A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.s2.3

c18.s2.3

This is the limit of our certainty. Hertel's² unrelenting and fruitful labours led him to conclude that all these sources went back to a defective original (styled by him *t*), but it is clear that this is unproved. Further, he held that these four sources ought to be reduced to two, the *Tantrākhyāyika* original and ‘K’, the source of the other three groups, and in part of version β of the *Tantrākhyāyika* itself. This again is implausible, and the result is important, because it follows that the occurrence of any story in any two of the four versions is a strong reason for assigning it to the original text, whereas on Hertel’s view significance of this kind only applies to occurrence both in the *Tantrākhyāyika* and one of the ‘K’ version. Nor is there any adequate ground for Hertel’s further assumption of another intermediate archetype, ‘N.-W.’, from which the Pahlavi, the Southern *Pañcatantra* group, and the Simplicior are descended. Further, the priority of recension of the *Tāntrākhyāyika* is implausible; its omissions, which Hertel held of great importance in re-establishing the original text, are frequently not a proof of fidelity to the ultimate source, but are secondary; the recension which makes them good is thus as valuable, if not more so, than recension *a*. Fortunately, despite these divergences of opinion, we can be assured of the possibility of reconstructing the substance of the original. Edgerton accepts all of the stories held original by Hertel as genuine, and of those which he adds Hertel merely holds five doubtful and two certainly unoriginal. His grounds in no case are convincing, and the disputed tales are, probably enough, to be ascribed to the primary *Pañcatantra*.