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The Mahābhārata. Vol. 5. The Virāṭaparvan by Vishnu S. Sukthankar; Raghu Vira; The Mahābhārata. Vol. 6. The Udyogaparvan by Vishnu S. Sukthankar; Sushil Kumar De Review by: M. B. Emeneau Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 62, No. 3 (Sep., 1942), pp. 205-206 Published by: American Oriental Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/594139 . Accessed: 16/06/2014 04:14 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . American Oriental Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the American Oriental Society. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 04:14:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

The Mahābhārata. Vol. 5. The Virāṭaparvanby Vishnu S. Sukthankar; Raghu Vira;The Mahābhārata. Vol. 6. The Udyogaparvanby Vishnu S. Sukthankar; Sushil Kumar De

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Page 1: The Mahābhārata. Vol. 5. The Virāṭaparvanby Vishnu S. Sukthankar; Raghu Vira;The Mahābhārata. Vol. 6. The Udyogaparvanby Vishnu S. Sukthankar; Sushil Kumar De

The Mahābhārata. Vol. 5. The Virāṭaparvan by Vishnu S. Sukthankar; Raghu Vira; TheMahābhārata. Vol. 6. The Udyogaparvan by Vishnu S. Sukthankar; Sushil Kumar DeReview by: M. B. EmeneauJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 62, No. 3 (Sep., 1942), pp. 205-206Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/594139 .

Accessed: 16/06/2014 04:14

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This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 04:14:59 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: The Mahābhārata. Vol. 5. The Virāṭaparvanby Vishnu S. Sukthankar; Raghu Vira;The Mahābhārata. Vol. 6. The Udyogaparvanby Vishnu S. Sukthankar; Sushil Kumar De

Reviews of Books 205

The MIahibhdirata. For the first time critically edited by VISHNU S. SUKTHAN:KAR. Vol. 5. The Virdtaparvan, being the fourth book ... critically edited by RAGHU VIRA. [Fascicule 8 of the whole work.] Pp. lxii + 363, 4 plates. Poona: BHANDARKAR ORIENTAL RE- SEARCH INSTITUTE, 1936. Vol. 6. The Udyo- gaparvan, being the fifth book . . . critically edited by SUSHIL KUMAR DE. [Fascicules 9 and 10 of whole work.] Pp. lvi + 739, 3 plates. Poona: BHANDARKAR ORIENTAL IN- STITUTE, 1940 (fascicule 9 issued in 1937).

Earlier fascicules of this magnificent edition, those making up the Adiparvan, were issued from 1927 to 1933 and reviewed in JAOS 48.186-90; 49.282-4; 51. 179-80; 52. 252-4; 56. 360-2. Pro- gress on that first volume was slow, justifiably con- sidering the critical and technical problems that had to be solved. The editorial policy of handing over the preparation of some of the subsequent books to other outstanding Sanskritists has speeded up publication very considerably, for we now have the two volumes listed at the head of this review and the first fascicule (510 pages) of the Aranya- kaparvan which is reviewed elsewhere in this issue. The period from 1933 to 1941 saw 1730 pages published, against the 1115 pages of the Adiparvan. Nor has the faster rate of publication and the method by which it has been achieved resulted in poorer quality. The same superlatives must be used in speaking of the methods and the results seen here as were universally applied to the several fascicules of the Adiparvan, for the technical methods are the same throughout the whole epic and the critical methods are equally uniform throughout. Other books are completely or almost ready for the press and are held up only by lack of funds and printing facilities. When the great epic has been critically edited in its entirety, the edition will stand as a monumental achievement of brilliant and accurate scholarship of which India can be proud, and as a testimony of the loving care for things of the spirit on which India has long prided herself.

The two books here reviewed both present much of interest. The Virdtaparvan is that book of the whole epic which shows the greatest divergence between the Northern and the Southern recensions. Within each of these major recensions there is a fair uniformity of text. But the Southern re- dactors have produced a text which is longer than

that of the Northern traditions in the proportion of 35 to 22. 'In S[outhern recension] every item of any consideration has an inflated character as compared with N[orthern recension]. It leaves nothing unsaid, it anticipates too much, thus lead- ing to partial repetitions. It accounts for inci- dents which are simply mentioned or passed over in silence in N. It is the Northern text plus comment and extension in the same literary form and style as the original' (xvii). 'Out of a total of 1834 stanzas of the constituted text the editor is sure for only about 300 stanzas. The rest bear the wavy line, either for a part or for the whole, an indication that the manuscripts do not permit a clear view of the common source. And then, for one-fourth of the entire extent of the Virdta, the sequence of stanzas, connected or even disconnected with the order of events, is far from certain ' (xxvi). In contrast with this, for the Udyoga- parvan the two recensions are on the whole close to one another, there is no significant difference in length, inserted passages do not carry the two recensions far from one another, and the wavy line is not too conspicuous.

The Udyogaparvan contains, in adhyayas 42-5, the subparvan called Sanatsujataparvan (also San- atsujitlya). This small philosophical treatise shows many more divergences between versions than most of the rest of this book. Its text is based in general on agreement between three of the Northern versions (9dradd, Kashmir!, and Bengali) and one of the Southern versions (Malay-

lam)a; this is the type of text commented on by Devabodha, Arjunamisra, and Sarvajia Narayana, and represented by the Javanese version. One Northern version (Devandgari) and two Southern (Telugu, Grantha) likewise agree with one another in presenting longer reworkings. The Telugu- Grantha version was that followed by the commen- tary on the Sanatsujdtaparvan which is attributed to the great garhkara (Professor De does not go further than 'probably' in accepting the attri- bution, though he notes, of course, that the use of this version would be quite consonant with the attribution). Finally, we remember not onlv that the books of the Alahdbhhrata have a separate and independent textual life (manuscripts usually con- tain only one book or a group of a few books), but we can also note that such parts of the epic as the Bhagavadgita and the Sanatsujdtaparvan tend to have a fully or partially independent textual

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Page 3: The Mahābhārata. Vol. 5. The Virāṭaparvanby Vishnu S. Sukthankar; Raghu Vira;The Mahābhārata. Vol. 6. The Udyogaparvanby Vishnu S. Sukthankar; Sushil Kumar De

206 Reviews of Books

history; the text commented on by gaihkara for the Sanatsujdtaparvan has had direct influence on some of the Devandgarl manuscripts merely because of the prestige of the commentary, and verses from it were indiscriminately interpolated byr Nilakantha in constituting the inclusive text (essentially of the Devanagar! type) on which he based his commentary.

It is the custom of reviewers of these fascicules to show cause why various passages should or should not have received the wavy line. I can attempt to do so only for a passage in the Udyoga- parvan, 5. 126. 1a. As constituted in the edition, it reads:

visetia sarpabandhais ca yatitdh pandavds tvaya sarvopayair vinmasya na samrddhaTh caa tat tava

'you attempted to destroy the Pdndavas by all means, by poison and by . . . (sarpabandhais); but you did not succeed in that.' The wavy line is used under sarpabandhais' ca ya-, rather over- scrupulously, as I think. All the variants given seem to be lectiontes faciliores, due to the fact that sarpabandha is a Jira4r, kcyo/LJEvov (except for the imitative passage cited below) whose meaning is not too clear; they all in some way divide it into two words. Roy's translation interpreted the word 'with snakes and cords,' which is reminiscent of some of the easier readings and is not very satis-

factory. BR says ' Schlangenfessel so v. a. List, ein hinterlistiges M1ittel,' which is more satis- factory, but clearly a guess based on the context. Nilakantha does not gloss the word.

I can add nothing to the interpretation of the word. However, a clear reminiscence of the verse in Ksemendra's Brhatkathdmafijarl (first half of 11th cent. and earlier than any of the textual evi- dence for the epic passage) guarantees that sarpa- bandha is a unit word and makes the wavy line unnecessary. Ksemendra's verse is:'

bhoga roga visaii ves'ma sarpabandhas ca bandhavah

dagdhdranyaih jagac ce 'daiih viyogavyap- tacetasdm

'enjoyments are diseases, a dwelling is poison, relatives are " snake-fetters," and this world is a burnt forest to men whose minds are filled with loniging for their beloved.' The reminiscence is obvious (cf. visena sarpabandhais' and visarn . . . sarpabandhas), and strong evidence for my view of the Udyogaparvan passage.

M1. B. EMENEAU UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

1 I give it as I read it in my unpublished critical edition of the Vetalapaiicavimsati in Ksemendra's ver- sion, story 13, vs. 12. There is no ins. variation for the word in which we are interested.

The Wilbour Papyrus. Edited by ALAN H. GARDINER. Volume I, Plates. Published for the Brooklyn Museum at the Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1941.1

The authorities of the Brooklyn Museum have done well in asking Alan HT. Gardiner to edit this important manuscript. The task was difficult and laborious, and no one has ever been better quali- fied for it.

The Wilbour Papyrus contains two very long administrative documents dated by Gardiner to the reign of Ramses V, about 1150 B. c. The longer of the two, text A, fills more than one hun(Ired columns. This is a list of temple, royal, and other (2) ' lands. giving as a rule the area of

The publication is dedicated to the memory of the American Egyptologist Charles Edwin Wilbour (1833- 1896).

2 MAxalny of the estates listed are mortuary endowments

each tract, the revenue in grain (received by the crown?) per unit of area, and the total revenue. The periods of time mentioned in A 21. 16; 44. 1; and 75. 1 (fifteenth day of the second month to first day of the third month) would fall in the last two-thirds of July, consequently the quantities of grain listed are probably actual receipts for the specified periods.

The other document, B. contains in twenty-five columns a list of royal lands 'under the control' of kings and other royal persons. One (A 9. 18) is the endowment ( m wlwg) of a deceased vizir. That miwg means ' endownient ' was perhaps first recognized by Breasted, Ancient records of Egypt 2. ?? 925-6 (Chicago, 1906); this interpretation (ignored by Mi11er, Sitzungs- berichte der Preussischen Akademie der IVissenschaften 47. 93.5 [1910], by Spiegelberg, Zeitschrift fitr dgyptische Sprache 56. 56 [191S] . ind by Elrnan-Grapow, Wiirter- bitch der aegyptischen Sprache 2. 28 [Leipzig, 1927]) seenis to be the only one possible in the Wilbour )assage.

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