On the Aindra School of Sanskrit Grammarians, their Place in the Sanskrit and Subordinate Literatures c8.97

c8.97

But the existence of several recensions of a text is not confined to the epic poetry of India; we find it to be the case with purely literary compositions by historic personages, *e.g.* Kālidāsa; the existence of two recensions of one play, the Çākuntala, has long been known, and they have been discussed by Dr. Pischel in an elaborate essay⁴). He inclines to consider the Bengālī recension to be the best. The existence of different recensions of other dramatic poems is also established. The causes of this are obscure; errors of copyists and the usual causes of various readings are insufficient to account for such differences as we find in the Çakuntalā, even though (as in this case) they have been at work for an unusually long period. In all probability these causes are to be sought in the difference of the æsthetic (or rather rhetorical) ideals of the different parts of India, and which have already been mentioned above. Dr. Pischel¹) has severely criticized Profr. Monier Williams' statement that "the bold and nervous phraseology of Kālidāsa has been either emasculated or weakened" which is certainly not what one would expect from the Gauḍa style as defined by Indian rhetoricians²); but the long passages in the third act of the Bengālī recension where (says Profr. Monier Williams)—"the love-scene between the king and Çakuntalā has been expanded to five times the length it occupies in the Devanāgarī recension, and the additions are just what an indelicate imagination might be expected to supply³)"—are certainly interpolations. Dr. Pischel has shown the origin of several of the readings of the Devanāgarī recension, and proved that they are inferior to those of the Bengālī or Gauḍa recension; yet, it is evident that the last-mentioned recension does not present an immaculate text. But there is a third recension, that of the Grantha MSS., which seems preferable to either the Devanāgarī or Gauḍa recensions; if those be taken to represent the result of the action of the Vaidarbha and Gauḍa æsthetical notions upon the original text, it is certain that the Grantha MSS. have preserved many readings preferable to either, and which do not in any way show traces of the Vaidarbha style, though the Grantha text is nearest to the Devanāgarī.