tanjurs, yang dag phan par ’gyur ba’o, is glossed: above the line over dag phan we find rang gzhan la, and beneath it we read phyi ma la, that is, respectively, “to self and others,” and “in the future.” In all, the expression then should be understood as something like, “What will offer benefit to self and others in the future.”
Finally, beneath thams cad du ni skal ldan pa’o on verso 6, we find bsod nams, normally an equivalent of puṇya. The Sanskrit line (14cd) here is sarvavyasanavināśe ko dakṣaḥ sarvathā tyāgī, “Who is adept at destroying all addictions? One who is in every respect a renunciant.” The Tibetan translation (23ab) reads: phongs pa kun ’jig mkhas pa gang || thams cad du ni skal ldan pa’o ||. This was perhaps difficult to understand,35 although it has not been remarked that it differs palpably from the Sanskrit. A reason for this difficulty may be that it represents a mistranslation: skal ldan pa’o evidently represents a misreading of tyāgī as *bhāgī. This would be very easy to explain if the Vorlage were written in the Śāradā script, and it is not hard to imagine that a text translated in Western Tibet would have a Kashmiri origin. In Śāradā, tyā 
and bhyā 
(as too tā and bhā) are very similar.36 While it is true that there exists no form *bhyāgin, this confusion seems an obvious explanation. If one would understand thams cad du ni skal ldan pa’o as “one who in every respect possesses virtue,” the gloss seems to take this, then, as religious virtue, puṇya.
Despite this explanation based on the Śāradā script, another error in the Tibetan translation points in a different direction.37 Sanskrit 26c reads tyāgasahitaṁ ca vittaṁ, but its Tibetan equivalent (40b) is sems ni rnal ’byor ldan pa’o. Now, the (rather obvious) confusion of vitta for citta was already noticed by Foucaux 1867: 80n1. However, the explanation for tyāgasahitaṁ = rnal ’byor ldan pa is not possible in Śāradā, nor altogether obvious. If, however, the Vorlage were written in a script which employed the pr̥ṣṭhamātrā, then it is far from difficult to confuse tyā with yo.38 We find from an eleventh century manuscript, for instance, tyā written 
, and yo as 
. Moreover, regarding the above mentioned confusion of tyāgī as *bhāgī, bhā is written in this script as 
, and bhyā as 
. Note moreover that in what Gustav Roth and Édith Nolot (table in Nolot 1997) agree in calling “Proto-Bengali-cum-Proto-Maithili,” the script of the manuscripts of the Mahāsāṁghika-Lokottaravādin Bhikṣuṇī Vinaya and Abhisamācārikā Dharmāḥ, tyā and bhyā are again virtually indistinguishable. It therefore seems rather likely that these errors, evidently based not on a source text different from the Sanskrit now available to us but instead on a misreading of the manuscript, point to some Eastern Indian origin for that manuscript.
The so-called canonical sources for the Tibetan edition are as follows:
| G1: |
Golden Tanjur 3411 dbu ma, gi 103b5–106a. |
| N1: |
Narthang Tanjur gi 82a6–84a2. |
| P1: |
Peking Tanjur 5412 dbu ma, gi, 93b1–95a5. |
| C2: |
Cone Tanjur 4297 thun mong ba lugs kyi bstan bcos, ngo, 121a3–123b3. |
| D2: |
Derge Tanjur 4333 sgo rig pa, ngo 126b6–127b6.39 |
| G2: |
Golden Tanjur 3828, lugs kyi bstan bcos go 259b5–261b5. |
| N2: |
Narthang Tanjur go 191a2–192b3. |
| P2: |
Peking Tanjur5825, thun mong ba lugs kyi bstan bcos, go, 172b3–174a5. |
In the edited text below, the Khara-khoto manuscript fragment is quoted as K-k.
Major variants are given with the text, less significant readings are found in Appendix 3.
4 The Prakrit Text
As noted above, Pavolini 1898 published a Prakrit version of our text. Velankar 1944: 276 refers to a Praśnottararatnamālā by Bhavyottama Muni, which he says is a Prakrit rendering of our text; I do not know if this is meant to be the same. Velankar cites Jaina Hitaiṣī, A Hindi monthly magazine, vol. 13, pp. 109 ff., which I have not been able to locate. As again noted above, Melinda Fodor will shortly published a revised edition of this version.
5 Title
The text bears a number of titles, more or less closely related to each other, including: Praśnottararatnamālikā, Praśnottararatnamālā, and Praśnottaramālā. The title found in the Tibetan tradition, Vimalapraśnottararatnamāli, seems likely to have been motivated by a misunderstanding of the final verse (27ab): iti kaṇṭhagatā vimalā praśnottararatnamālikā yeṣām, in which the key terms are rendered in Tibetan dri med dris lan rin chen phreng ba, a nearly exact metrical representation of the title given in the Tanjurs, dri ma med pa’i dris lan rin po che’i phreng ba. This version of the title, therefore, should be considered an error from the Indic perspective.
6 Authorship Attributions
The question of the authorship of the Praśnottararatnamālikā has been discussed in the scholarship with, it seems to me, sometimes a curious credulity. Let us first look to the attributions found in our sources.
Some manuscripts appear to attribute the text to an author named Vimala:40
racitā sitapaṭaguruṇā vimalā vimaleti ratnamāleva |praśnottaramāleyaṁ kaṇṭhagatā kiṁ na bhūṣayati ||
Haridas Sastri (1890, 378, reading vimalena for vimaleti) rendered as follows: “This excellent series of questions and answers, composed by Vimala, a teacher clad in white garments,—does it not adorn one who can recite them, just as a garland of pure gems enhances the beauty of a man when placed on his neck?”41 I will return in a moment to the question of who this Vimala might have been. However, this is not the only option for authorship.
The inclusion of the text in the works of Śaṅkara asserts an attribution to Śaṅkara. And indeed, F and I (with only slight variations in Penn) end with:
racitā śaṁkaraguruṇā vimalā vimalena ratnamāleyaṁ ||praśnottararatnamayī kaṇṭhagatā kaṁ na bhūṣayati ||
This is followed in F and Penn by: iti śrīśaṁkarācāryaviracitā praśnottararatnamālikā samāptāḥ ||. In D we find: iti śrīmacchaṁkarācāryaviracitapraśnottararatnamālikā samāptā, and in C iti śaṁkarācāryaviracitā praśnottararatnamālikā saṁpūrṇaṁ || śivārpaṇam astu ||. It is plain that these manuscripts, in both the verse (in F and Penn) and the colophons, attribute the authorship of the text to Śaṅkara.42
While there seems to be no reason to associate the authorship of the text with the famous 8th c. Śaṅkara,43 the similarity of wording in the two verses cited above also casts doubt on Sastri’s understanding of Vimala as a name. Perhaps in an attempt to overcome this issue, Pathak (1958a: 93 = 1974: 29) understands the juxtaposition with Śaṁkaraguruṇā to mean that Vimala was “teacher of Śaṅkara” (he uses no article, a or the, so it is hard to know exactly what he means), but no such figure seems to be known; Śaṅkara’s master was, famously, Govindapāda (or Govindabhagavatpūjyapāda).
This is not the only attribution, however. Sastri cites other manuscripts which have instead the reading cited in K (kha):
vivekāt tyaktarājyena rājñeyaṁ ratnamālikā |racitāmoghavarṣeṇa sudhiyāṁ sadalaṁkr̥tiḥ ||
This appears to be more or less precisely the source of the last verse of the Tibetan translation:
བརྟགས་ནས་རྒྱལ་སྲིད་རྣམ་སྤོང་བའི༎
རྒྱལ་པོ་རིན་ཆེན་ཕྲེང་བ་འདི༎ [41cd]
དོན་ཡོད་འཆར་གྱིས་བྱས་པ་སྟེ༎44
བློ་བཟང་དམ་པའི་རྒྱན་ཡིན་ནོ༎ [42ab]
Sastri renders the Sanskrit: “This garland of gems, an excellent ornament for the learned, was composed by king Amoghavarsha, who gave up his kingdom owing to his discriminative knowledge.” Note that the Tibetan here, being evidently based on a manuscript with this form of the verse, therefore almost certainly renders a text belonging to the Jaina tradition. It did not take long for this attribution to “Amoghavarṣa” to be given historical credence, but this tendency began even earlier. Seven years before Sastri’s publication, Fleet 1883: 218 had cited the verse after “Mr. K.B. Pathak [who] has also brought to my notice a short poem named Praśnôttararatnamâlâ on the rules of good behaviour,” and following his citation and translation of the verse,45 he added: “The Amôghavarsha mentioned here, however, may be either the first or the second or the third of that name.”
Perhaps having forgotten his own earlier contribution, to which he does not refer, however, not long after Sastri’s 1890 paper appeared, Fleet 1891 published “A note on Amoghavarsha I,” in which he combines this verse with a fragmentary inscription he discovered at Aihoḷe, and which “probably proves that the king whose name is connected with the book in question, is the Râshṭrakûṭa king Amôghavarsha I.” He further wonders, based on the small fragment of the inscription which he could read, whether the king could have abdicated (apparently due both to the expression vivekāt tyaktarājyena and to the presence in the inscription of the word navarājyam), and then adds: “Or is it possible that the verse in the Praśnottara-ratnamālikā is euphemistic; and that, in reality, he was overthrown for a time by the Eastern Chalukya king Vijayâditya II …?” I think that in this respect, sadly, Fleet is not a faithful guide, and his credulity seems to have led to this (rather wild) speculation becoming established historical fact for Duff 1899: 79, who in a chronological sketch under the year 877 writes that “according to a Kanheri inscription, Amoghavarsha was still king in Ś[aka] 799. A possible explanation of this lies in the statement of the Praśnottara-ratnamālikā that Amoghavarsha abdicated the throne to lead a religious life.”46 Now, as Fleet noted, there are indeed at least four historical Rāṣṭrakūṭa kings named Amoghavarṣa, the first of whom is dated to Śaka 736/8–799, that is, 814/6–877 CE. There is, however, not the slightest historical evidence to support any connection of any of these figures with the Praśnottararatnamālikā.47
If we discard the attribution to Śaṅkara, which likewise virtually all modern scholars seem to have happily done, and we set aside Amoghavarṣa, or at least the connection of this name with the famous king (or any kings of that line, for that matter), what of Vimala? Peterson (1883: 50, 58–59 of Appendix I), quotes manuscripts that begin praṇipatya jinavarendraṁ, illustrating their Jaina affiliation. These manuscripts end with a verse, almost the same as that cited above, save for one crucial difference:48
racitā sitapaṭaguruṇā vimalā vimalena ratnamālevapraśnottaramāleyaṁ kaṁṭhagatā kaṁ na bhūṣayati
Peterson 1887: 44 would identify this Vimala (whom he takes as the author) with Vimalasūri, the author of the Prakrit work Paümacariya (Sanskrit Padmacarita). He writes “The Padmacharitra of Vimalasūri … will I believe turn out to be an important find, if, as seems to me probable, the Vimala of this poem is the author of the Praśnottararatnamālā.” He goes on, after noting that the Cambay Palm-leaf library contains 10 copies of the latter work, to refer to his own work on the Hitopadeśa, a text which contains (as I.156) one verse also found as Praśnottararatnamālikā 25, saying:
It does not seem to me to be doubtful that the verse in the Hitopadeśa priyavāksahitaṁ dānaṁ is in that book a quotation from Vimala’s Praśnottararatnamālā, where it stands in its own context, so to say, as one of a series of answers to a series of questions. I had at first hoped to find a useful datum for the age of the Hitopadeśa in a circumstance which has of course already attracted attention [here he refers to Weber’s Indische Streifen, p. 210]. But it does not seem possible at present to fix Vimala’s date, or even to say with certainty to what religious sect he belonged, and in all probability he is earlier than references we already have for the Hitopadeśa. The Vimala who wrote this book was a pupil of Vijaya, who was pupil of Rāhu. Vijaya’s name as that of an old teacher occurs in the praśasti of the Rayamallābhyudayakāvya [ref. omitted—JAS]. … If this Padmacaritra or Rāmacharitra is really the work of the Buddhist author of the Praśnottararatnamālā, its importance for the history of the Indian epics can hardly be exaggerated.
It is to be noted here that Peterson considered the Praśnottararatnamālikā to be a Buddhist text. Sastri 1890 responded to Peterson, writing, “Now, having examined a number of copies of the Praśnottara-Ratnamâlâ, I am in a position to disprove that the author of it was even a Buddhist, or that he had any connection with the Padma-purâṇa or Padma-Charita referred to, the author of which distinctly gives his date in the closing stanzas of his … poem.” He goes on, after some considerations of kings named Amoghavarṣa, to aver that the author of the Praśnottararatnamālā must have been a Jaina, understanding the expression sitapaṭaguru to mean “ ‘a teacher clad in white garments,’ that is, a Jaina Sâdhu of the Śvetâmbara sect. If, on the contrary, Amôghavarsha was really the author of it, the poem must be regarded as a Digambara work.” V.M. Kulkarni in Jacobi and Punyavijayaji 1962–1968: 8–25 surveys what can be known of the date, life and sectarian affiliation of Vimalasūri, author of the Paümacariya. Yet, however thorough this study, I believe it is not relevant here, since there is no evidence at all that this author is to be connected with our text, other than the (apparent) coincidence of names. Among other reasons, Vimalasūri’s poem the Paümacariya is in Prakrit, not the Sanskrit of our text, and our text moreover contains not a single Jaina idea. Peterson’s suggestion that the Hitopadeśa tradition borrowed a verse does not seem in itself necessarily problematic, but since the textual tradition of that work is so fluid, this is not necessarily very helpful, and it would be equally likely that our text has borrowed a verse either from the Hitopadeśa, or which found its way into that text as well. It is, apparently, only the assumption of a considerable antiquity for the author—as Peterson sees it—of the Praśnottararatnamālikā that assures him that it must pre-date the compilation of the Hitopadeśa. But since I believe that in fact all efforts to identify an author for the Praśnottararatnamālikā so far have been in vain,49 this assumption of relative chronology seems to me groundless. Rather than drawing conclusions based on such assumptions, I think that what emerges from the considerations above is that every scholar to offer an opinion has evidently been reaching for some certainty in a situation without any firm evidence. Some, indeed, seem to have been primarily motivated to claim the authorship of the Praśnottararatnamālikā for their own sect (see also below), and this cannot help but slant their analyses. We cannot, I think in conclusion, know who the author of the text was, nor perhaps even his sectarian affiliation, or date. The very earliest attestation we have comes from the Tibetan translation of the first half of the 11th century, but this is no more than a terminus ante quem. What is more, the textual fluidity evident even in the small numer of manuscripts I could examine suggests that the transmission of the text introduced diversities, and at present it is not possible even to attempt to recover its “original” form. We know slightly more about its subsequent history, since the various lineages of the text do not seem to be in the least motivated by sectarian concerns (at least in so far as we are dealing with the core verses, not those I consider supplemental), and this suggests, though it cannot prove, that in the form(s) in which it was taken over into traditions other than that in which it might have originated, it was not seen as strongly sectarian from the outset.
7 Commentaries
In addition to the vernacular interlinear commentaries, mentioned above in the manuscript descriptions, catalogues list a number of commentaries on the text. Pavolini 1898: 155 refers to a ṭīkā by R̥ṣyuttama (catalogued in Pavolini 1907: 145, item 762, where it is however not clearly called a commentary).50 A vr̥tti, dating to 1373, is credited to Devendra (Schubring 1944: 447, item 893).51 It is cited in some detail in Weber 1891: 1118–1123 (item § 2021),52 and edited by Vimalabodhi Vijayaju 2005.53 According to Weber, Devendra’s lengthy text associates every question with a story (kathā), some of which are in Prakrit. In his treatment of the text, he cites the introductory lemma of each verse, and gives the name of the story associated with it. In addition, Velankar 1944: 276 refers to vr̥ttis by Hemaprabha,54 Munibhadra, Śubhavijayagaṇi, and an anonymous work. At least the third of these may not be a commentary on our text at all. All of these appear to be Jaina works.
8 Sectarian Orientation
The existence of commentaries on the text belonging, apparently exclusively, to the Jaina tradition(s) suggests that the Jainas at the very least adopted the text and devoted to it a certain amount of attention. However, not all sources are exclusively Jaina by any means. And in fact, here the evidence is quite clear that there is no clarity about the sectarian home of the work.
Although it is true that manuscripts may be copied by scribes not necessarily allied with the sect of the patron, this is less interesting for us at the moment than the evidence that at least in the form in which we have them there is evidence for multiple belongings of the various written sources of the Praśnottararatnamālikā. The incipit in manuscript D, for instance, reads śrīkeśavāya namaḥ, that is, with homage to Viṣṇu or Kr̥ṣṇa, while that contained in C and the Penn manuscript reads: śrīgaṇeśāya namaḥ. In contrast to these “Hindu” invocations, according to Foucaux 1867: 70n1, his Calcutta manuscript had here Pārśvanātha, the 23rd Jaina Tīrthaṅkara.
This variety appears in other ways as well. A maṅgala verse reads in one version (metre upagīti):
praṇipatya mahādevam praśnottarapaddhatiṁ vakṣye |nāganarāmaravandyam sarvajñaṁ mokṣadaṁ śāntam ||Bowing to the Great God, praiseworthy for nāgas, men and gods, omniscient, who offers liberation and is peaceful, I shall proclaim this guide-book of questions and answers.
For praśnottarapaddhatiṁ in foot b (F, K [kha] L1),55 Penn and P2 have the āryā reading praśnottararatnamālikāṁ; P1 keeps the metre but reads praśnottaramālikāṁ. The latter two readings give instead of “guide-book” rather “small [precious] garland.” More significantly, in place of mahādevam, H, K (ka), L2, P1, P2, and F’s Calcutta MS, have jinavareṁdraṁ. That is, these manuscripts instead of the reference to the Hindu Śiva, who is Mahādeva, dedicate the text to the Jina, indicating a Jaina rather than Śaivite orientation (we saw this above with manuscripts catalogued by Peterson as well). In place of sarvajñaṁ mokṣadaṁ śāntam H, K, L2, P1, P2 have the metrically identical: devaṁ devādhipaṁ vīraṁ.56
Of the manuscripts I examined, only N has a Buddhist incipit, namely namo vāgīśvarāya, an invocation of the Buddhist Mañjuśrī. It is with its Tibetan translation that the text exerts some claim to Buddhist identity. The Tibetan translation follows the title with the invocation ’jam dpal gzhon nur gyur pa la phyag ’tshal lo ||,57 that is, homage to Mañjuśrī-kumārabhūta, a bodhisattva. In addition to its placement in the Tanjur, this appears to be the only Buddhist indication of the text. For Kanakura 1935: 413, the inclusion of the text twice in the Tanjur is a strong reason to believe in its Buddhist origins, a logic I do not well understand. Not only does the Tanjur contain a variety of non-Buddhist works (Seyfort Ruegg 1995: 108–132, surveying the sciences, medicine, linguistics, dramaturgy, lexicography etc.; Kanakura himself refers to the Meghadūta of Kalidāsa [D 4302]),58 special attention seems to have been given to a group of nīti texts, a category to which our work broadly belongs, some of which are clearly non-Buddhist (brief survey in Hahn 1985). These include the Āryākoṣa of Ravigupta (D 4331; Hahn 2007, 2008), the Gāthāśataka of Vararuci (D 4332; Hahn 2012), the Cāṇakyarājanītiśāstra (D 4334; Pathak 1958b; Sternbach 1961), and the Nītiśāstra of Masūrākṣa (D 4335; Pathak 1961; Sternbach 1962). According to Sternbach (1961: 106; 1962: 411), the Tibetan translators of the Cāṇakyarājanītiśāstra, Prabhākaraśrīmitra and Rin chen bzang po, adapted that work Buddhistically, something which we certainly do not see here, despite the (putative) involvement of Rin chen bzang po in both projects. It can be seen that mere inclusion in the Tanjur, then, does not in and of itself provide evidence for the “Buddhist identity” of a work.
As an example of some of the ways the matter has been argued, then, we can trace how Kanakura, having rejected the possibility of a Brahmanical origin, and admitting (1935: 418) that there are no objective grounds for deciding between Jaina and Buddhist origins for the text, flatly states that he will proceed on subjective grounds. It is thus little surprise to find that the Japanese Buddhist scholar Kanakura eventually decides that the Praśnottararatnamālikā is indeed originally a (Mahāyāna!) Buddhist text (1935: 423). To reach this conclusion, some gymnastics are involved, such as the rejection of the Tibetan colophon’s plain meaning (see above, and in note 23), and the interesting claim (1935: 421) that compared to the Buddhist text, the fact that the Vedantin version and the Jaina Prakrit text both contain additional verses leads to the conclusion that the Buddhist version alone is the original.
The contents of the text, in contrast to the trappings of praise at beginning and end, are entirely nonsectarian and generic. This situation changes with what I consider to be the additional verses found in some manuscripts (see Appendices 1 and 2), and in the editions of Śaṅkara’s works. The historical core of the text, however, is without exception nonspecific. What emerges, therefore, is that one and the same text has Hindu, Jaina and Buddhist transmission lineages. In whatever milieu the text may have been actually composed—and, as above, there is virtually no evidence to decide this—it is clear that in its reception it was considered poly-sectarian, trans-sectarian or indeed even non-sectarian: as the property of all, it is the exclusive property of none.
9 Editions and Translation
In the Sanskrit edition below, I have not noted minor spelling variations, including several instances of confusion between kh and ṣ, missing vowel signs, omitted superscript r, geminations after r, and the like. In general, when the intention of the reading was clear, even if strictly speaking misspelt, I have not noted such errors in order to avoid cluttering the apparatus. In a few cases, when a reading is somewhat less than clear but nevertheless likely, I enclose the siglum in parentheses. When there are clear distinctions between variant readings, one of which corresponds to the Tibetan translation, I have tried to favor that reading in establishing the text. This does not imply any historical claim; rather, it is deployed as a useful means to establish the form of the text that may have stood closer to the Vorlage of the Tibetan translators. However, in quite a number of cases it was not possible to make decisions on this basis, and I have endeavored in each case to explain the choice between equally plausible readings, noting that the overall lack of context—each question and answer seems to be entirely independent of those preceding and following—renders decisions based on contextual logic moot. It is worth remarking that many readings yield unmetrical lines, and this is certainly a strong reason to reject them.59
The translation renders the Sanskrit. Some manuscripts separate the questions and answers with a daṇḍa. Differences with the Tibetan rendering are generally noted when they seem significant. However, in the notes below, I have made no attempt to set the questions and their answers in the context of Indic literature more broadly. A number of instances of similar expressions in Indian gnomic literature could be adduced. Despite this general renunciation of the task of contextualizing the work more broadly, one exception is the above-mentioned Praśnottaramālā attributed to Śuka. This collection contains a number of expressions very close to those in our text, although it also contains quite a number of sectarian (generically Brahmanical) references, absent from our text (see Weber 1868: 106–107). Given the proximity of some of its entries, I note a few of the parallels, taking cognizance of Weber’s opinion that the work has modern origins.
The Sanskrit and Tibetan verses are independently numbered. I have followed the ordering of the majority of Sanskrit manuscripts, which on the whole agrees with the order of the Tibetan translation, but toward the end of the text some fluctuation occurs. Since the questions and answers follow no discernable order, it would have been easy for tradents to alter their ordering, and that has evidently taken place (see above for the extreme case of manuscript D). The numbering in the Tibetan edition follows the text in the Tanjurs, so that the original ordering should be clear to the reader, even when it diverges from that of the Sanskrit sequence, and I have had to rearraange the order of the Tibetan verse lines so as to align the two versions. I have further numbered the questions and answers. This numbering differs only slightly from that of Foucaux and Weber.
10 The Praśnottararatnamālikā
kaḥ khalu nālaṅkriyatedr̥ṣṭādr̥ṣṭārthasādhanapaṭīyān ||kaṇṭhasthitayā vimala-praśnottararatnamālikayā || 1 ||dr̥ṣṭādr̥ṣṭārthasādhanapaṭīyān, C, F, H, K, L1, N, Penn, S ] L2, P1, P2: dr̥ṣṭādr̥ṣṭārdhasādhanapaṭīyān; D: dr̥ṣṭādr̥ṣṭārthasādhane paṭīyān (unmetrical)
kaṇṭhasthitayā vimala, C, K, L2, N ] P1: kaṁ ca sthitayā vimala; H, P2: kaṁthasthitayā vimalā; D, F, L1, Penn, S: amuyā kaṇṭhasthitayā
Who, most clever in accomplishing his goals [in this world and the next, that is in the realm of the] visible and invisible, would not be adorned by this immaculate small precious garland of questions and answers, once memorized, as he would be adorned by a precious garland that sits around his neck?
དྲི་མེད་དྲིས་ལན་རིན་ཆེན་ཕྲེང་བ་འདི༎
གང་གི་མགུལ་ན་ངེས་པར་གནས་གྱུར་ན༎
མཐོང་དང་མ་མཐོང་སྒྲུབ་པ་ལ་མཁས་པས༎
ངེས་པར་རྒྱན་དུ་འགྱུར་བ་ཅིས་མ་ཡིན༎ [1]
1b: གང་གི་མགུལ་ན་, C2, D2 ] G1, G2, N1, N2, P1, P2: བདག་གིས་མགུལ་ན་
There is an evident double-meaning (śleṣa) here, with the term kaṇṭhasthita signaling both memorization, that which one holds in the throat (we might say, ‘keeps in mind,’ or as I rendered, ‘memorizes’), and a garland which lies around the neck. Note that although the Sanskrit metre is the same throughout, here the Tibetan uses a longer line of 9 syllables, as it does in verse 27 (Tibetan 40cd–41ab). See above n. 59.
bhagavan kim upādeyaṁguruvacanaṁ heyam api ca kim akāryam |ko gurur adhigatatattvaḥsattvahitābhyudyataḥ satatam || 2 ||ca kim akāryam, D, F, H, K, L1, L2, N, P1, P2, Penn, S ] C (pc): kiṁ yad akāryaṁ
adhigatatattvaḥ, C, D, F, H, K, L1, P1, Penn, S ] L2: adhigatatatvā; N, P2: adhigatatat(t)vaṁ
sattvahitābhyudyataḥ, H, K, L2, P1] S: śiṣyahitāyodyataḥ; P2: satvahitābhyudyitaḥ; C (pc), D: satyahitāyodyataḥ; F, L1, N, Penn: satvahitāyodyataḥ
Lord, what is to be accepted? The speech of the teacher (1). And what, on the other hand, is to be rejected? Improper action (2).Who is the teacher? One who has penetrated the truth, and constantly works for the benefit of beings (3).
བཅོམ་ལྡན་བླང་བྱ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
བླ་མའི་དོན་ལྡན་ཚིག་རྣམས་སོ༎
སྤང་བར་བྱ་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
བྱ་བ་མ་ཡིན་ཐམས་ཅད་དོ༎ [2]
བླ་མར་གྱུར་པ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
དེ་ཉིད་ཇི་བཞིན་རྟོགས་པ་དང༎
རྟག་ཏུ་སེམས་ཅན་ཐམས་ཅད་ལ༎
ཕན་པར་མངོན་པར་བརྩོན་པ་འོ༎ [3]
For § 1, the Tibetan specifies that the teacher’s speech is meaningful (don ldan). For § 3, see Śuka § 22 (verse 7): ko vā gurur? yo hi hitopadeṣṭā. In foot d, the reading with °abhi° is supported by Tibetan mngon par, and sattva° is supported by Tibetan sems can (thams cad = *sarva, not attested but to be understood as added for the metre and implied by the text). Note that in place of sattva° S has śiṣya°.
tvaritaṁ kiṁ kartavyaṁviduṣā saṁsārasantaticchedaḥ |kiṁ mokṣataror bījaṁsamyagjñānaṁ kriyāsahitam || 3 ||viduṣā, F, H, K, L1, L2, N, P1, P2, Penn] S: viduṣāṁ; C, D: sudhiyā
saṁsārasantaticchedaḥ, C, D, F, K, L2, N, P1, Penn, S ] H: saṁsārasaṁtataḥ bedaḥ; L1: saṁsārasaṁtatibbedaḥ; P2: saṁsārasaṁtatibedaḥ (unmetrical)
kriyāsahitaṁ, C, D, H, K, L1, L2, F, P1, P2, Penn ] S: kriyāsiddhaṁ
What must a wise man do urgently? Cut off the continuity of the cycle of transmigration (4).What is the seed of the tree of liberation? Correct knowledge joined with [appropriate ritual] action (5).
མཁས་པས་རིང་བྱ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
འཁོར་བའི་རྒྱུན་ནི་ངེས་བཅད་པའོ༎
ཐར་པའི་ཤིང་མཆོག་ས་བོན་གང༎
ཡང་དག་ཡེ་ཤེས་བརྩོན་བྱས་པའོ༎ [4]
4b: རྒྱུན་ནི་, G1, N1] C2, D2, G2, N2, P1, P2: རྒྱུ་ནི་. Sanskrit santati is རྒྱུན་.
4b: ངེས་བཅད་ ] K-k: ཡེ་གཅད་
4c: ཤིང་ ] Ex. conj.; all sources (including K-k): ཞིང་. However, ཤིང་ corresponds to Sanskrit taru (this emendation was already pointed out by Foucaux 1867: 71n2).
4c: ཐར་པའི་ཤིང་མཆོག་ས་བོན་གང་ K-k ] All Tanjurs: ཐར་པའི་ས་བོན་ཞིང་མཆོག་གང་; K-k’s reading is more logical. Kanakura 1935: 432n is puzzled by the Tanjur reading, as indeed he should be, and appears ignorant of Foucaux’s correction.
Note that in Tibetan 4d, brtson byas pa’o does not seem to correspond at all to kriyāsahitam. I do not understand this.
kiṁ pathyataraṁ dharmaḥkaḥ śucir iha yasya mānasaṁ śuddham |kaḥ paṇḍito vivekīkiṁ viṣam avadhīraṇaṁ guruṣu || 4 ||I begins with paṇḍito
kiṁ pathyataraṁ, F, L1, Penn ] H, K, L2, P1, P2: kiṁ pathyadanaṁ; D: kiṁ pathyatamaṁ; C, N, S: kaḥ pathyataro. This reading may have been attracted by the gender of dharma.
kaḥ śucir iha, C, D, F, H, K, L1, L2, P1, S] P2, Penn: śucir iha; N: śucir iha
yasya mānasaṁ śuddhaṁ, C, D, F, H, K, L1, L2, N, P1, Penn, S ] P2: mānasaṁ śuddhaṁ
avadhīraṇaṁ guruṣu, D ] S: avadhīraṇā guruṣu; I, N, Penn: avadhīritā guravaḥ; P1, P2: avadhāritā guravaḥ; C, F, H (pc), K, L1: avadhīritā guravaḥ; L2: avadhīritā guravā. Note that in verse 17c, when the word avadhīraṇa occurs there are no variants.
What is of the greatest benefit? Dharma (6). Who, here [in the world] is pure? One whose mind is pure (7).Who is a sage? The discerning one (8). What is poison? Disrespecting the teachers (9).
ཤིན་ཏུ་མཐུན་པ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྤྱོད་པ་སྐྱོན་མེད་པའོ༎
འདི་ན་གཙང་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གང་གི་ཡིད་ནི་ཡོངས་དག་པའོ༎ [5]
མཁས་པར་གྱུར་པ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
བྱེ་བྲག་ཇི་བཞིན་ཕྱེད་པ་འོ༎
གདུག་པའི་དུག་ནི་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
བླ་མ་བརྙས་བྱེད་གང་ཡིན་པའོ༎ [6]
6c: གདུག་པའི་དུག་ནི་ G1, G2, K-k, N1, N2, P1, P2 ] C2, D2: གདུག་པའི་དོན་ནི་
6d: བརྙས་བྱེད་ ] G1, N1, P1: བརྙས་བཅས་
For § 6, Tibetan has “faultless practice of dharma.” With regard to § 9, Garrez 1867: 506n1 writes “Avadhīray s’ emploie dans le sens de ne pas se conformer aux paroles de quelqu’ un,” and further refers to the expression duradhītā viṣaṁ vidyā in Cāṇakyanītiśāstram 98 (found also in Prajñādaṇḍa 10, attributed to Nāgārjuna, Hahn 2009: 14). For § 9, as Harunaga Isaacson points out, the reading of D (cf. S), avadhīraṇaṃ guruṣu, means “disrespecting the teachers,” but avadhīritā guravaḥ (in I, N, Penn, and implied in C, F, H (pc), K, L1, L2) means rather “disrespected teachers,” that is, as he explains, “the teachers themselves, if disrespected, will be poison for one, that is to say, will harm one.” As I believe that the Tibetan bla ma brnyas byed is closer to the former reading, I adopt it here.
kiṁ saṁsāre sāraṁbahuśo ’pi vicintyamānam idam eva |manujeṣu dr̥ṣṭatattvaṁsvaparahitāyodyataṁ janma || 5 ||Omitted in N.
kiṁ saṁsāre sāraṁ, D, H, (I), K, L1, L2, P1, P2, Penn, S ] F: saṁsāre kiṁ sāraṁ; C: saṁsāre kiṁm asāre
bahuśo ’pi vicintyamānam idam eva, D, F, H, (I), K, L1, L2, P1, P2, Penn, S ] C: bahudhā saṁcetya sāram idam eva
manujeṣu dr̥ṣṭatattvaṁ: spelt generally manujeṣu dr̥ṣṭatatvaṁ, F, H, I, K (kha), L1, L2, P1, Penn ] C, P2: manujeṣu dr̥ṣṭitatvaṁ; K (ka) manujeṣu dr̥ṣṭasattvaṁ; D: manujeṣu dr̥ṣṭatatvaṁ kiṁ; S: kiṁ manujeṣv iṣṭatamaṁ
svaparahitāyodyataṁ, D, F, H, (I), K, L1, L2, P1, P2, Penn, S ] C: kiṁ svaparahitāyodyataṁ
What is the pith in the world of transmigration? No matter how much one thinks about it, it is just this:Birth as a human, in which truth has been seen and in which one strives for the benefit of self and others (10).
འཁོར་བ་ན་ནི་སྙིང་པོ་གང༎
ཡང་དག་དོན་ལ་རྣམ་དཔྱོད་ཉིད༎
མི་ཡི་དེ་ཉིད་ཐོབ་པ་གང༎
བདག་གཞན་ཕན་པར་བརྩོན་པ་འོ༎ [7]
7c: མི་ཡི་ ] G1, N1, P1: མི་ཡིས་
The Tibetan translation assumes two questions, answering the first in 7b with something like “Precisely contemplating the ultimate truth.” The reading in S of Sanskrit 5c is “What is most desirable among men?” This leaves the referent of idam unclear, and might be an emendation of the editors of S or some source of theirs. It is difficult to correlate any of the attested Sanskrit readings with Tibetan thob. Against the choice made here, there is in any event nothing in Tibetan corresponding to dr̥ṣṭa, although it is likely that we should see de nyid as tattva. Is it possible that thob (ཐོབ་) ← thong (ཐོང་) ← mthong (མཐོང་)? This would give us an equivalent of dr̥ṣṭa. Tibetan as we have it seems to mean: “Who obtains the Truth of/among men? One who exerts himself for the benefit of self and others.”
madireva mohajanakaḥkaḥ snehaḥ ke ca dasyavo viṣayāḥ |kā bhavavallī tr̥ṣṇāko vairī nanv anudyogaḥ || 6 ||ke ca dasyavo viṣayāḥ, (C), D, F, H, (I), K, L1, L2, N, Penn, S ] P1: ke va dasyaśe viṣacyāḥ; P2: ke vidasyavo viṣayā
kā bhavavallī tr̥ṣṇā, D, F, H, K, L1, L2, N, P2, Penn, S ] P1: kā namavallī tr̥ṣmā; I: kā bhavavallī māyā
nanv anudyogaḥ, C, K ] L2: nanv anudyogāḥ; P2: nanv anuṁyogaḥ; H: nanv anuyogaḥ; D, F, L1, Penn, S: yas tv anudyogaḥ; N: yo hy anuyogyaṁ; I: damaged; P1: tanv a - - -.
What produces stupor, like strong drink? Attachment (11). And who are thieves? Sense objects (12).What [grows swiftly and aggressively like] the vine [that leads one to cling to] existence? Lust (13). Who is the enemy? None other than laziness (14).
ར་རོ་ལྟ་བུའི་རྨོངས་པ་གང༎
ཕྱིན་ཅི་ལོག་ལ་ཆགས་པ་འོ༎
མི་སྲུན་དགྲ་འདྲ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
མི་བཟད་པ་ཡི་ཡུལ་རྣམས་སོ༎ [8]
འཁོར་བའི་འཁྲི་ཤིང་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
ལོག་པར་སྲེད་པ་དམ་པ་འོ༎
དགྲ་པོར་གྱུར་པ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
ཡང་དག་དོན་ལ་བརྩོན་མེད་པའོ༎ [9]
For § 12, see Śuka § 79 (verse 25): ke dasyavaḥ santi? kuvāsanākhyāḥ. My translation of § 13 is a clumsy attempt to bring out what I see as the image of the creeper, the clinging of which is apparently central here. Prof. Deshpande suggests that the image may be of one shoot growing out of another continuously. Tibetan understands the answer as “devotion to perverse desires.” Somewhat distantly, for § 14, see Śuka § 16 (verse 5): jīvan mr̥taḥ kas tu? nirudyamo yaḥ. Tibetan understands here “lack of energy directed toward the truth.”60
kasmād bhayam iha maraṇādandhād api ko viśiṣyate rāgī |kaḥ śūro yo lalanā-locanabāṇair na vivyathitaḥ || 7 ||andhād api, (C), D, F, H, K, L1, L2, P2, Penn ] S: andhād iha; P1: vaṁdhāv api; N: annād api; I: damaged.
ko viśiṣyate rāgī, C, D, F, H, K, L1, L2, N, P2, Penn, S ] P1: ko citoyato rāgī; I: damaged.
na vivyathitaḥ, F, L2 ]; C: na vivyathite; H, K, L1, Penn, W (emending F): na ca vyathitaḥ; P1, S: na vyadhitaḥ; D: na
cavyadhitaḥ; P2: na ca vyadhitaḥ; N: vyathitahr̥dayo naḥ; I begins with ///dhitaḥ on 166r1. Szántó suggests that the original vi° lost its vowel, and was then either read as or emended to ca.What does one fear here [in the world]? Death (15). Who is in a worse situation than even a blind man? A lustful one (16).Who is a hero? One not brought down by the arrows that are the sideways glances of a woman (17).
འདི་ལ་འཇིགས་པ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
སྲོག་མཐར་གྱུར་པའི་འཆི་བ་འོ༎
ལོང་བ་ལས་ཀྱང་ལོང་བ་གང༎
ཕུང་ཁྲོལ་འདོད་ཆགས་ཅན་རྣམས་སོ༎ [10]
སྐྱེས་བུ་དཔའ་བོ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གང་ཞིག་བུད་མེད་མཛེས་པ་ལ༎
ཆགས་པའི་མིག་གི་མདའ་ཡིས་ནི༎
ཡིད་ལ་ཕོག་པར་མ་གྱུར་པའོ༎ [11]
10a: འདི་ལ་ ] G2, N2, P2: འདི་ན་
11b: མཛེས་པ་ལ་, G1, G2, N1, N2, P1, P2] C2 D2: མཛེས་མ་ལ་
For § 16, Tibetan has “Those (plural!) possessing attachment to vain things.” See here also Śuka § 20 (verse 6): ko janmanāndho? madanāturo yo. For § 17, see Śuka § 41 (verse 12): śūrān mahāśūratamo hi ko vā? manojabāṇair vyathito na yas tu.
Regarding the reading vivyathita, it may be that the image of the arrow attracted the reading vyadhita, which however is evidently an incorrect form of what should be viddha. However, note that Tibetan phog par ma gyur pa might well render na viddha, and therefore conceivably reflects the reading vyadhita.
pātuṁ karṇāñjalibhiḥkim amr̥tam iva yujyate sadupadeśaḥ |kiṁ gurutāyā mūlaṁyad etad aprārthanaṁ nāma || 8 ||iva yujyate, C, D, F, L1, Penn ] S: iha yujyate; K, L2, N, P1: iva budhyate; H, P2: iva pīyate; I: damaged
gurutāyā mūlaṁ, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, P1, P2, Penn, S ] C: guruvāyām utpaṁ
aprārthanaṁ, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, P1, P2, Penn, S ] C: arthāthaṁ
What is suitable to be drunk as nectar with one’s ears as cupped hands? The teachings of good persons (18).What is the basis of exaltation? Not asking for anything at all (19).
རྣར་སྙན་བདུད་རྩི་ལྟ་བུ་གང༎
ཡང་དག་དོན་གྱི་མན་ངག་གོ༎
འདི་ན་ལྕི་བའི་རྩ་བ་གང༎
གང་འདི་བླུན་པར་གྱུར་པ་འོ༎ [12]
12a: རྣར་སྙན་ ] D2 རྣང་སྙན་; G1, N1, P1: སྣར་གསང་; G2: རྣར་གས-[effaced character]; N2, P2: རྣར་གསང་
Regarding foot a, a verse with its key word is found in the Bhāgavatapurāṇa: 3.13.51:
ko nāma loke puruṣārthasāravit purākathānāṁ bhagavatkathāsudhām |āpīya karṇāñjalibhir bhavāpahām aho virajyeta vinā naretaram ||
The “teachings of good persons” may also be simply “good teachings.”
For § 19 and § 23 below, see Śuka § 58–59 (verse 18): sadā laghutvaṁ ca kim? arthitaiva. gurutvam asyaiva viparyayo ’sti. There is a pairing of § 19’s gurutā with lāghu in § 23. Tibetan lci ba understands guru here as something like weightiness. Schiefner 1858: 19, item 20, understood Tibetan 12cd as: “Wer hat hieselbst die Wurzel der Schwere? Derjenige, der dumm ist.” There is no remark by either Foucaux or Kanakura. I cannot very well imagine what the Tibetan translators read in their Vorlage of the Sanskrit 8d. Sanskrit pra√arth is generally rendered by bslangs pa, such that ma bslangs = aprārthana, but I cannot imagine how this might have become blun pa.
kiṁ gahanaṁ strīcaritaṁkaś caturo yo na khaṇḍitas tena |kiṁ dāridryam atoṣaḥevaṁ kiṁ lāghavaṁ yācñā || 9 ||feet cd absent in C, D.
khaṇḍitas tena, C, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, P2, N, Penn, S ] P1: khaṇḍitaseṭha
kiṁ dāridryam atoṣaḥ, F ] N: kiṁ dāridryam asantoṣa; P1: kiṁ dāridragam aṁtoṣaḥ; L2, P2: kiṁ dāridram asaṁtoṣa; Penn: kiṁ dāridryam asaṁtoṣaḥ; H: ac: kiṁ dāridryam asaṁtoṣa, pc: kiṁ dāridram asaṁtoṣa; K, L1: kiṁ dāridrayam asaṁtoṣa; I: kiṁ dāridam asantoṣam; S: kiṁ duḥkham asaṁtoṣaḥ
evaṁ kiṁ lāghavaṁ yācñā ] K: eva kiṁ lāghavaṁ yācñā; N: eva kiṁ lāghavā yācñā; F: kiṁ laghutāmūlakaṁ yāñcā; P1: evaṁ kiṁ lāghavam yācā; L2, P2: eva(ṁ) kiṁ lāghavaṁ yāñjā; L1: eva kiṁ ca lāghavaṁ parayāṁcñā; Penn: kiṁ ca lāghavaṁ parayāṁcyā; H: eva kiṁ lāghavaṁ ca yācñā; I: evamiṁ lāghavaṁ parayācyā; S: kiṁ lāghavam adhamato yāñcā
What is a impenetrable forest? The behavior of women (20). Who is clever? The one who is not torn to pieces by that [behavior] (21).What is poverty? Just dissatisfaction (22). What is humiliation? Begging (23).
ཚང་ཚིང་མི་བཟད་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
བུད་མེད་རྣམས་ཀྱི་སྤྱོད་པ་འོ༎
ཤིན་ཏུ་སྒྲིན་པ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གང་གིས་དེས་དྲལ་མ་གྱུར་པའོ༎ [13]
འདི་ན་དབུལ་པོ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གང་ཞིག་ཆོག་ཤེས་མེད་པ་འོ༎
ཤིན་ཏུ་ཡང་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གཞན་ལྟོས་སློང་མོ་པ་རྣམས་སོ༎ [14]
14c: ཡང་བ་, G1, G2, N1, N2, P1, P2] C2, D2: ཡངས་པ་
14d: གཞན་ལྟོས་ ] G1, G2, N1, N2, P1, P2: གཞན་བལྟོས་
The reading of cd is highly problematic, and while what I print is metrical, I am not at all sure about it. For § 20, see Śuka § 53 (verse 16): jñātuṁ na śakyaṁ hi kim asti sarvair? yoṣinmano yac caritaṁ tadīyam. For § 21, see Śuka § 42 (verse 12): prājño ’tidhīraś ca samasti ko vā? prāpto na mohaṁ lalanākaṭākṣaiḥ. For § 22, see Śuka § 14 (verse 5): ko vā daridro? ’tiviśālatr̥ṣṇaḥ. Tibetan seems to have had something like *iha (’di na). For § 23, see above under verse 8.
kiṁ jīvitam anavadyaṁkiṁ jāḍyaṁ pāṭave ’py anabhyāsaḥ |ko jāgarti vivekīkā nidrā mūḍhatā jantoḥ || 10 ||C has after verse 12.
kiṁ jāḍyaṁ pāṭave py anabhyāsaḥ C, F, H, K, L1, L2, P2 ] S: kiṁ jāḍyaṁ pāṭhato ’py anabhyāsaḥ; D: kiṁ jāḍyaṁ pāṭav
e py anabhyāsaḥ; P1: kiṁ tā—pāṭave py anuvyāsaḥ; Penn: kiṁ jāḍūyaṁ pāṭave py anabhyāsaḥ; I: kiṁ jāḍyaṁ pāṭhane ’py asaḥ; N: kiṁ jāḍyaṁ pāṭhikeṣv anabhyāsaḥko jāgarti, D, F, I, K, L1, Penn, S ] H, N, P1: ko jāgaro; C, L2: ko jāgarī; P2: after jāga, one leaf is missing.
vivekī, C, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, P1, Penn, S ] D: virāgī; N: vivekaḥ
mūḍhatā jantoḥ, C, D, F, K, L1, L2, N, P1, Penn, S ] H: mūḍhatāṁ jaṁto; I: mūḍhatā jātā jantoḥ
What is [correct] livelihood? [A livelihood that is] irreproachable (24). What is sluggishness? Not practicing even when one has acuity (25).Who is [truly] awake? One who discriminates [correctly] (26). What is sleep? The confused state of a person (27).
དོན་ཡོད་འཚོ་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
ཁ་ན་མ་ཐོ་མེད་པ་འོ༎
སྐྱེས་བུ་གླེན་པ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
མཁས་བྱའི་ཡུལ་ལ་མི་སློབ་པའོ༎ [15]
གཉིད་ཀྱིས་མ་ལོག་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
མ་རྨོངས་དོན་གྱི་བྱེ་བྲག་ཤེས༎
གཉིད་ཀྱིས་ལོག་པ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
སྐྱེས་བུ་ཤིན་ཏུ་རྨོངས་པ་འོ༎ [16]
Tibetan mkhas bya (15d) is related to √paṭ. For § 24, see Śuka § 36 (verse 11): kiṁ jīvanaṁ? doṣavivarjitaṁ yat. Tibetan understands the question as “meaningful livelihood.” For § 25, Tibetan has: “not practicing what one is skilled at / in the domain in which one should be good.” For § 26, see Śuka § 11 (verse 4): jāgarti ko vā? sadasadvivekī. It may be that jāgaro vivekaḥ goes better with nidrā (and the Prakrit of Pavolini 1898 has ko jāgaro), but if so this is a minority reading.
nalinīdalagatajalavattaralaṁ kiṁ yauvanaṁ dhanaṁ cāyuḥ |ke śaśadharakaranikarā-nukāriṇaḥ sajjanā eva || 11 ||nalinīdalagatajalavat taralaṁ, F, S ] D, H (pc), I, K, L1, L2, Penn: nalinīdalagatajalalavataralaṁ; P1: nalinīdalagatajalam iva taralaṁ; N: nalanīdalagatajalavat taralaṁ; C: nalinidalajalataralaṁ, followed by kiṁ kiṁ kiṁ (!)
dhanaṁ cāyuḥ, C, (I), L1, Penn, S ] F, H, K, L2: dhanam athāyuḥ; P1: dhananadhātuḥ; D: dhanaṁ jāyāḥ
ke śaśadharakaranikarānukāriṇaḥ, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, P1, Penn ] S: kathaya punaḥ ke śaśinaḥ kiraṇasamāḥ: D: ke śaśadharasya kiraṇānukāriṇaḥ; C: ke śaśadharakaranikaropakāriṇaḥ (the Prakrit in Pavolini 1898 reads the line: ke sasaharakaraniyarā uvayāriṇo sajjaṇā evaṁ)
What quivers in transience like a drop of water on a lotus petal? Youth, wealth and lifespan (28).Who are like the mass of moon-beams [in giving relief]? Only the virtuous (29).
པད་མའི་འདབ་ཆགས་ཆུ་ཐིགས་ལྟར༎
མི་བརྟན་མྱུར་འཇིག་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
སྐྱེས་བུ་རྣམས་ཀྱི་ལང་ཚོ་དང༎
ནོར་དང་དེ་བཞིན་ཚེ་ཉིད་དོ༎ [17]
ཟླ་ཟེར་ལྟ་བུའི་ཡིད་འོང་གང༎
སྐྱེ་བོ་དམ་པ་ཕན་འདོད་པའོ༎ [18ab]
18a: ཟླ་ཟེར་, G1, G2, N1, N2, P1, P2] C2, D2: ཟླ་ཚེས་
18b: ཕན་འདོད་པའོ་ ] P2: ཕན་འདོགས་པའོ་
Quoted in the anthology Śārṅgadharapaddhati, dating to 1363, with the reading nalinīdalagatajalalavataralaṁ (Peterson 1888: 88, verse 55761). Harunaga Isaacson point out that the Mohamudgara (popularly Bhaja Govindam), attributed to Śaṅkara, reads in 4ab: nalinīdalagatajalam atitaralaṁ tadvajjīvitam atiśayacapalam.
Regarding the reading of our text, the evidence of the Tibetan is a bit ambiguous: ltar certain supports °vat, but tshig supports lava. The reading of P2 in 18b, phan ’dogs pa, might agree with the Prakrit uvayāriṇo in representing *upakāra, which is in fact the reading in Sanskrit manuscript C. Tib. 18a seems to mean, “what is pleasing like moon-beams?”, while 18b seems to mean “good people who wish to benefit others.” For § 28, see Śuka § 91 (verse 29): vidyuccalaṁ kiṁ? dhanayauvanāyur. (For vidyut, see § 59, below.)
ko narakaḥ paravaśatākiṁ saukhyaṁ sarvasaṅgaviratir yā |kiṁ satyaṁ bhūtahitaṁpriyaṁ ca kiṁ prāṇinām asavaḥ || 12 ||kiṁ satyaṁ bhūtahitaṁ, D, H, K, L2, P1, S ] I: kiṁ sātyaṁ bhūtahitaṁ; F, L1, Penn: kiṁ sādhyaṁ bhūtahitaṁ; N: kiṁ pathyaṁ bhūtahitaṁ; C: saṁsāre niḥsāre
priyaṁ ca kiṁ prāṇinām asavaḥ, S ] L1, Penn: kiṁ priyaṁ prāṇinām asavaḥ (unmetrical); I: kiṁ priyaṁ ca prāṇinām asavaḥ (unmetrical); P1: kiṁ preyaḥ prāṇinām asamaḥ; C: kiṁ priyaṁ prāṇinām aśmavaḥ (?); F, H, K, L2: kiṁ preyaḥ prāṇinām asavaḥ; D: kiṁ priyam iha jīvinām asavaḥ; N: kva prema ṇāṇinām asavaḥ
What is hell? Being subject to the control of another (30). What is pleasure? Disinterest in every sort of attachment (31).What is truth? Benefitting creatures (32). And what is dear to beings? Life (33).
དམྱལ་དང་འདྲ་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གཞན་གྱི་དབང་དུ་གྱུར་པ་འོ༎ [18cd]
ཤིན་ཏུ་བདེ་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
འདུ་འཛི་ཀུན་ལ་མ་ཆགས་པའོ༎
{+ + + + +} ཞེ་ན༎
ཡང་དག་ཕན་པར་འགྱུར་བ་འོོ༎
སྲོག་ཆགས་རྣམས་ཀྱི་དགའ་བྱ་གང༎
དོན་ཡོད་འཚོ་བའི་སྲོག་ཉིད་དོ༎ [19]
18c: དམྱལ་དང་འདྲ་བ་ ] G1, N1, P1: དམྱལ་བ་དང་འདྲ་; G2: དམྱལ་དམྱལ་དང་འདྲ་བ་
19cd: Only in the Khara-khoto MS; see discussion in the Introduction above. I have added the tsheg between ba and ’o for the metre; it is not written in the manuscript.
19e: རྣམས་ཀྱི་, G1, G2, N1, N2, P1, P2] C2, D2: རྣམས་ནི་
As an example of the sort of parallels one might identify elsewhere in Indian literature, in addition to the verse cited above in note 57, for § 31 see perhaps again Bhartr̥hari’s Epigram (Kosambi 2000: 154, § 468a): kim asukhaṁ prājñetaraiḥ saṁgamaḥ For virati, Tibetan suggests “nonattachment.” Tibetan understands the answer to § 33 as “a meaningful life.”
kiṁ dānam anākāṅkṣaṁkiṁ mitraṁ yan nivartayati pāpāt ||ko ’laṅkāraḥ śīlaṁkiṁ vācāṁ maṇḍanaṁ satyam || 13 ||For C this comes after verse 16; in S this is #22.
anākāṅkṣaṁ, C, D, F, H, K, L1, L2, N, S ] P1: anāṁkāṁkṣaṁ; Penn: anākāṁkṣyaṁ; I: anākāṅkṣā
kiṁ mitraṁ, C, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, P1, S ] D: tīrthaṁ kiṁ; Penn: mitraṁ
yan nivartayati, D, N, P1 ] C, F: yan nivārayati; H, K, L1, L2, P2 (resumes here), Penn: yan nivārt(t)ayati; I: yo nivārayati. Tibetan zlog byed would seem to support connection either with ni√vr̥ or ni√vr̥t.
What is generosity? [A gift] without expectation [of any return] (34). Who is a friend? One who restrains one from evil (35).What is the ornament [of life]? Restraint (36). What is the adornment of speech? The truth (37).
ལེགས་པར་བྱིན་པ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
ལན་ལ་རེ་བ་མེད་པ་འོ༎
མཛའ་བཤེས་ཡིད་འོང་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གང་ཞིག་སྡིག་ལས་ཟློག་བྱེད་པའོ༎ [20]
མཛེས་པའི་རྒྱན་ནི་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གང་ཞིག་ཚུལ་ཁྲིམས་ཕུན་ཚོགས་པའོ༎
ཚིག་གི་རྒྱན་གྱུར་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གཞན་ལ་མི་སླུ་བདེན་པའི་ངག། [21]
20a: G2, N2, P2 skip from the end of verse 19 to 24a.
20d: ཟློག་བྱེད་པའོ་ ] G1, N1, P1: ལྡོག་བྱེད་པའོ་
Tibetan in 21d understands: “Speaking truthfully to others.”
kim anarthaphalaṁ mānasamasaṁyataṁ kā sukhāvahā maitrī |sarvavyasanavināśeko dakṣaḥ sarvathā tyāgī || 14 ||kim anarthaphalaṁ mānasam asaṁyataṁ, C, D, F, N ] S: ko ’narthaphalo mānaḥ; H, K, L2, P1: kim anarthaphalaṁ mānasam asaṁgataṁ; P2: kim anarthaphala mānasam asaṁgataṁ; L1, Penn: kim anarthaphalaṁ mānaḥ susaṁgati(ḥ); I: kim anarthaphalaṁ mānaḥ susaṁ///. Tibetan ma bsdams pa supports asaṁyata.
kā sukhāvahā maitrī, C, D, F, H, K, L1, L2, N, P1, Penn] S: kā sukhadā sādhujanamaitrī; P2: kā sukhādahā maitrī; (I: /// hā maitrī)
sarvathā tyāgī, D, S ] P2: sarvvathā tyāgīḥ; F, I, L1, Penn: sarvarthā parityāgī (unmetrical, hence W: read metri causa sarvaparityāgī); P1: sarvaprātyāgaḥ; H, K, (L2?): sarvathā tyāgaḥ; N: sarvadā tyāgaḥ; I: sa???ā parityāgī; C: yo sarvadā tyāgī.
What results in disasters? An unrestrained mind (38). What confers pleasure? Friendliness (39).Who is adept at destroying all addictions? One who is in every respect a renunciant (40).
ཕུང་ཁྲོལ་འབྲས་འབྱིན་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
ཡིད་ནི་ཀུན་དུ་མ་བསྡམས་པའོ༎
བདེ་བ་འཐོབ་བྱེད་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
ཀུན་ལ་བྱམས་ཤིང་ཕན་བྱེད་པའོ༎ [22]
ཕོངས་པ་ཀུན་འཇིག་མཁས་པ་གང༎
ཐམས་ཅད་དུ་ནི་སྐལ་ལྡན་པའོ༎ [23ab]
23b: See the discussion above
Sanskrit anartha is rendered with phung khrol, as in Bodhicaryāvatāra VIII.40.
For the Tibetan correspondent to tyāgī, see the discussion in the Introduction, above. Although tyāga might be a better reading (What is adept at destroying all addictions? Renunciation in every respect), the Tibetan skal ldan pa suggests the unattested *bhāgin, but in any event therefore the possessive suffix, °in.
ko ’ndho yo ’kāryarataḥko badhiro yaḥ śr̥ṇoti na hitāni |ko mūko yaḥ kālepriyāṇi vaktuṁ na jānāti || 15 ||In C, after verse 22; for S, this is #21.
yaḥ śr̥ṇoti na hitāni, C, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, P1, P2, Penn ] S: yo hitāni na śr̥ṇoti
kāle priyāṇi, C, D, F, H (pc), I, K, L1, L2, N, P2, Penn, S ] P1: kāli divyāṇi
Who is blind? One who delights in what is wrong (41). Who is deaf? One who does not listen to what is beneficial (42).Who is dumb? One who does not know to speak agreeably at the appropriate time (43).
སྐྱེས་བུ་དམུས་ལོང་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
བྱ་བ་མ་ཡིན་ལ་དགའ་བའོ༎ [23cd]
འོན་པར་གྱུར་པ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
ཕན་དང་མི་ཕན་མི་ཉན་པའོ༎
ལྕེ་མེད་ལྐུགས་པ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གང་ཞིག་སྙན་སྨྲ་མི་ཤེས་པའོ༎ [24]
For § 42–43, see Śuka § 62–63 (verse 19): mūkaś ca ko vā vadhiraś ca ko vā? vaktuṁ na yuktaṁ samaye samarthaḥ tathyaṁ sa pathyaṁ na śr̥ṇoti vākyam. For § 42, Tibetan has: does not listen to the beneficial and unbeneficial.
kiṁ maraṇaṁ mūrkhatvaṁkiṁ cānarghyaṁ yad avasare dattam |ā maraṇāt kiṁ śalyaṁpracchannaṁ yat kr̥tam akāryam || 16 ||kiṁ maraṇaṁ, C, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, P2, Penn, S ] P1 (ac): kiṁ maprā(?)raṇaṁ; P1 (pc) jiṁ maprā(?)raṇaṁ
kiṁ cānarghyaṁ yad avasare, C, D, F, H (ac), I, K, L1, L2, Penn ] S: kiṁ cānarghaṁ yad avasare; P2: kiṁ cārghyaṁ yad avasare; H (pc): kiṁm anarghyaṁ yad avasare; P1: - – - – - – re; N: kiṁ cānarghaṁ yad etad avasare
ā maraṇāt, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, P1, P2, Penn, S ] C: ābharaṇāt
pracchannaṁ yat kr̥tam akāryam, F, H, K, L2, P2 ] P1: - - laṁ ya kr̥tam akāryaṁ; D, I, L1, Penn, S: pracchannaṁ yat kr̥taṁ pāpaṁ; N: pracchanne yat kr̥tam akāryam; C: pracchinnaṁ yat kr̥tam akāryaṁ
What is death? Foolishness (44). And what is priceless? What is given in the right situation (45).What is a thorn tormenting until death? The forbidden act performed secretly (46).
སྐྱེས་བུའི་འཆི་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གླེན་ཞིང་གཏི་མུག་ཅན་ཉིད་དོ༎
རིན་ཆེན་གྱུར་པ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གང་ཞིག་དུས་སུ་འབྱིན་བྱེད་པའོ༎ [25]
མི་ཡི་ཟུག་རྔུར་གྱུར་པ་གང༎
དབེན་པར་བྱ་མིན་བྱས་པ་འོ༎ [26ab]
Tibetan bya min is equivalent to akārya, also supported by the Prakrit version’s akajjaṁ, not the alternative reading pāpa.
kutra vidheyo yatnovidyābhyāse sadauṣadhe dāne |avadhīraṇā kva kāryākhalaparayoṣitparadhaneṣu || 17 ||kutra, C, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, P2, Penn, S ] P1: atra
vidyābhyāse sadauṣadhe, C, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, P2, Penn, S ] I: vidyā vidyābhyāse sadauṣadhe; P1: vidyā—ro sadoṣathe; N: vidyābhyāse sadauṣadhī
dāne, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, P1, Penn, S ] C: dyane
khalaparayoṣitparadhaneṣu, D, F, H, K, L2, N, P2, Penn, S ] P1: khalakhalaparayoṣitparadhareṣu; I: khalaparayoṣitparanveṣu; L1: khalaparayoṣitparasveṣu; C: khalaparayoṣitaparasveṣu
Where is effort to be exerted? In repeated study, in [searching for] true remedies, and in giving (47).What should one avoid? The badly behaved, another’s wife and another’s wealth (48).
གང་ལ་འབད་བྱ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
རིག་པ་ལེགས་པར་སློབ་པ་དང༎ [26cd]
སྨན་ཆེན་ཚུལ་བཞིན་བསྟེན་པ་དང༎
སྦྱིན་པ་ཀུན་དུ་གཏོང་བ་འོ༎
བལྟོས་མེད་བྱ་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
འགྲོ་བ་མི་སྲུན་འདུལ་མིན་དང༎ [27]
ཆགས་གྱུར་གཞན་གྱི་བུད་མེད་དང༎
འབྲེལ་མེད་གཞན་གྱི་ནོར་རྣམས་ལའོ༎ [28ab]
kāharniśam anucintyāsaṁsārāsāratā na tu pramadā |kā preyasī vidheyākaruṇā dākṣiṇyam api maitrī || 18 ||Feet cd absent in D.
kāharniśam, C, D, F, I, K, L1, L2, N, P1, Penn, S ] P2: kā ’harniśim; H: kāharniśim; N (ac): kā ’hīrniśam
na tu pramadā, F, I, L1, N, Penn, S ] D, H, K, L2, P1, P2: na ca pramadā
karuṇā dākṣiṇyam api, H, K, L2, N ] P1: kasaṇā dākṣiṇyam api; P2: karuṇā dākṣiṇya ’m apya; F: karuṇā dākṣiṇyam atha [this is Prakrit aha, in the phrase karuṇā dāhiṇṇam aha]; I, Penn, S: karuṇā dīneṣu sajjane; L1: karaṇā dīneṣu sajjane; C: karuṇād dākṣiṇyaṁ sajjane
What should one contemplate day and night? The vanity of transmigration—but not women (49).What is to be considered dearest? Compassion, kindness and friendliness (50).
གང་ཞིག་ཉིན་དང་མཚན་རྣམས་སུ༎
བསམ་པར་བྱ་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎ [28cd]
འཁོར་བ་སྙིང་པོ་མེད་ཉིད་ལ༎
བག་མེད་པར་ནི་མི་བྱ་འོ༎
ཡིད་དུ་འོང་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གཡོ་མེད་ཀུན་དུ་སྙིང་རྗེར་ལྡན༎ [29]
སྦྱིན་པར་བྱ་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
བྱམས་པའི་སེམས་དང་ཡང་དག་ལྡན༎ [30ab]
For § 49, see Śuka § 99 (verse 31): aharniśaṁ kiṁ paricintanīyaṁ? saṁsāramithyātvaśivātmatattvam. In § 50, Tibetan has “possessing unshakable universal compassion.” In Tibetan 29b, bag med pa is evidently a mistranslation, as pointed out by Kanakura 1935: 438n, reading pramāda (without case ending?) instead of pramadā. Tib. makes a question out of 30a: “What should be given” (*kā preyasīva deya?). 30b suggests something like *maitrī-samanvitam/-samyuktam. There is evidently a significant variation here from the available Sanskrit text.
kaṇṭhagatair apy asubhiḥkasyātmā no samarpyate jātu |mūrkhasya viṣādasya cagarvasya tathā kr̥taghnasya || 19 ||kaṇṭhagatair apy asubhiḥ, C, D F, H, I, K, L1, Penn, S ] P1: kaṁ vyāvair apy astutiḥ; L2: kaṇṭhagatair apy aśrubhiḥ; P2: kaṁṭhagatair a’pyaṁ śubhiḥ
kasyātmā no samarpyate jātu, K, L2, Commentary in Vimalabodhi Vijayu 2005 ] F, N: kasyātmā nopasarpyate jātu; W: kasyātmā nopasarpate jātu (suggesting F’s nopasarpyate is rather nopasarppate); S: kasya hy ātmā na śakyate jetuṁ; P1: kasyātmā no vā aryyate jaṁtoḥ; P2: kasyā ’tmā no na saṁmarpyate jaṁtuḥ; H: kasya mano na samarpyate yat tu; I, L1, Penn: kasyātmā na vaśam upayāti; D: kasya mano na vaśatāṁ yāti; C: kasya mano na vaśyatāṁ yāti
mūrkhasya, D, F, H, K, L2, P1, P2, S ] I, L1, Penn: mūrkhasyā
viṣādasya ca garvasya tathā kr̥taghnasya, F, H, K, L2 ] P1: viṣādasya ca garvasya bhavākr̥taghaṇa; D: viṣādavato
cagarvavato vaitathākr̥taghnasya; P2: viṣādasya garvasya tathā kr̥taghnasya; I, L1, Penn: śaṅkitasya viṣādavataḥ kr̥taghnasya; S: śaṅkitasya ca viṣādino vā kr̥taghnasya; N: vipannasya garvasya tathā kr̥taghnasya; C: viṣādavato garvavato vai kr̥taghnasyaTo what should one never give oneself over, even at the point of death?To a fool, and to despondency, to pride and to an ungrateful person (51).
ལྐོག་མར་སྲོག་ཕྱིན་གྱུར་ཀྱང་ནི༎
བདག་དང་མི་འབྲལ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎ [30cd]
གླེན་པ་སྐྱོན་ནི་ལྡན་པ་དང༎
ཀུན་གནོད་བྱས་པ་མི་གཟོ་བའོ༎ [31ab]
For § 51, see Śuka § 56 (verse 17): vāso na saṁgaḥ saha kair vidheyo? mūrkhaiś ca pāpaiś ca khalaiś ca nīcaiḥ. The incredible instability of the readings in foot b illustrates the tradition’s uncertainty of the intended sense here. For invaluable suggestions about this verse I am in debt to Harunaga Isaacson.
kaḥ pūjyaḥ sadvr̥ttaḥkam adhamam ācakṣate calitavr̥ttam |kena jitaṁ jagad etatsatyatitikṣāvatā puṁsā || 20 ||kaḥ pūjyaḥ sadvr̥ttaḥ, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, P2, Penn ] S: kaḥ sādhuḥ sadvr̥ttaḥ; P1: vā ajyaḥ sadvr̥ttaḥ; D: kaḥ
pūjyaḥsādhuḥ sadvr̥ttaḥ; C: sadvr̥taḥadhamam, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, P2, Penn, S ] P1: adhagam; K: adhanam; C: atham
calitavr̥ttaṁ, C, D (pc), F, H, K, L2, N, P2 ] D (ac), P1: calitaṁ vr̥ttaṁ; L1, Penn, S: tv asadvr̥ttaṁ; I: ca sa vr̥ttaṁ
jagad etat, C, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, Penn, S ] P1: jatahe tadā; P2: gajad etat
satyatitikṣāvatā puṁsā, F, L1, L2, N, Penn, S ] P1: satyativikṣayatāṁ puṁsāṁ; P2: satyatitikṣāvatā puṁsāḥ; H: satyatitikṣāvatā puṁsāṁ; I: satyadhuti?titikṣāvatā puṁsāṁ; D: satyatitikṣāvatāṁ puṁsāṁ; C: satyatitikṣavavā pusā
Who should be honored? One of good conduct (52). Whom do they declare to be vilest? The one whose conduct has deviated [from the right course] (53).By whom is this world conquered? By a man possessed of truth and patience (54).
མཆོད་པར་བྱ་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
ལེགས་པ་རྣམས་ལ་འཛུད་པ་འོ༎ [31cd]
ཐ་ཤལ་དུ་ནི་ཤེས་བྱ་གང༎
རྩོམ་པ་ཀུན་ལ་མི་བརྟན་པའོ༎
འགྲོ་བ་འདི་དག་ཐམས་ཅད་ལས༎
ངེས་པར་རྒྱལ་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎ [32]
སྐྱེས་བུ་བདེན་པར་སྨྲ་བ་དང༎
བཟོད་པ་ཡང་དག་ལྡན་པ་འོ༎ [33ab]
32b: རྩོམ་པ་ ] G2: བརྩོན་པ་; N2, P2: བརྩོམ་པ་
32c: འདི་དག་ ] C2, D, G1, N1, P1: ཀུན་ལ་; འདི་དག་ ≈ etat.
kasmai namaḥ surair apisutarāṁ kriyate dayāpradhānāya |kasmād udvijitavyaṁsaṁsārāraṇyataḥ sudhiyā || 21 ||namaḥ surair api sutarāṁ kriyate, C, D, F, H (pc), K, L2, P2]; P1: namaḥ surair api śuta saṁkriyate; L1, Penn: namaskriyā syād devānām api ca; I: namā?ki yās?ā dedavānām api ca; S: namāṁsi devāḥ kurvanti; N: namaḥ surair api niratāṁ kriyate; api is supported by ཀྱང་.
dayāpradhānāya, C, F, H, K, L2, P1, P2, S ] I, L1, Penn: dayāpradhānasya; D: dayāpradhānāyā; N: yadāpradhāno yaḥ
udvijitavyaṁ, C, F, H, K, L2, N, P1, P2 ] S: udvegaḥ syāt; D, I, L1, Penn: udvejitavyaṁ.
saṁsārāraṇyataḥ, C, D, F, H, I, K (kha), L1, N, P1, Penn, S ] P2: saṁsārāraṇyaḥtaḥ; K (ka): saṁsārāvāsataḥ; L2: saṁsārāṇyavaḥ
sudhiyā, C, D, F, H, K, L1, L2, N, P1, P2, Penn ] I, S: sudhiyaḥ
To whom do even the gods offer profound respect? To one who whose chief goal is compassion (55).From what should one shrink in fear? The wise one [shrinks in fear] from the wilderness of transmigration (56).
ལྷས་ཀྱང་གུས་པས་ཕྱག་བྱས་གང༎
སྙིང་རྗེ་གཙོ་བོར་བྱེད་པ་འོ༎ [33cd]
གང་ལས་སྐྱོ་བར་བྱ་ཞེ་ན༎
མཁས་པས་འཁོར་བའི་འབྲོག་དགོན་ལས༎ [34ab]
33c: ཕྱག་བྱས་གང་, G1, G2, N1, N2, P1, P2 ] C2, D2: ཕྱག་བྱ་གང་
33d: སྙིང་རྗེ་ ] G1, G2, N1, N2, P1, P2: སྙིང་བརྩེ་
34a: གང་ལས་ ] Ex. conj. All editions གང་ལ་
kasya vaśe prāṇigaṇaḥsatyapriyabhāṣiṇo vinītasya |kva sthātavyaṁ nyāyyepathi dr̥ṣṭādr̥ṣṭalābhāya || 22 ||kasya vaśe, D, F, H, K, L2, P1, P2, S ] I, L1, Penn: kasya vaśāḥ; N: kasya vaśī?; C: kasya vaśaḥ
prāṇigaṇaḥ, C, F, H, K, L2, N, P1, P2, Penn, S ] D, I, L1: prāṇigaṇāḥ
satyapriyabhāṣiṇo, C, D, F, H, K, L2, N, P1, P2, S ] L1, Penn: satyapriyabhāṣaṇa; I: satyapriyabhāṣa
vinītasya, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, P1, P2, Penn, S ] C: vigaṁtasya
pathi, C, D, F, H, K, L2, N, P1, P2, S ] I, L1, Penn: pathi ca
dr̥ṣṭādr̥ṣṭalābhāya, D, F, I, K (ka), L2, P1, P2 ] S: dr̥ṣṭādr̥ṣṭalābhāḍhya; C, K (kha), L1, N, Penn: dr̥ṣṭādr̥ṣṭārthalābhāya (unmetrical); H (pc): draṣṭadr̥ṣṭilābhāya
To whom are people obedient? To one who speaks what is true and agreeable, and who is humble (57).Where should one be fixed? On the right path, in order to obtain seen and unseen [benefits in this world and the next] (58).
སྲོག་ཆགས་རྣམས་ཀྱི་ཚོགས་དག་ནི༎
གང་གི་དབང་དུ་འགྱུར་ཞེ་ན༎ [34cd]
གང་ཞིག་ཕན་དང་སྙན་སྨྲ་དང༎
དུལ་བར་སྤྱོད་པ་རྣམས་ཀྱིས་སོ༎
སྐྱེས་བུ་ལེགས་པར་འདོད་པ་ཡིས༎
གང་ལ་གནས་པར་བྱ་ཞེ་ན༎ [35]
མཐོང་དང་མ་མཐོང་ཐོབ་བྱའི་ཕྱིར༎
བདེན་པའི་ལམ་ལ་ངེས་གནས་བྱ༎ [36ab]
36a: ཐོབ་བྱའི་ཕྱིར་, G1, G2, N1, N2, P1, P2] C2, D2: བྱ་བའི་ཕྱིར་
Tibetan renders the question in § 58 “Where should a being who seeks to obtain the good ….”
vidyudvilasitacapalaṁkiṁ durjanasaṅgatir yuvatayaś ca |kulaśailaniṣprakampāḥke kalikāle ’pi satpuruṣāḥ || 23 ||vidyudvilasitacapalaṁ, C, F, H, K, L1, L2, N, P1, P2, Penn, S ] D: vidyudvilapitacapalaṁ; I: vidyudvilasitacalaṁ
durjanasaṅgatir, D, F, I, L1, Penn, S ] P1: durjjanaṁ saṁgataṁ; P2: saṁgataṁ durjana; H, K, N: durjanasaṁgataṁ; L2: durjahasaṁgataṁ; C: durjanasaṁgatiś ca
kulaśailaniṣprakampāḥ, F, H, K, N, P2 ] C, D, I, L1, L2, P1, Penn, S: kulaśīlaniṣprakampāḥ
satpuruṣāḥ, C, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, P1, P2, Penn ] S: sajjanā eva
What is unsteady like a flash of lightnening? Association with bad people and young women (59).Who are unshakable like enormous mountains? Those who are noble even in the degenerate Kali age (60).
གློག་ལྟར་མི་བརྟན་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
སྐྱེས་བུ་དམ་པ་ཕྲད་བསྟེན་པའོ༎ [37ab]
རིགས་ཀྱི་རི་ལྟར་མི་གཡོ་གང༎
རྩོད་དུས་སྐྱེས་བུ་དམ་པ་འོ༎ [38cd]
In § 59, it is very odd that Tibetan has “association with good persons” (noted also by Kanakura 1935: 440). It is hard to imagine what the translators read, but perhaps (unmetrically) sujana° in place of durjana°? However, the absence of any equivalent for yuvatayaś ca suggests that their Vorlage may have had an entirely different line here. Note that skyes bu dam pa appears immediately below this in 38d, where it renders satpuruṣa. In § 60, instead of “Kali age” one might understand “time of conflict.” Kula is understood literally in Tibetan with rigs. It would perhaps make better sense to take kalikāle ’pi with the question, but the Tibetan translation clearly takes it with the answer.
kiṁ śocyaṁ kārpaṇyaṁsati vibhave kiṁ praśasyam audāryam |tanutaravittasya tathāprabhaviṣṇor yat sahiṣṇutvam || 24 ||Verse absent in C, D; see below for cd in I, L1, Penn, S
śocyaṁ, F, H, I, K, L1, P1, S ] P2: śocya; Penn: śācyaṁ; L2, N: śaucyaṁ
kārpaṇyaṁ, F, H, I, K, L2, N, P2, Penn ] L1, P1: kāryyaṇyaṁ
kiṁ praśasyam audāryaṁ, F, H, I, K, L2, N, P2 ] L1, Penn, S: kiṁ praśastam audāryaṁ; P1: ki praśasyam audāryyaṁ
tanutaravittasya H, K, N, P1, P2 ] F: na tu gatavittasya (W emends: nanu gatavittasya); L2 tanv ataravittasya
prabhaviṣṇor yat sahiṣṇutvam, F, H, K, N ] P1: prabhaviṣmor yat sahiṣmutvaṁ; L2, P2: prabhuviṣṇor yat sahiṣṇutvaṁ
What is deplorable? Niggardliness when one is wealthy (61). What is praiseworthy? The magnamimityof one who has very little wealth, and likewise the forebearance of one who is powerful (62).
མྱ་ངན་འགྱུར་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
འབྱོར་པ་ཡོད་བཞིན་ཞེན་པ་འོ༎ [36cd]
བསྔགས་པར་བྱ་བ་གང་ཞེ་ན༎
གང་ཞིག་བློ་གྲོས་ཆེ་བ་དང༎ [37cd]
ཤིན་ཏུ་ཉམ་ཆུང་སྟོབས་མེད་ལ༎
ནུས་དང་ལྡན་ཞིང་བཟོད་བྱེད་པའོ༎ [38ab]
36d: ཡོད་བཞིན་, G2, N1, N2, P1, P2] C2, D2: བཞིན་དུ་; G1: ཡོད་ཡིན་
In I, L1, Penn, S, this verse comes below verse 26. They read cd as:
kaḥ pūjyo vidvadbhiḥ svabhāvataḥ sarvadā vinīto yaḥsarvadā, S] Penn: sarvathā; I: sarvaṭhā; L1: sadā
Who should be honored by the wise? One who is by nature always/in every respect humble.
Kanakura 1935: 440 has commented at length on this verse. See Appendix 1 for the continuation of verses in I, L1 and Penn.
cintāmaṇir iva durlabhamiha kiṁ kathayāmi nanu caturbhadraṁ |kiṁ tad vadanti bhūyovidhūtatamaso viśeṣeṇa || 25 ||Omitted in N. Feet cd absent in C, D.
cintāmaṇir, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, P1, P2, Penn, S ] C: maṇir
durlabham iha, D, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, P1, Penn, S ] P2: durllabhaṁ; C: satataṁ
kiṁ kathayāmi, C, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, P1, Penn, S ] P2: kim iha kathayāmi; D: kiṁ kathaye
nanu, F, H, K, L2, P1, P2 ] S: tac; C, I, Penn: ø; L1: te; D: written and cancelled
kiṁ tad vadanti, F, H, K, L2, S ] P2: kiṁ tad vadati; I, L1, Penn: kiṁ tad vadeti; P1: etad vadanti
vidhūtatamaso, H, I, K, L1, L2, P1, Penn (pc), S ] F: ’vidhutamanaso (W: for metre ’vidhūtamanaso); P2: vidhutaṁ tamaso
What is rare here [in the world] like a wish-fulfilling gem? I will tell you: surely the four good things.What are they? Those who have shaken off ignorance speak of these again and again in distinguishing them:
འདི་ན་སྐྱེས་བུས་རྙེད་དཀའ་བའི༎
བཟང་པོ་བཞི་ནི་གང་ཞེ་ན༎ [39ab]
Tibetan has no equivalent to 25cd, and the text proceeds directly to the answer in the next verse. As we saw above with Tibetan verse 19, however, some portion of the original was already lost to the version enshrined in the Tanjurs, so the absence of the line here does not necessarily provide evidence for an original absence from the translation produced by Kamalagupta and Rin chen bzang po. The text, however, is coherent without the missing passage. Note that Weber, who emended the text, understood it rather as: “Nun, und was nennen denn speciell so die, deren Sinn unerschüttert ist.”
dānaṁ priyavāksahitaṁjñānam agarvaṁ kṣamānvitaṁ śauryam |tyāgasahitaṁ ca vittaṁdurlabham etac caturbhadram || 26 ||kṣamānvitaṁ, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, N, P1, P2, Penn, S ] D: kṣamāyuntaṁ; C: kṣamāyutaṁ
tyāgasahitaṁ ca vittaṁ, H, K, N, P1] L2: tyāgasahitaṁ ca cittaṁ; P2: tyāgasahitaṁ ca vittaṁ ca; C, F, S: vittaṁ tyāgasametaṁ; D: vittaṁ tyāgasametaṁ
ca vittaṁ; I, L1, Penn: tyāgasametaṁ vittaṁCharity, accompanied by affectionate speech; knowledge free of pride; valor linked with patience;and wealth accompanied by generosity—these four good things are rare (64).
སྦྱིན་པ་སྙན་སྨྲར་བཅས་པ་དང༎
ཤེས་པ་ཁེངས་པ་མེད་པར་ལྡན༎ [39cd]
བཟོད་པ་བརྩོན་འགྲུས་བཅས་པ་དང༎
སེམས་ནི་རྣལ་འབྱོར་ལྡན་པ་འོ༎ [40ab]
39d: མེད་པར་ལྡན་, G1, N1, N2, P1] C2, D2: མེད་ལྡན་དང་; G2, P2: མེད་པར་ལྟ་
This verse is precisely Hitopadeśa I.156. The Tibetan translation of Sanskrit 26c is discussed in the Introduction, above.
Böhtlingk and Roth 1855–1875: V.194 cite from a scholium on the Mahābhārata (their reference 7.2182, evidently to the Calcutta edition, to which I do not have access) the following verse:
vittaṁ dānasametaṁ jñānam agarvaṁ kṣamānvitaṁ śauryam |bhogaḥ saṅgavihīno durlabham etac caturbhadram ||
The category of caturbhadra is extremely flexible, or rather, the term is used to refer to a variety of elements. Here we have dāna, jñāna, śaurya (kṣamā), vitta (tyāga). As Lindtner 1999: 121–122 mentions, in Nāgārjuna’s Ratnāvalī the four are satya, tyāga, upaśama and prajñā. However, the Mahābhārata provides lists including: kīrti, āyus, yaśas and bala; dharma, jñāna, vairāgya and aiśvarya; dharma, artha, kāma and bala.62 For the present, perhaps it suffices to say that the category caturbhadra is a box into which a wide variety of items may be placed.
Following this verse P2 has: yugmaṁ, indicating that this verse is to be read together with the preceding verse 26.
iti kaṇṭhagatā vimalāpraśnottararatnamālikā yeṣām |te muktābharaṇā ivavibhānti vidvatsamājeṣu || 27 ||Absent in C, D. In S this is verse 67. Before this verse, N has two additional verses, for which see below Appendix 2.
iti kaṇṭhagatā vimalā, I, K, L1, P2, Penn ] S: ity eṣā kaṇṭhasthā; F, H, L2, P1: iti kaṁṭhagatā vimala; N: iti kaṇṭhasthitavimala
te muktābharaṇā iva, S ] F, H, K, L2, P2: te muktābharaṇā api; P1: te muktābharaṇa api; L1, Penn: te muktāmaraṇād api; I: te muktābhāraṇād
vibhānti vidvatsamājeṣu, F, H, I, K, L1, L2, P1, P2, Penn ] S: vimalāś cābhānti satsamājeṣu; N: vibhanti vidvatsamājeṣu
Those who memorize this immaculate small precious garland of questions and answers, keeping it like a precious garland around their necks,will shine among the crowds of the learned as if wearing pearl necklaces.
དྲི་མེད་དྲིས་ལན་རིན་ཆེན་ཕྲེང་བ་འདི༎
གང་གི་མགུལ་ན་ལེགས་པར་ཡོད་གྱུར་ན༎ [40cd]
དེ་ནི་སྐྱེས་བུ་མཁས་པ་འདུས་ནང་དུ༎
མགུལ་གྱི་མུ་ཏིག་རྒྱན་བཞིན་མཛེས་པ་ཡིན༎ [41ab]
In c, the reading iva is supported by Tibetan bzhin, while api is regularly rendered in Tibetan with kyang. If we read api, we might also understand (taking mukta as a participle rather than muktā as pearl): “even having dropped their ornaments”. Perhaps both senses were intended. Note that here again, as with the first verse, Tibetan has chosen a longer metre of 9 syllables per foot.
Appendices
A1 Extra Verses in I, L1 and Penn, Partially Corresponding to Verses in S
Although I give the verses as found in the sources, there is evidently an error in organization, since the metre indicates that the ab feet and the cd feet have somehow been reversed, and perhaps one line at the beginning of the sequence has been lost. Moreover, in some places the metre is problematic and it has not been possible to restore the lines satisfactorily.
kaḥ kulakamaladineśaḥsati guṇavibhave ’pi yo namraḥ |kasya vaśe jagad etatpriyahitavacanasya dharmaniratasya || 28 ||guṇavibhave, L1, Penn, S ] I: vibhavekaṁ
vaśe jagad, S ] L1, Penn: vaṁśajagad; I: vaśaṁ jagad
priyahitavacanasya, Penn, S ] L1: priyasahitavacanasya; I: unclear
dharmaniratasya, L1, S ] Penn: dharmanirata tasya; I: ø
Who is the sun shining on the lotus-flower of his family? One who is humble, even though he is endowed with virtues and wealth.To whom is everyone in the world obedient? To one whose speech is sweet and beneficial, and who is devoted to the Dharma. [28]
paradhanahr̥dayaharā kāsatkavitā vivekavanitā ca |kaṁ na spr̥śati vipattirvr̥ddhavacanānuvartinaṁ dāntam || 29 ||paradhanahr̥dayaharā kā satkavitā vivekavanitā ca, I, L1 ] Penn: paradhanahr̥daharā kā satkavitā vivekavanitā ca; S: vidvanmanoharā kā satkavitā bodhavanitā ca
spr̥śati, I, L1, S ] Penn: spr̥śāti
vr̥ddhavacanānuvartinaṁ ] Ex. conj: I, L1 (pc), Penn: vr̥ddhavacanonuvarttinaṁ; S: pravr̥ddhavacanānuvartinaṁ;
dāntam, S ] I, L1: dātaram; Penn: dātāraṁ
What captures the wealth and the hearts of others? Good poetry and a discerning woman.Whom does misfortune not touch? One [self-]controlled who follows the guidance of the elders. [29]
kasmai spr̥hayati kamalāvimalasacittāya nītivr̥ttāya |tyajati ca kaṁ sahasā dvija-gurunindakaṁ ca sālasyam || 30 ||vimalasacittāya, I, Penn ] L1: vimalasaccaritāya; S: tv analasacittāya
sahasā, Penn, S ] I: sahasāṁ; L1: sahasā sā
dvijagurunindakaṁ, I, L1, Penn ] S: dvijagurusuranindākaraṁ
Whom does Lakṣmī envy? One with a pure mind, whose conduct is proper.And whom does [she] suddenly abandon? One who finds fault with brahmins and gurus, and is slothful. [30]
kutra vidheyo vāsaḥsajjananikaṭe ’thavā kāśyāṁ |kaḥ parihāryo deśaḥpiśunayuto lubdhabhūpaś ca || 31 ||ab in D 16ab.
parihāryo, L1, Penn, S ] I: parihāro
piśunayuto, I, S ] L1: piṣyunayuto; Penn: piśunayutā
Where ought one to have one’s residence? Nearby to good persons, or alternatively, in Varanasi.What location is to be avoided? One filled with slanderers, and [one ruled by] a greedy king. [31]
kenāśocyaḥ puruṣaḥpraṇatakalatreṇa dhīravibhavena |iha bhuvane kaḥ śocyaḥsaty api vibhave na yo dātā || 32 ||kenāśocyaḥ, I, Penn, S ] L1: kiṁ nāśocyaṁ
How does a person become unpitiable? By means of a humble wife and lasting wealth.Who is pitiable here in this world? One who is not a giver despite having wealth. [32]
kiṁ laghutāyā mūlaṁprākr̥tapuruṣeṣu yā yācñā |rāmād api kaḥ śūraḥsmaraśaranihato na calati yaḥ || 33 ||laghutāyā, I, L1, S ] Penn: ghutāyā
calati yaḥ, I, L1, Penn ] S: yaś calati
What is the source of contempt? Begging from vulgar persons.Who is a greater hero even than Rāma? One who, struck by Cupid’s arrows, is not affected. [33]
kim aharniśam anucintyaṁkeśavacaraṇau jagaccalatā |kā ca sabhā parihāryāhīnā yā vr̥ddhasacivena || 34 ||After 34b is entirely different in S, which then has our 34cd as its 37ab; b is difficult to decipher in I, and might read differently
jagaccalatā ] I: ?gaccaṁbalatā; L1, Penn: jagaccaṁcalatā
What should one contemplate day and night? The feet of Kr̥ṣṇa and the unsteadiness of the world.And what assembly is to be avoided? One which is lacking in any senior member. [34]
brūhi sphurati ca kā vāsvabhyastā nirmalā vidyā |prāṇād api ko rakṣyaḥkuladharmaḥ sādhusaṁgaś ca || 35 ||35ab (very difficult to decipher in I): S: ø; 35cd = S 38ab
And tell me, what else shines forth? Spotless knowledge which has been well-rehearsed.What is to be defended even at the cost of life? One’s family duty and contact with the good. [35]
A2 Extra Verses in N
sarvasvāvadhidānaṁniravadhikaruṇā ca janmāvadhidhairyam |iti yo leḍhi triphalāṁna tasya saṁsārikā rogāḥ || 25niravadhikaruṇā ] N: niradhikaruṇā
triphalāṁ ] N: t[r]iphalān
The one who tastes the medicine consisting of three fruits—giving everything, even oneself, endless compassion and life-long fortitude—is not subject to the illness of transmigration.
A metrical problem remains in foot b. The three fruits (triphalā) are harītakī (Chebulic myrobalan, Terminalia chebula Retz.), vibhītaka (Belleric myrobalan, Terminalia bellerica [Gaertn.] Roxb.) and āmalaka (Indian gooseberry, Emblica officinalis = Phyllanthus emblica Linn.). The verse redefines these remedies as medicines for another kind of illness, that of saṁsāra itself.
ko dharmo bhūtadayākiṁ saukhyam arogitā jantoḥ |kaḥ snehaḥ sadbhāvaḥkiṁ pāṇḍityaṁ paricchedaḥ || 26 [metre upagīti]What is the Dharma? Compassion toward beings. What is felicity? The health of beings.What is affection? A good disposition. What is erudition? Discrimination.
A3 Additional Readings from Tanjur Editions of the Tibetan Translation
| 1a |
dri med dris lan] G1, N1, P1: dri med dri lan phreng ba ’di ] G1, N1, P1: phreng ba ni |
| 1b |
nges par ] C2: ngas par gnas gyur na ] G2, N2, P2: gnas ’gyur na |
| 1c |
ma mthong sgrub pa ] G2, N2, P2: ma mthong bsgrub pa |
| 1d |
rgyan du ’gyur ba ] G1, G2, N1, N2, P1, P2: rgyan du gyur ba |
| 2b |
bla ma’i ] G1, N1: blang pa’i |
| 4a |
ring bya ] N2: rig bya |
| 5b |
skyon med pa’o ] N2: med seems to have been added below the line |
| 5d |
gang gi ] N2: gang gis |
| 8b |
log la ] C2: log ya |
| 8c |
mi srun ] G2, N2, P2: mi bsrun |
| 9b |
sred pa ] N2: srod pa |
| 11a |
dpa’ bo ] P1: dpa’ po |
| 11d |
phog par ] P1: phog sar |
| 12d |
blun par ] P1: glun par |
| 13a |
mi bzad ] G2, N2, P2: mi zad |
| 13b |
spyod pa’o ] G2, N2, P2: dpyod pa’o |
| 13c |
sgrin pa ] G2, N2: bsgrim pa; P2: bsgrims pa |
| 13d |
des dral ] G1: de bral; G2, N2, P2: des gral; N1: de dral |
| 14b |
med pa’o ] G1, P1: med pa nyid |
| 16a |
gnyid kyis ] G2: gnyid kyi |
| 16c |
gnyid kyis ] G1: gnyid kyi |
| 21d |
mi slu ] G1, N1, P1: mi bslu |
| 23a |
phongs pa ] P1: phungs pa |
| 24a |
’on par ] G2, N2, P2 resume here with ’on par gyur pa ] G1, P1 ’gyur ba |
| 24d |
gang zhig ] G1, N1, P1: gang gi |
| 25a |
skyes bu’i ] C2, D2, G1, N1, P1: skyes bu ’chi ba ] G1, N1, N2, P1, P2: ’ching ba |
| 25d |
’byin byed pa’o ] C2, D2, G1, G2, N2, P2: byin pa’o |
| 26a |
zug rngur ] N2, P2: zug ngur |
| 26b |
dben par ] G1: dbyen par |
| 27c |
bltos med ] C2, D2: ltos med |
| 27d |
mi srun ] G2, N2, P2: mi bsrun |
| 28a |
gzhan gyi ] P2: gzhan gyis |
| 31a |
glen pa ] P2: glen ba’i ldan pa dang ] G2, N2, P2: zhan pa dang [probably a graphic error] |
| 31b |
mi gzo ba’o ] G2, N2, P2: yi bzo ba’o |
| 31c |
mchod par ] G2: mchod pa |
| 32b |
brtan pa’o ] G2, P2: brten pa’o |
| 32d |
bden par ] C2: bden ba |
| 33b |
bzod pa ] N2, P2: bzod par |
| 33c |
gus pas ] G1, P1, P2: gus par |
| 33d |
gtso bor ] P1: gtsa bor |
| 34d |
gang gi ] G1, N1, P1: gang gis |
| 35d |
gnas par ] G2: gnas pa |
| 37b |
phrad bsten pa’o ] N2, P2: phred bsten pa’o |
| 38a |
nyam chung ] G2, N2, P2: nyams chung |
| 40c |
dris lan ] G2, N2, P2: dri ldan phreng ba ’di, G1, G2, N1, N2, P1] C2, D2, P2: phreng ba ni |
| 40d |
yod gyur na ] G2, N2, P2: yod ’gyur na |
| 41c |
G2, N2, P2 omit from 41c until the title below. brtags nas ] G1: btags nas rnam spong ba’i ] N1, P1: rnams spong ba’i |
| Colophon |
rdzogs so ] N1: rdzogs s.ho lo tsā ba ] G2, N2, P2: lo tstsha ba gtan la ] N1: btan la phab pa’o, G1, G2, N1, N2, P1, P2] C2, D2: phab pa |
The Prakrit text will be published separately by Melinda Fodor.
This study profited in the first place from the presence in Leiden of Csaba Dezső, resident as part of the ERC-funded research project Asia Beyond Boundaries (609823), and Melinda Fodor, here through the auspices of the Gonda Funds of the Netherlands Royal Academy. The text was also read along with a number of my students and others who contributed to our understanding. Kristen de Joseph kindly deciphered the Tilagari manuscript; I am most grateful to Usha Colas Chauhan for her careful transcription of the important manuscript D, written in Telugu script. Among those who participated in our reading group were Channa Li, Yixiu Jiang, Gregory Forgues, Christopher Handy, and Shinko Suzuki. I was later able to revise extensively thanks to the extremely generous help of Peter Szántó. Madhav Deshpande during a visit to Leiden kindly offered valuable hints which, again, assisted my understanding. Finally, a number of corrections were kindly suggested by Jens-Uwe Hartmann, an even greater number by Harunaga Isaacson, and (at least!) one excellent suggestion by Peter Bisschop.
It is perhaps actually mentioned, as a Jaina work either in his possession or that of the Library of the Sanscrit College of Calcutta, for the first time by Wilson 1832: 244, with the spelling Prishnottara Retnamálá.
Foucaux in fact published the text twice; bibliographies imply that its first publication in the Mémoires de l’ Académie des Stanislas of 1867 was simply reproduced in the same year by Maisonneuve, but this is not true. Not only does the second publication include the (handwritten) Tibetan text, and have 7 pages of “Additions et corrections,” it also has at least one change in its text, discussed in the next note. It is this Maisonneuve publication to which Garrez referred (see below).
There is a more than curious comment in the Mémoires version of Foucaux’s edition, on page 57: “Nous avons donné d’ abord le texte sanskrit en séparant chaque demande suivie de la réponse, avec un numéro d’ ordre, comme l’ a fait l’ édition de Bombay. Pour qu’ on retrouve ce texte sous sa véritable forme, c’est-à-dire en stances, il est répété tout entier à la suite de la traduction.” The edition is not in fact followed by any repetition of the text, metrical or otherwise. Moreover, this entire paragraph is replaced in the otherwise identical Maisonneuve publication (p. 8) with the following: “En comparant la version tibétaine qui est en vers, au texte sanskrit qui est en prose, on voit qu’ elle est beaucoup plus développée, ce qui était inévitable à cause de l’ exigence de la mesure. Ceci porterait à croire que le nom donné dans la traduction tibétaine à l’ auteur de la Guirlande des demandes et des réponses n’ est que celui du poëte qui a traduit en vers la prose sanskrite.” It is very hard to understand this, unless it might be that Foucaux, failing to identify the metre, precipitously concluded, sometime before its republication along with the Tibetan text, that the text must after all be in prose.
Garrez is not a fan of Foucaux’s translation. He concludes his review with the following (1867: 506–507), commenting on an additional note of Foucaux (in the Maisonneuve edition) to item 50: “La version tibétaine présentant, au dire de l’ auteur, un sens différent de celui que donne le sanskrit, il propose un changement dans ce dernier tèxte, et en tire une traduction plus conforme, à son avis, au tibétain. Cette traduction est naturellement fausse, puisqu’ elle s’ appuie, d’ un côté, sur une transposition contraire au mètre, et, de l’ autre, sur l’ hypothèse inadmissible qui vidheyâ peut avoir le sens de: à qui il faut donner. Mais je crois trouver dans cette note l’ explication de cetter singulière persistance à ne pas se servir du dictionnaire sanskrit. M. Foucaux a interprété le sanskrit au moyen du tibétain. Le sens que lui a donné la traduction tibétaine, il a voulu le retrouver dans le sanskrit; on ne saurait se rendre compte d’ une autre manière des fautes si graves et si nombreuses qu’ il a commises dans l’ interprétation d’ un texte si court et si simple.” I would simply add that while the text is indeed short, it is perhaps not everywhere as simple as Garrez found it.
The only reference to this figure in Flügel & Krümpelmann 2016: 824b is precisely to Christian 1847. The colophon in the manuscript recorded at
Bhattacarya in 1929, who identifies an entry in a manuscript catalogue as this text, knows Schiefner’s and Foucaux’s editions, and then, apparently independently, again identifies the text as in āryā metre. He refers to an 1848 Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Fort William [sic] by James Prinsep, in which the text is “ascribed to one Guru Asitapaṭa or Guru Jaina Asitapaṭa.” I have been unable to locate any such catalogue of Prinsep. However, Foucaux based his own text on a copy of manuscript 2628 of Fort William, which could be the same. I do not know if either of the two Paris manuscripts used in the present edition is that which served as the base of Foucaux’s edition.
This is a pity since, although I cannot always agree with his conclusions, Kanakura was a thoughtful and careful scholar, and his ideas are certainly worthy of serious consideration. However, his Japanese is slightly archaic, and this may have contributed to the lack of attention his work is paid these days.
The pages in Pathak 1974: 25–32 reproduce his 1958a article, without its edition or sample of the text in translation, but adding a few remarks on the Tibetan translator. Mention might also be made here of Torricelli 1993.
Kanakura 1935: 405, 416–417, discussed this question concerning the addition of the further 40 verses, in which, as he points out, Vedantin content is found, otherwise absent in the portion of the text edited here, and concluded as I have that these verses were added subsequent to the establishment of the core of the text.
Pathak may have consulted editions of the works of Śaṅkara, but this is not absolutely clear.
The New Catalogus Catalogorum (Veezhinathan, Sundaram and Gangadharan 1988: 113–115) lists an impressive number of manuscripts of what in most cases is probably our text (but it clearly confuses it with the identically named work of Śuka, and thus one must examine every reference to ascertain which text is in fact at issue, which is not practical, especially since the Catalogus refers to numerous handwritten lists). It proved impossible, moreover, to obtain copies of most of these. However, at the same time, I did obtain copies of several manuscripts not reported in the Catalogus. It would have been ideal at the least to have a geographical representation of manuscripts, but this was also not possible. In particular, a manuscript from Kashmir would be helpful, but it is at the same time unlikely to produce anything surprising. That said, the variance of D indeed suggests that a wider survey might yet yield some surprises.
Here and below my knowledge about the language of the interlinear notes comes through the kindness of Dhaval Patel (email 20 X 2018), to whom my thanks are due. Note, however, that others have suggested the language as Old Hindi. Being entirely ignorant of both, I cannot offer more.
The sources of this edition are noted as follows: praśnottararatnamālāyāḥ pustakadvayam asmābhir āsāditam. tatra prathamam ekapattrātmakaṁ śuddhaṁ saṁvegisādhuśrīśāntivijayamunibhir dattaṁ ka-saṁjñakam. dvitīyaṁ pattradvayātmakaṁ śuddhaṁ bhagavāndāsaśreṣṭhinā kevaladāsātmajena suratanagarāt prahitaṁ kha-saṁjñakaṁ jñeyam. I distinguish these sources as cited in the edition as ka and kha.
The text is preceded by namaḥ saṁbhave and the following verse (meter Vasantatilakā); with the corrections of Harunaga Isaacson, it reads:
astokavistr̥tam apāstasamastamoham
astāvi yac ca nigamais tamasaḥ parastāt |
yad dhvastaduḥkhacayam astamitaprapañcam
tad vastu nistulamude ’stu mama praśastaṁ ||
This seems to be the item listed by Cabaton 1907: 152 as item 924, though he says it is 11 folia. The manuscript is dated: iti śrīpraśnottararatnamālā samāptāḥ || saṁvat 1823 varṣe miti āgrahāyanasudī 11 tithau ravivāsare, that is December 22, 1901 (Sunday).
This seems to be the manuscript listed by Filliozat 1936: 135, MS 1605: item 180 in his list.
These are identical; both contain 67 verses, that is, the “longer” version of the text, which is evidently our recension with the addition of sometimes clearly “Hindu” content. Most popular translations of the text render this longer version, or some abbreviation thereof.
The texts read as follows: rgya gar skad du | bi ma la pra shno ta ta ra ratna mā li nā ma || . Three (obviously related) versions have a slightly different reading: G2, N2, P2: bhi ma la pra shod tra ra ratna ma ma le nā ma.
With the following variants: dris lan] N2: ’dris lan. P1 reads the whole: dri med dri lan rin chen phreng ba bzhugs so ||. When the title appears at the end directly before the colophon, there are no variants, however: dri ma med pa’i dris lan rin po che’i phreng ba zhes bya ba || .
Notice the comment of Martin 2008: 16 a propos Rin chen bzang po: “The Tibetan translations he made are often admired for their close adherence to the Indian texts, but they reproduce the original grammar and syntax to a degree that makes their comprehension very difficult—difficult that is without resorting to oral explanations and/or written commentaries—for Tibetans who might be unable to read through the Tibetan words to the words of the Indian original.”
Variants:
slob dpon ] G2, N2, P2: slob dpon chen po
rdzogs so ] N1: rdzogs s.ho
lo tsā ba ] G2, N2, P2: lo tstsha ba
gtan la ] N1: btan la
phab pa’o, G1, G2, N1, N2, P1, P2] C2, D2: phab pa
This translation basically follows Cordier 1915: 344 (mdo-ḥgrel XXXIII.35) and 483 (mdo-ḥgrel CXXIII.31). Cordiner offers Amoghodaya (as had Schiefner 1858: 22), with the notation that reading char in place of ’char suggests Amoghavarṣa. The latter is certainly better in light of Sanskrit sources. Kanakura 1935: 418–419, in my view absurdly, rejects this, which leads him to refuse to recognize the Jaina origins of the text translated into Tibetan. The name Amoghodaya, in my view, although sometimes cited, should be considered a ghost. See below.
Without Rin chen bzang po, Kamalagupta together with Lha Ye shes rgyal mtshan is credited with renditions of the Vajrahr̥dayālaṅkāratantra (D 451), Dvikramatattvabhāvanā (D 1853), and Ratnavr̥kṣa-nāma-rahasyasamājavr̥tti (D 1846). With Bsod nams rgyal ba, he is said to have translated the Las dang po pa’i dam tshig mdor bsdus pa (D 3726).
See Sørensen 1994: 455–456n1673. I owe this reference and the list of translations to Dan Martin’s invaluable TibSkrit.
See conveniently
Identified and edited in Takeuchi and Iuchi 2016: 71 as catalogue entry 107. I owe my thanks to Sam van Schaik for providing me with high resolution color photos which enabled me to reread the leaves, but it must be noted that it was primarily my possession of a collated edition of the text which allowed me improve even very slightly indeed the fine decipherment of Takeuchi and Iuchi.
Given the near identity of the date of translation and the closing of the manuscript cave at Dunhuang, it is entirely expected that no evidence is to be found there.
Takeuchi and Iuchi 2016: 7. “The majority (253 out of 285) of the Tibetan manuscripts from Khara-khoto were taken from [this] site.”
Taking a clue from the indications in Takeuchi and Iuchi 2016: 9, 11–13.
Looking at fully preserved folia, the manuscript numbered 208 in Takeuchi and Iuchi 2016 has the dimensions 10.2 × 66.1 cm; 209 is 12.5 × 61.0; 267 is 7.6 × 61.1; and 277 is 5.5 × 61.6. Therefore, the reconstructed dimensions are plausible at this site.
As one example, in the Tibetan translation of Kālidāsa’s Meghadūta (Beckh 1907: 5.3), never to be confused with a Buddhist work, following the title we nevertheless find: yang dag par rdzogs pa’i sangs rgyas gsung gi dbang phyug la phyag ’tshal lo.
I was greatly assisted by Berthe Jansen in deciphering and interpreting these.
My thanks to Dan Martin for his help here.
Once again I am profoundly indebted to Dan Martin for his help here.
Schiefner 1858: 25 offered, without comment: “Wer ist der Weise, der Armuth vernichtet? Der gegen alle Gabenreiche.” Others, as far as I see, do not comment at all, including Kanakura 1935 [1944]: 436.
The reference characters are taken from the table “Akṣara List of the Manuscript of the Abhidharmadīpa (ca. the 11th Century, Collection of Sanskrit Mss. Formerly Preserved in the China Ethnic Library),” © 2009, Research Institute of Sanskrit Manuscripts & Buddhist Literature, Peking University, prepared by Saerji 萨尔吉. A Śāradā manuscript of the Praśnottararatnamālikā is in fact referred to in Aufrecht’s 1892 catalogue of the library in Florence, page 152, item 430 (14), on folio 261b.
I owe this insight to Peter Szántó.
The following example is drawn from: “Akṣara List of the Manuscript of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra, (1082 CE, Collection of Sanskrit Mss. Formerly Preserved in the China Ethnic Library),” © 2005 Research Institute of Sanskrit Manuscripts&Buddhist Literature, Peking University, prepared by Ye Shaoyong 叶少勇.
I have reference to another copy in the same edition, but could not obtain a copy: D1: 4499, jo bo’i chos chung, gi 75b4–77a5. I do not know where the other copy would also be in the Cone edition, but given the availability of so many witnesses, it does not seem a crucial omission.
In our sources, the verse is in H, K, P1, P2. Variants:
vimalā ] K (ka): vimalena
vimaleti ratnamāleva ] P2: vimaleva ratnamāleṇa; H & Sastri 1890, 378: vimalena ratnamāleva
praśnottaramāleyaṁ ] P2: praśnottaramāleṇa; H: praśnottara⟨margin: ratna⟩māleyaṁ
bhūṣayati ] H: bhūṣayaṁti
This, incidentally, brings out what is at least the same play on words, if it is not an actual śleṣa, that appears in the first true verse of the text with the same, or almost the same, word, here kaṇṭhagata, in verse 1 kaṇṭhasthita.
In the anonymous 1910 edition of the works of Śaṅkara, the text is followed by: iti śrīmatparamahaṁsaparivrājakācāryasya śrīgovindabhagavatpūjyapādaśiṣyasya śrīmacchaṅkarabhagavataḥ kr̥tau praśnottararatnamālikā saṁpūrṇā.
In a message to the Indology list on 29 August, 2018, David Reigle wrote: “each of the maṭhas started by Śaṅkarācārya has a long line of adhipatis up to the present. Each adhipati also has the title Śaṅkarācārya. So there have been many Śaṅkarācāryas after Ādi Śaṅkarācārya. The idea, then, is that the majority of the more than 400 works attributed to Śaṅkarācārya are actually by later Śaṅkarācāryas, not by Ādi Śaṅkarācārya, even though they are usually taken to be by Ādi Śaṅkarācārya.”
It is evident here, as discussed above, that we must read rather char, not ’char.
In which, reading sudhiyā, he rendered “learned king,” also a possibility.
This is not the only example of this type of logic. Barnett 1928: 1239 says of the author he calls Vimala-Chandra Sūri that he is the author of a “Praṣnottara-ratna-mālā. A Jaina catechism in 30 verses, by Vimala[-chandra], the latter being a name traditionally believed to have been assumed by the Rāshṭrakūṭa king Amogha-varsha on entering the religious life.”
K.B. Pathak himself (1902, a paper delivered in 1898) had already implicitly indicated some of the problems encountered by such reasoning. By reminding readers that “A few years ago I discovered a small Jaina work entitled Praśnôttararatnamâlâ,” and citing Fleet 1883, he indicates his ignorance of the earlier European publications of the text. Aware, however, of Schiefner’s work (apparently only secondarily through Bhandarkar 1895: 68–69*), after quoting the same verse, and noting that several editions of the text have been published in Bombay (no references are given), he goes on: “It is variously attributed to Śaṅkarâchârya, Śankarânanda, and a Śvêtâmbara writer named Vimala. But the royal authorship of the Ratnamâlâ is confirmed by a Thibetan translation of it discovered by Schiefner, in which the author is represented to have been a king and his Thibetan name, as re-translated into Sanskrit by the same scholar, is Amôghavarsha. This work was composed between Śaka 797–799; in the former year Nr̥ipatuṅga abdicated in favour of his son Akâlavarsha.”
* It is curious that although Bhandarkar 1895: 69n2 refers to Weber’s edition, this name is not even mentioned by Pathak. Perhaps he had no access to it?
This is not the only source; the same verse is found in our manuscript H. In foot c, °ratna° is added in the margin before °māleyaṁ, and kaṁ is ‘corrected’ to kiṁ. The text printed in K ends: iti śrīvimalaviracitā praśnottararatnamālā. The vr̥tti of Devendra (see below) also attributes the text to Vimalacandrasūri.
Gāndhī 1949 also comes to the conclusion that the author was Vimalasūri. I extend my great thanks to my colleague Abhishek Avtans for reading and summarizing this Hindi article for me.
Pavolini writes: “Manca il primo foglio. Con un commento bh[āṣa] molto diffuso e con numerose citazioni di strofe s.e. di titoli di novelle.” Not in Flügel & Krümpelmann 2016 under the author’s name, but mentioned sv Praśnottararatnamālā, p. 612b. This and the other commentaries noted here are also cited, with references to manuscript catalogues (mostly inaccessible, including many handwritten lists), in Velankar 1944: 276 and Veezhinathan, Sundaram and Gangadharan 1988: 114.
Flügel & Krümpelmann 2016: 494b–495a.
Among other manuscripts of this text, one is found in St. Petersberg, and according to its catalogue (Mironov 1918: 154, MS 201), it is superior to that catalogued by Weber. Three verses are quoted to illustrate this.
My sincere thanks to Madhav Deshpande for bringing this edition to my notice, and sending me its electronic copy.
This is catalogued by Dalāl 1923: 10 as item 90, who quotes the beginning and end, but the portion he edits does not at first glance appear to refer directly to our text. Two authors with the name Hemaprabhasūri appear in Flügel & Krümpelmann 2016: 954a; the reference is evidently to the first, pupil of Devendrasūri, but if Flügel & Krümpelmann 2016: 496 are correct, this figure is distinct from the Devendra mentioned above.
L2 has praśnottararatnapaddhatiṁ, making the verse an āryā.
P1: devaṁ daivādhipaṁ prathamaṁ.
Variant: ’jam dpal ] G1, N1, P1 [all of which start here]: ’phags pa ’jam dpal, that is, prefixing Ārya-.
Kanakura 1935: 399 also mentions the case of the Vajrasūcī, transmitted as both a Buddhist and Hindu text, although in this case evidently borrowed from one tradition to the other.
With the exception of the first and last verses, the Tibetan is rendered in lines of 7 syllables. When necessary, I add a tsheg to clarify the metre even between syllables that are normally written together, typically ba’o. This is interesting in light of the observation of Hahn 2007: 306: “an āryā stanza is usually rendered by 4 × 9 syllables because only then is it possible to give a complete translation in which each Sanskrit word has a Tibetan equivalent.” This is manifestly not the case in our text, with the exception of the first and last verses, as noted below.
After commenting that Foucaux’s edition, by altering the sandhi of the original, which he did not recognize to be in verse, “disfigures” the text, Garrez 1867: 504 goes on (without, of course, knowing of the existence of the reading I have adopted, nanv anudyogaḥ): “Cette … erreur a excercé une influence fâcheuse sur la traduction française. Ainsi le § 14 est rendu: “Qui est un ennemi? Celui qui ne fait aucun effort (yas tvanudyogaḥ).” Il fallait traduire, sans se préoccuper de la tournure relative, qui n’ est employée ici que pour le mètre: Quel est l’ ennemi? Le manque d’ énergie. On obtient ainsi, au lieu d’ un non-sens, une idée familière aux poëtes indiens.” He then refers in a note to a passage from Bhartr̥hari (he calls it II.74), which I believe to be the following (Kosambi 2000: 86, verse 216):
ālasyaṁ hi manuṣyāṇāṁ śarīrastho mahāripuḥ |
nāsty udyamasamo bandhuḥ kr̥tvā yaṁ nāvasīdati ||
This is rendered freely by Kennedy 1913: 79 (verse 86 for him) as: “Mankind’s great enemy is idleness. There is no friend like energy, and if you cultivate that you will never fail.”
And on this basis also in the modern Subhāṣitaratnabhāṇḍāgāram, Āchārya 1952: 171, vs. 790, and elsewhere.
Unfortunately Lindtner’s idiosyncratic article does not really further explore these categories.
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