Pieces and Parts in Scientific Texts by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783319784670
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Fig. 7.7Ms. 57106/416, National Museum, New Delhi

Mostly, however, commentaries composed on a particular text are not transmitted ‘on’ it, in the sense that their text follows upon the full basic text in the same manuscript or is written section by section after the graphically distinguished portions of the basic text to which they refer, as is very frequently the case in modern printed editions. The regular scribal practice thus reveals an authorial attitude, namely, that the commentators presumed the knowledge of the memorized reference text on the part of their readers or its availability otherwise. The usual practice of the commentators is to refer to the reference text with short quotations of the first word or words of the textual segment on which they are about to comment, the so-called pratīka-s. These short quotations of segment-initial words probably evoked the memorized text segment immediately and were much more efficient in this respect than the reference by means of a numbered generic segment name, complete with an indication of its segment-hierarchical context,130 or even by means of some content-related lower-level segment designation. Alternatively, the commentators may quote individual words—literally or grammatically adjusted to the syntactical context of their comments, or extracted from longer nominal compounds—or phrases for comment, explanation or glossing. Both modes of reference to the basic text are seen, for example, with the oldest completely preserved commentary on the Carakasaṃhitā by Cakrapāṇidatta (eleventh century).131 Even though his Āyurvedadīpikā is a rather extensive commentary , only a fraction of the basic text is documented in this way in its text as found in the manuscripts. The same applies to Uddyotakara’s sixth-century commentary on the Nyāyabhāṣya , and many more examples could be adduced. Sometimes, especially in the case of sūtra-s , the complete text commented upon may indeed be quoted in a commentary, but is not necessarily graphically distinguished from the running text of the commentary. This is the case of embedded transmission of a text—graphically and linguistically—addressed above, with the example of the transmission of the Nyāyasūtra embedded in the Nyāyabhāṣya .132

As already mentioned, the editors of commentaries in modern editions often print the full reference text on top of the page, and beneath it the text of the commentary relating to it, including the partially quoted reference text. Similarly, they insert chunks of the full reference text between larger portions of a commentary on a series of stanzas , sūtra-s or other segments of the basic text that are only partially quoted or otherwise referenced in the commentary . These practices, meant for the convenience of the reader, occasionally result in a misleading and confusing picture, which is not always detected as such by the reader, when it turns out upon closer inspection that the commentator does not refer to exactly the same reference text, in terms of its precise wording and constitution, as the one printed along with it. They thus reflect a disregard or ignorance of historical developments of the basic text in the course of its transmission .

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