Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
John Brough
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 16, No. 2.
(1954), pp. 351-375.
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Tue May 1 20:43:50 2007
By JOHN
BROUGH
HEN Buddhist works in Sanskrit were first introduced into Europe, it was
at once obvious that the language of some of them as it appears in the
manuscripts was, in comparison with Classical Sanskrit, frequently ungrammatical, and on occasion barbarously so. The immediate and natural reaction
of scholars accustomed to the regularity of Sanskrit was to stigmatize these
shortcomings, and to attempt to remove as many irregularities as possible by
forcibly emending the text. I t was, however, very soon recognized that many
of the seeming anomalies could not be abolished, and that they must be accepted
as genuine in their own context. This was especially clear in the case of the
verses of some of the older texts, where the metre often guaranteed nonPiiqinean forms ; and the language of these verses, variously called the Giithiidialect, mixed Sanskrit, or hybrid Sanskrit, was recognized as something in its
own right. The same courtesy was readily extended to the prose of the Mahivastu, which in places could only have been made to resemble Sanskrit by
completely rewriting the text. The prose of the other texts, being in many ways
virtually Sanskrit, took considerably longer to win the same recognition ; but
for many years now it has been generally admitted that here also is a language
which must be judged according to its own standards, and not exclusively by
the canons of classical Sanskrit grammar.
I t is possible, however, for an editor to accept all this in principle, and yet
to be in serious doubt when trying to establish a text ; for unless he has a
grammatical norm against which to measure his text, he is unable to apply the
diagnostic test of grammatical abnormality, which in classical Sanskrit or in
Latin would often provide the first hint that a passage is probably corrupt.
Hitherto, editors have had to make shift with the classical grammar and
dictionary, supplemented by their own memory of other Buddhist texts. But
the lack of a systematic study of Buddhist Sanskrit has frequently resulted in
over-correction by editors, and a considerable number of the published texts
really require re-editing.
I n these circumstances it is a matter of great satisfaction to all who are concerned in this field that Professor Franklin Edgerton has now published a grammar and dictionary of Buddhist Sanskrit.1 This is a major work, the fruit of many
years' careful study, and it must remain for a long time to come a vade mecum
for future editors of Buddhist texts. Indeed, it is probably not an exaggeration
to say that it may well determine for a generation the attitude of young editors
towards their texts. For this reason I should like to discuss a number of
questions arising out of the work in rather more detail than is customary in
a review. But I would ask the reader to remember that, although some of these
1 Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary ; and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Reader.
Yale University Press, 1953. See also below, p. 421.
VOL. XVI. PART 2.
25
352
J. BROUGH
References in figures with no other indication are to the sections of the Grammar.
353
goes to the other extreme, and in the preface to the Reader he propounds a
principle for editors : ' Any non-Sanskritic form presented in the MSS. must,
in general, be regarded as closer to the original form of the text than a " correct "
Sanskrit variant '. The term ' non-Sanskritic '-which would cover all sorts of
copyists' blunders-is modified a few lines later into ' Middle Indic or semiMiddle Indic '. Even this, however, seems to me to go much too far. On some
occasions, which we shall note below, apparently middle-Indian forms can very
easily result from scribal error ; and in some contexts (in the semi-kivya style,
for example) any markedly non-Sanskrit form would be highly improbable.
We shall return to this point later. Edgerton adds that this principle is not to
be applied mechanically ; that the context, as well as variant manuscript
readings, will vary from case to case, and each must be separately studied.
My fear is that, from excessive reaction against earlier editions, editors may
not take this caveat sufficiently to heart, and that we may have a crop of bad
editions comparable to the notorious edition of the Xvayarnbhupuriqa, where
the Brahman editor, considering that Buddhists could not be expected to write
good Sanskrit, seems to have put into his text deliberately numerous copyists'
errors from the manuscripts.
It seems to me that Edgerton throughout rather underestimates the degree
of accidental transmissional corruption which our texts may have suffered,
and many of his notes seem to imply that at least the archetype of our manuscripts must be correct, except in those places where more Sanskritic forms
have been intentionally introduced. I t may be that an unreasoning confidence
in the accuracy of the scribe's hand and eye is traditional in these studies ; for
in 1916 we find Liiders writing l: ' For sragsitavin the Nepalese MSS. read
sagiritavan. The correct reading undoubtedly is sragsitavi~a,but it is difficult
to understand how this should have been replaced by sagiritavin, unless we
assume that the original reading was a Prakrit form, such as, e.g. sagsitavi.
This has been correctly Sanskritized into sragsitava?~
in the fragment, whereas
in the Nepalese version it was wrongly rendered by sagiritavin '. This is
incredible as an argument ; and indeed it does not require much experience
of Nepalese manuscripts to realize that sragsitavin could hardly fail to be read
and transcribed by some copyist or other as sagiritavin, and that a reconstruction from the Prakrit need not enter into the picture here at all. Before it
could have any force, Luders' argument would require assent to the proposition that all textual corruption is interpolation, a dogma of scribal infallibility which few editors would care to hold.
Some of Edgerton's conclusions seem to depend upon a rather similar faith
in the scribes, or at least in the scribe of the archetype. By way of illustration
I shall deal here with a few matters of orthography.
Since most of our texts depend either exclusively or chiefly upon Nepalese
manuscripts, it is desirable to consider the idiosyncrasies of Nepalese scribes in
In ~Tfanuscriptremains of Buddhist Literature found i n E. Turkestan, ed. A. I?. R. Hoernle,
p. 161.
354
J. BROUGH
355
manuscripts. I n most of the latter, however, such spellings are decidedly less
frequent than in Newari. This is an important point, since it shows that the
scribes did not learn such habits from Sanskrit manuscripts, and it is therefore
not possible to argue that some of these aberrations are due to the form in
which the Sanskrit tradition had been handed down. The scribes apparently
were quite aware that there was a norm of Sanskrit spelling and attempted for
the most part to follow it when copying a Sanskrit text. But even the best of
them are liable on occasion to introduce Newari spellings, and most Nepalese
Sanskrit manuscripts show a fair number.
In the light of these considerations, it appears that a number of manuscript
spellings quoted in Edgerton's Grammar are not in any way evidence for the
forms of the original texts. Thus, for example, he says (1.32), ' The BHS
occurrences of 1 for r are balanced by a substantial number of r for I,' and in
2.49 he gives a list of both changes : ankula, kala (for kara), Kubela, vicilana,
panjala, abhin-ira, kira (for kila), raghu, i-itara, sakara, etc. Since no doubts
are expressed, and since these forms are allowed to appear in the Dictionary,
it would seem that he accepted them as genuine. But since any initial or
intervocalic r or 1 may be written on any given occasion as 1 or r respectively
(less frequently in conjuncts, though even here it occurs from time to time),
it is clear that spellings such as the above can give us no information at all.
This is so even if at any given point all the available manuscripts agree.
A typical example is provided by the bird-name karavinka/kalavinka. Both
forms are entered in the Dictionary, and it is, of course, recognized that both
denote the same bird, since they occur in identical stereotyped contexts.
(Incidentally, it seems unlikely that the Indian cuckoo is meant, since kokila,
the common name for the latter, occurs alongside kalavinka in lists of birdnames.) Under karavinka the note is added : ' In meaning = Pali karavT,
-vika ; in form a blend of this with kalavinka, which in Skt. = sparrow '. But
Pali also has kalavinka, and it seems most probable that we have here two
dialectally different Middle Indian forms of the same word, kalavinka and
karavzka (which may, of course, have subsequently been differentiated in
meaning). In the Buddhist Sanskrit texts, however, the citations in the
Dictionary present only karavinka twice from the Lalitavistara, and kalavinka
thrice. I should, therefore, have no hesitation in attributing the variation
simply to the scribes, and restoring kalavinka everywhere in Sanskrit. If, on
the other hand, a form in -vTka were to turn up in a Buddhist Sanskrit text,
then an editor might incline towards the spelling karavika, on the basis of the
Pali evidence (whether his manuscripts had -1- or -r-) : though even here a
doubt would still be possible, in view of the normal scribal indifference concerning both the vowel-length and the employment or omission of the anusv6ra.
With regard to the sibilants, a doubt is indeed expressed (2.56) that ' corruptions in the tradition are very much to be suspected in this case '. But again,
since virtually any s may be written as S, and vice versa, the list in 2.63 cannot
tell us anything. Even the sporadic appearance of -it- for -st-, of which two
356
J. BROUGH
examples are quoted in 2.61, is not convincing, since the interchange also
appears optionally in Newari spelling, for example asti and agti (Skt. asthi),
both of which occur within a few lines of one another in the Newari version
of the Pcipaparimocana. If therefore we accept the reading agtayga (see
Dict. s.v.) for astayga in LV 390.8, it will be only because of the first of
Edgerton's arguments, namely the play upon words with actam in the following
line, though it may be felt that this is rather slender support for an isolated
anomaly. (I should like to suggest here that the entry which follows in the
Dictionary, AgtabhuginZ, the gotra of the nakeatra Revati, Divy. 641.11, may
perhaps be emended to Artabhcigini. This emendation would imply the converse of the type of misspelling noted above in Vasirtha for Basi,stha, and
would produce a well-attested gotra-name.)
In the same way, the frequent aberrations of the superscript r make it most
improbable that adhivattati (2.11) is really an example of assimilation. The
form is quoted from one manuscript in a single passage (Mv. i.269.15), and
because it coincides in spelling with the Pali form-quite accidentally, in my
view-Edgerton (Dict. s.v.) suggests that it should be introduced into the
text. But it seems unlikely that we have here an original reading which other
manuscripts have independently Sanskritized ; whereas it is quite natural to
suppose that the force of the r had resulted in a double consonant in an older
copy, and that the ' optional' superscript had afterwards been omitted.
Precisely analogous to this is a spelling of a personal name, Dharnmasiyha,
which I have seen on an 18th century Nepalese bronze figure, where Dharnmais not to be directly connected with the Pali assimilation of -rm-, but is a comparatively recent orthographic variant for -rrnm-. In the same way, there
is no reason to consider dullabha to result from an early assimilation of -rl- in
durlabha: rather, it is merely an alternative spelling for durllabha. Such
spellings may perhaps reflect Nepalese pronunciations, but they are not in
themselves sufficient evidence for the original
texts.
The converse of this situation appears in the spelling marjjay, marjay, for
Skt. majjan, in Mv. i.20.2. Senart retains in his text the form with -r-, but
Edgerton here is rightly doubtful, remarking that if the form is to be kept,
it is hyper-Skt. In view of the known propensities of the scribes in this matter,
the -r- can be banished from the text without hesitation.
A doubt likewise attaches to some of the forms in 2.34 ( jfor y, and y for j).
A single occurrence each of jakrt for yakyt (LV 208.18, where in any case a v.1.
ya- is reported), and Yarnbhaka for Jambhaka (Mv. ii.112.6) is hardly enough
to justify their acceptance. The spelling an6rjay for anaryay (Nv. ii.79.3) is
again typically Newari, and can hardly be accepted as valid on the basis of
this single appearance.
Forms such as tydhd, tyvidhay, rnyyati, are quoted as examples of ' hyperSanskrit ' formations, and the description may be accepted, provided that
it is understood that the culprit is again in all probability the scribe. Similarly,
a ' hyper-Sanskrit ' spelling such as trikcutto has very little claim on an editor,
357
and should doubtless be interpreted as trikhutto (Skt. -kytvaJ. For the scribal
variants in this word, see Dict., s.v. krtva).
I t seems to me that the normal confusion between e, ya, and ye makes it
quite impossible to be certain whether the feminine oblique-case ending was
-6ye or -6ya, or whether both were used by the authors of the texts. Edgerton
(p. 63), taking the manuscript readings at their face value, remarks that their
distribution among the several texts is peculiar ; -aye is almost restricted to
the Mah&vastu where it is commoner than -6ya ; while the latter is common
in the verses of other texts, though -6ye also occurs. But it is doubtful whether
this really carries us beyond the spelling habits of the scribe of the archetype
of our Alahtivastu manuscripts, which, as Senart recognized, must be of
relatively recent date. The alternative in -6e is much rarer than the other two,
presumably because the scribes were aware that this sort of hiatus should not
occur in a Sanskritic text. On one occasion where it does occur, in the word
imtie, Edgerton remarks that one manuscript has imtiya : but for a Nepalese
scribe this is the same reading. There would certainly be no justification for
accepting -6e into the text, in spite of the fact that it is the normal Prakrit
form ; and the choice between -aye and -6ya can only be certain when the
quantity of the final syllable is metrically determined.
An interesting example where this alternation e:ya:ye may be applied to
the interpretation of the text can be seen in SP. 209.5 (9.65). Here the Central
Asian version has paraTpar6ya tatha anyamanyam ; but the Nepalese recension
has paranjpar6 eva tathtinyarnanyarn, where paran~par6is interpreted as an
instrumental. This is clearly intended to mend the metre, and to get
- rid of the
hiatus in tatha anya- ; but it would be strange if this were done only at the
expense of introducing a new hiatus. I would suggest that e is here written
for ye, and an editor of the Nepalese recension should, therefore, read paraypardy' eva.
Closely linked to these orthographical questions are a few where the chief
consideration is palzographical. The most striking of these is the acceptance
by Edgerton of the forms ygiti, ytiti, ylla. Of ytiti (Dict.) he says, ' But for the
repeated occurrence one might suspect a merely graphic corruption for Skt.
jhat-iti (var. jhag-iti) ' ; and under ylla, ' Senart . . . was inclined to think the
word a graphic error for jhalla, as was Burnouf ; but he kept the MSS. reading,
which seems too common to emend.' Here I think we ought to be much bolder,
and reject all these forms as monstrosities. The sequences yt-, y1- are, if I am
not mistaken, strangers to the normal phonological patterns of Sanskrit ; and
while this may be no fundamental objection for a quasi-onomatopoeia, it
would still be an extraordinary coincidence if the Sanskrit pair jhatiti, jhagiti
were matched by a Buddhist pair ytiti, ygiti, and still more surprising if jhalla,
already provided with a partner in the jingle jhalla-malla-, should have a
synonym (which also usurps its place in the compound with rnalla) distinguished
from it in most Nepalese writing only by a single short stroke. The repeated
occurrence of these forms, which has been relied upon to justify their reality,
358
J. BROUGH
means simply that jha- has repeatedly been misread as r-, either by scribes or
by editors. (The spelling rigiti in the Mah6vyutpatti, if genuine, would show that
scribes were quite capable of this misreading.)
Equally suspect, I feel, are the 3rd plural optative and aorist forms in
-itsu(b), -etsu(b), etc. These again are accepted as real by Edgerton, and indeed
it would almost seem that he gives them preference whenever they appear in
the manuscripts. Two alternative explanations are suggested (32.97, 98) :
either -ensu(b) has become *-elztsu(b),and then, with ' denasalization ', -etsu($) ;
or the singular in -et has engendered a plural -et-su, on the analogy of aorists in
-i, -i-gu. The second of these explanations would mean that this form is in
origin entirely distinct from those in -eysu(b), -ensu(b) ; but if this is so, we
are none the less forced to admit that the scribes have so completely entangled
it with them that it would be a hopeless task to recognize it now with certainty.
The other explanation implies a historical development which is admittedly
possible ; and indeed there is evidence that it did take place in one Prakrit
dia1ect.l But it would be hazardous to connect the present situation directly
with this. I t is true that the explanation permits -etsu(b) to remain historically
linked with -ensu(b) ; but it does not explain the apparently haphazard alternation in the manuscripts. Further, if -ns- had really developed historically here
to -ts-, it might seem probable that only the latter ought to have survived ; or,
if forms of different ages are to be assumed as appearing in the same text,
the intermediate form in -nts- or -rgts- might have been reasonably expected to
occur also ; and so far as I am aware, it never does. The scatter of the forms
in the manuscripts shows beyond any doubt that -ysu, -nsu, and -tsu are three
ways of writing what to the scribe was the same form ; and there is no reason
to doubt that they represent a single form for the authors of the texts also. If
this be accepted, then it seems that an editor must make a choice between the
-t- and the nasal. The choice between -rg- and -n- is a different, and less important question. But the fact that -rg- does occur, coupled with the evidence
from other Middle I n l a n sources, decides absolutely in favour of the nasal.
Thus, we shall also accept abhdrgsu rather than abhdtsu, comparing (as Edgerton
does) the ASokan ahuysu ; and we shall emend tisitsu to tisirgsu (or tisirgsu),
comparing the Pali tisirgsu.
Edgerton, however, urges strongly that we must admit that the author of
the Mahtivastu actually used the form in -etsu(b). ' As to -etsu(b) ', he writes
(32.96). ' I cannot believe that the hundreds of occurrences in Mv are all manuscript corruptions, as Senart assumes. Why should copyists introduce secondarily such a monstrous-seeming form, in such a regular and constant way ? '
See. T. Burrow, The Language of the Kharogthi Documents from Chinese Turkestan, p. 19
(e.g., maytsa for miLysa) ; also the Prakrit Dhammapada, ed. H. W . Bailey, BSOAS., xi, mhich
has satiana, satbara, ahitba for saysanna, saysdra, ahiysb respectively ; and also bhametbu
(previously read by Senart bhamerjsu), mhich is strikingly like the forms under discussion here.
The Pali version (Dhp. 371) has bhuvassu, which editors have emended to bhamassu, on the
basis of the Prakrit passage. But the whole situation here appears still to await a satisfactory
explanation.
359
This is a most dangerous argument, and while the task of editors would certainly
be much easier if its implications could be accepted, it attributes to the scribes
a degree of literal trustworthiness far beyond their deserts. I t is true that the
manuscripts of a given text provide our primary evidence, but none the less
they must always be read in conjunction with all the other information at our
disposal, and in particular the knowledge derived from the rest of the literature,
and the knowledge of scribal habits derived from manuscripts of other texts.
Edgerton's argument, if rigidly applied, would in some texts force us, for
example, to print nisphala for .izigphala, since the spelling with the dental -s- is,
within my experience, almost universal in Nepalese manuscripts, though it is
not mentioned by Edgerton in the grammar, and I do not remember having
met it in an edition. The same reasoning would compel the adoption in other
texts of jatma for janma, since some manuscripts know of no other writing of
the word. In practice, editors restore nigphala and janma as readily as they
differentiate b and v in their texts, although Nepalese (and many other northern)
manuscripts distinguish them not a t all.
And as for the form -nsub itself, it is possible to point to one instance where
the stenlma codicum shows beyond doubt that a whole group of manuscripts
have the spelling -tsub ' introduced secondarily ', namely Suvarqabhasottamasiitra, p. 241.6. Here the manuscripts ACF have abhistavitsub, while BDE
read -stavinsub, and G shows -stavimu, which is clearly a miscopying of
-stavi(q)su. This is one of the few texts where, thanks to the very careful
edition by Nobel, the stemma is crystal clear. Denoting lost manuscripts by
Greek letters, it is as follows :
Archetype
360
J. BROUGH
36 1
followed by c- or t-, and may equally well intend, for all the manuscripts can
s The two dots, as used for the visa~ga,are fretell us, -%pi c- and - 6 ~ t-.
quently employed in Newari manuscripts simply as a mark of punctuation,
and this usage has occasionally found its way into Sanskrit manuscripts also.
A distinction is sometimes made by writing the visarga as two small circles,
or in the shape of a figure 8 ; but a confusion is possible, and editors should
be on their guard. As an example, I may quote the apparent form Erabhyab,
a-hich occurs thrice in the Cambridge manuscript of the Pcipaparimocana
for the absolutive Crabhya. The other manuscripts, however, supply the normal
form ; and although Edgerton's principle would incline us to accept Crabhyab
(we should then doubtless explain it as a hyper-Sanskritism), I have little doubt
that it arose simply from an earlier manuscript a-hich used the two dots with
the force of a comma.
Palzeographic considerations may also perhaps be called on to help to
explain the strange form bhitatka, physician, about a-hich Edgerton is rightly
doubtful (2.38). The form occurs thrice in the edition of the SP ; but elsewhere it appears as bhitagka, which is also the form reported from the Paris
manuscript. Edgerton adds, ' One cannot help wondering where Kern and
Nanjio got their reading bhitatka, allegedly found in all their MSS.'. I suspect
the answer lies in the fact that in many hands g in the conjunct closely
resembles t and that the manuscripts did in fact read bhitagka. If it be not too
hazardous, I would tentatively suggest that this may in its turn have arisen
from a misunderstanding of a reading h ~
where
, the dot denoted not
the nasal, but the doubling of the consonant, so that the correct reading would
be bhitakka, formally identical with the Pali. This use of the dot to show a
doubled consonant is familiar in Prakrit in South Indian manuscripts,
but i t
seems to have occurred sporadically in the North also. A good example appears
in the DhvanyCloka, ad iii, 36, where the editions, with the northern as well as
the southern manuscripts, read targsa, though tassa is clearly required.
A word should be said here about the frequent use in the Grammar of the
argument : ' so the majority of the MSS.'. This is a ghost which refuses to be
laid, in spite of the efforts of generations of critics. Only if the manuscripts
are related in descent in quite specific ways is a simple majority good evidence
for the archetypal reading. An example to the contrary is provided by the
Suvarq,abhCsottama-sutra,where the six manuscripts ABCDEF are all descended
from an interpolated copy (see the stemma given above), and when they are
united in opposition to G, which is independent and relatively free from interpolation, they are as often as not wrong. On the other hand, the agreement
of G with any one of the interpolated group, even against the united testimony
of all the five others, is very weighty indeed ; and in such a case the majority
is almost certainly wrong. An example of this (unimportant in itself) may
be seen on p. 52 of Nobel's edition, where F and G read imu, and all the others
ima. Edgerton, on quoting the rare dual form imu from this passage (8.75),
appears to cast doubt on it by adding the note : ' but the majority of MSS.
362
J. BROUGH
ima '. None the less, the agreement of these two manuscripts so much outweighs the remainder that there is an extremely strong presumption that
the archetype read imu, which Nobel accordingly, quite properly, accepts
into his text. It would, of course, be perfectly in order for an editor to go on
from here, and argue that, for such and such reasons, the archetypal reading
itself was corrupt ; and (as a purely hypothetical case) he might even find
cause to believe that the correct reading was in fact ima. But if he did, the one
argument he could ?tot use is that it occurs in ABCDE, which could only show
it by several lucky scribal emendations. The twin ghost, the ' best manuscript ',
appears equally frequently ; but it would be otiose at this date to reiterate
Housman on this point, and I content myself with the single observation that
in any given place the ' best ' manuscript may be wrong, and the critic must
decide without reference to this label, which is, after all, only attached to the
manuscript by other critics.
In the foregoing paragraphs I have tried to demonstrate a number of points
on wliich the uncorroborated evidence of Nepalese manuscripts is inconclusive.
I do not, of course, mean to suggest that it is proved that all the examples
quoted of non-Sanskritic forms are necessarily wrong. But whenever these
forms can be shown to be capable of resulting from common Nepalese scribal
practice, I feel that it would be foolhardy of an editor to attribute them to his
text, unless they can be supported by evidence from sources other than
Nepalese. As Edgerton rightly stresses, his principle is not to be applied
mechanically, but the editor must use his judgment in every individual case.
This being so, however, the principle itself may well seem to be superfluous.
Now it is clear that for the bulk of the more Sanskritic part of the Buddhist
writings, the prime criterion against which to measure Nepalese manuscripts
must of necessity be classical Sanskrit itself. If in view,of Edgerton's work
this statement appears reactionary, I should qualify it in the same manner
as he : that the measure is not to be applied mechanically. But we must
always have in the centre of our consideration the fact that the authors of
a very large part of the Buddhist Sanskrit texts extant really did intend to
write Sanskrit. An editor must not, of course, if he can help it, attribute to his
author better Sanskrit than the latter wrote. But it is sometimes an equal
danger to underestimate the author's Sanskrit ability.
It must be freely admitted that in many cases there can, from the nature
of the evidence, be no absolute certainty. The great value of Edgerton's work
is that it now enables us to see at a glance those non-Sanskrit features which
occur sufficiently frequently, over a sufficient range of texts, for us to believe
that these features were accepted as part of the language by the Buddhist
authors themselves. The exceptions are those outlined above, where constantly
recurring features are much more probably to be laid at the door of the scribes.
We should thus, for example, reject jatma and -etsub, because tm and nm,
ts and ns, are so frequently confused in writing, even in word-junctures ; but
on the other hand, I feel we ought to accept the form dhEtvEvaropaqa (for
363
364
J. BROUGH
365
though in the same verses pcjayati and bhojayitva must each have their full
four syllables. This last circumstance might perhaps indicate that verses of
this sort are not the result of a simple transposition of a Middle Indian original
into Sanskrit spelling. And in spite of the non-Sanskritic features the verses of
these texts are in general almost as Sanskritic as the prose. Although an
occasional metrical shortening may occur, e.g. MAS, p. 17, mEtE mahivu7ya
prabhikarasya (note also that pr- does not make position: Waldschmidt
wrongly emends to mahmayC), none the less, the most striking of the features
of the hybrid glthas of the Lalitacistara are absent, and it seems hardly likely
that we have here a Sanskritization of an earlier form in hybrid Sanskrit.
Now it is clear that the existence of these texts in relatively correct Sanskrit
already as early as the sixth century A.D. (in some cases even earlier) carries
considerable weight ; and if our Nepalese manuscripts in opposition to them
show in a given place a non-Sanskritic form, then it seems that, other things
being equal, there is a prima facie case for considering the latter to be a
corruption. To take a single example, the occurrence of the spelling Gydhrakcte
in &IPS,p. 7, will justify the restoration of this form in the majority of the texts,
even although the Nepalese manuscripts in most cases favour the (apparently)
semi-Prakritic form GyddhakQte.
I do not of course mean to suggest that the Central Asian manuscripts are in
themselves always better than the Nepalese. Indeed, they are frequently
careless in detail, and sometimes perverse in a manner comparable to the
Nepalese writing of -tsub for -nsub. For example, we find a scribe whose script
clearly distinguishes b and v writing forms such as vuddha and vodhisatva,l
~
while another writes sarvba, p i i r ~ b a ,and
~ a third ~ a t b a . Similarly
we find
occasional confusion of i and 2, though not so frequently as in Nepalese manuscripts, e.g. nyaiidat, sukhaiii (for -EL), eva~gvidha.~Visarga is frequently
dropped, particularly, it would seem, at the end of verses ; but as it also frequently appears in the correct places, its omission is in all probability due for
the most part to scribal carelessness. In one instance at least, drakiyata for
-tab, 3rd person dual, the omission could not be attributed to a Prakritic original.
In spelling conventions, we already find at this early date the typical -8rp
for i n , and ns for ~ g ;s and also 9s' for 799, e.g. viyiati, trivs'at, MAS, pp. 14, 15,
together with the normal spelling with ~ g .Of interest also is yanv aharp, MAS,
p. 22 (for yan nv ahaTg), which is very common in Nepalese manuscripts and
is adopted by some editors, though Edgerton does not mention it. Although it
is doubtless as vulgar as the spelling ' alright ' in English, its occurrence as
early as this clearly gives it as much right to be considered by editors as the
comparable simplifications in satca, etc., which are likewise common both here
and in Nepalese sources.
On the other hand, the Central Asian manuscripts do not seem to show the
typical Nepalese weakness in the confusion of r and I ; and if in individual
1
3
366
J. BROUGH
words they should disagree with classical Sanskrit in these letters it is probable
that their evidence should be accepted. Thus sakara, depending only on
Nepalese sources, should be rejected (Edgerton, Dict. s.v., gives only one
reference ; but in Newari manuscripts this spelling is almost as common as
sakala) ; vichlana remains doubtful, in spite of the Ardha-MCgadhi form
viyalaqa, since the spelling could equally well have arisen in Nepal ; but
samprad6layati can safely be accepted, since, in addition to the Pali sampaddeti,
we can cite in its favour samprad6lya from a Central Asian manuscript, against
the standard Sanskrit pradtirayati. Similarly, the Middle Indian liikha, liiha
(Skt. riikta) has its initial justified by the occurrence of liiha- in MPS, p. 93.
A spelling of great interest appears in the word c a ~ p a k aand the related townname caqpE, MPS, pp. 31, 33, 57. This is most striking and not at all the sort
of thing which one would expect to arise simply from textual corruption ;
and it is therefore surprising that Waldschmidt emends both, without comment,
to the standard Sanskrit ca~npaka,campa. I t should be noted that not only
do both manuscripts which preserve the passage show caqpaka here, but that
the manuscript of the Kalpana-maqditika (early 4th century A.D.) also has the
same spelling.1 On the latter passage Liiders commented that he believed
that we might recognize this to be the earlier form, which later by assimilation
became campaka. There seems to be no room for doubt here. Burrow has
pointed out that the Tamil form of the word is caqpakam, ceqpakam ; and
although Gonda has argued for an Austro-Asiatic origin, these Buddhist
occurrences of the Tamil-like spehng seem to establish with certainty that,
whatever the ultimate derivation, it was a Dravidian language which was the
immedate source from which the Sanskrit word was borrowed.
Thus the Central Asian manuscripts, fragmentary though many of them are,
provide a most valuable supplement to our knowledge of the Buddhist Sanskrit
texts, not only in the new material which they have brought to light, but also
by helping us to assess more justly the worth of the Nepalese tradition ; and
this assistance is no less welcome to an editor where they support the latter,
as in fact they do to a considerable degree. I t is true that in a text like the
Saddhrma-puq4ar;iX.a the Nepalese recension is convicted of having to some
extent corrected non-Sanskrit forms; and the same tale is told of the
SuvarqabhGsottarna-siitra by the fortunate chance of the survival of the old
palm-leaf manuscript G. But this is only part of the picture. It is equally
important that the canonical fragments show us a t this early date a language
which is virtually the same as that presented by the Nepalese manuscripts of, for
example, the PrajnEpGramitEs, or the great Avadana collections. I t would
therefore be over-hasty, I feel, to conclude that the whole range of the old
Buddhist Sanskrit texts has been equally subjected to a continuing process of
Sanskritization. We have, indeed, direct evidence to the contrary in the
1
3
ibid., p. 39.
367
preservation of the MahEvastu itself; since any scribal corrector who knew
enough Sanskrit to feel that the language of the-Mahavastti required improvement would surely have been able to produce a better ' corrected ' version than
that which has i n fact come down to us. Also, as is well known, the distance of
the language of this text from Sanskrit varies considerably from one place to
another, and there is no good reason why a scribal editor should not have
produced a more uniform result. The simplest explanation would certainly
seem to be that these differences represent the styles of different authors,
possibly of different ages, but that in essentials they have been transmitted in
the form in which they were left by the original compilers who built up the
illahavastu largely out of inherited materials.
Similarly, in the case of the Sanskrit canon, it is obvious from comparing
the Pali version that it is very largely constructed out of older material in some
Prakrit dialect ; but there seems to be no reason for assuming that it is
anything other than a quite definite translation into Sanskrit, done at a specific
period, when the Sarvastiviidins decided to adopt Sanskrit as their official
language.
In direct opposition to this view Edgerton writes in the preface to his
Reader : ' All BHS texts, even the Mahavastu, have been subjected to a good
deal of Sanskritization, some of it very likely going back to the original composition of the work, but much of it, in the case of most if not all BHS works,
introduced by copyists and redactors in the course of the tradition '. I t is
impossible to deny that this is true of some texts ; but put in these terms it
seems to me very much to overstate the case, and for much of the extant
Buddhist Sanskrit, if not the major
. -part, it would be nearer the truth to reverse
the statement, and say that some degree of additional Sanskritization has
doubtless been carried out by scribes, but that a very great deal of the Sanskritic
appearance is in all probability due to the original authors or compilers.
I cannot believe that the texts as we now have them in the manuscripts would
show such clearly defined distinctions of style if scribes or late redactors had
tampered with them to the extent which Edgerton seems to envisage.
o n the basis of the degree of approximation to Sanskrit ~ d ~ e r t bclassifies
n
his material into three groups (Grammar, p. xxv), in which (1)both prose and
verse are hybridized-principally the MahEvastu ; ( 2 ) the verses are hybridized,
but the prose has relatively few signs of Middle Indian phonology or morphology,
e.g. Saddharrna-pu~larika,Lalitavistara, etc. ; (3) both prose and verse are
substantially Sanskritized, e.g. DivyEvadEna, etc. Of the third group he says,
' Non-Sanskritic forms are not common ; the vocabulary is the clearest evidence
that they belong to the BHS tradition '. This seems quite satisfactory ; but
throughout most of the work the term Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit seems to be
directly applied to the language not only of group 1 and the verse of group 2 ,
but equally to the prose of group 2 and to group 3. This is a very different
matter from saying that the latter are ' in the tradition ' of BHS. I t is true that
they share many features with the hybrid texts, particularly in vocabulary and
VOL. XVI. PART
2.
26
368
J. BROUGH
syntax. But in spite of this, the language in the typical prose style of the
canonical works and the Avadinas is much further removed from the more
Prakritic portions of the Mahiivastu (see, for example, the passage quoted
below) than it is from Classical Sanskrit. And if it is misleading to call the
Avadtina-style simply Sanskrit, it seems to me all the more misleading to
group it with the Githa-language as Hybrid Sanskrit. No one would deny that
the Avadiina-style has its own idiosyncrasies which mark it off from anything
Brahmanical. But to call it ' hybrid ' for this reason seems as little justified
as it would be to call a medieval Hindu commentary ' Brahmanical Hybrid
Sanskrit ', merely on the score that a few Dravidian words or echoes of
Dravidian syntax might be traced in it. I t would surely be better to retain the
older use of the term, and confine the description Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit
to those texts or portions of texts which are, in fact, hybridized in grammar ;
and to distinguish the other texts simply as ' Buddhist Sanskrit '.
Edgerton has stressed particularly the unity of tradition running throughout
the texts, and it is indeed important that this should be clearly understood.
But it is equally important, particularly for an editor, to realize also the clear
differences between one Buddhist style and another. From one point of view the
history of Buddhist Sanskrit might almost be said to be a study of the fluctuations of the degree of badness of the Sanskrit ; but it is not all bad in the same
way, nor for the same reasons.
The main outlines of the story appear to be as follows. The earliest Buddhist
Sanskrit authors (or compilers) had inherited a considerable literature of
canonical and semi-canonical texts which, we may suppose, had been handed
down chiefly by oral tradition. I t has sometimes been said that this ' protocanonical ' material must have been in some Prakrit dialect, and that the
Sanskrit and Pali versions of the canon represent two different translations of
the early canon with, of course, certain modifications of the actual matter
according to school. But there seems to be no compelling reason for postulating
a single Prakrit dialect as the ' original ' language ; and it seems much more
likely that the texts were handed down in diverging ways in different
communities. If this is so, then the Pali might
- be held to be a local crystallization of a relatively fluid tradition, rather than a translation as we would
normally understand the term. The Sanskrit version, however, is rather
a different matter. The rendering of the traditional material into Sanskrit
would demand a much more positive intention. So far as concerns the
Sarv5stiv5din canon a t least, there is no room to doubt that the authors fully
intended to write Sanskrit, and they would have been surprised at the suggestion
that they were writing in a language essentially Prakritic in nature, since their
whole effort was to present their doctrine in the language of learning and
prestige. The same desire must surely underly Sanskritizing in the other texts
also ; and if the result in some places would have evoked the Brahman's
derision, the authors themselves were doubtless satisfied that they had
achieved something. The fact that they fell short of the classical standard in
369
The first of these is hardly to be called Sanskrit a t all. Apart from a thin veneer
of Sanskrit spelling, it is typically Prakrit, not only in many of its word-forms
and inflexions, but also in the stiff, awkward style characteristic of a good deal
of Prakrit prose. Indeed, we may reasonably surmise that it is passages of this
sort which underly the persistent tradition that the Xahiisiinghikas used
Prakrit, in contrast to the Sarviistiviidins who employed Sanskrit.l The second
example is typical of stotra-verses in the dodhuka-metre, and contrasts sharply
with the first in the feeling of ease and flow in its language. This admittedly
For a full discussion of this matter, see Lin Li-kouang, L'aide-mimoire de la craie loi, 1949,
pp. 176 ff.
370
J. BROUGH
may be due largely to the metre itself. But whereas the former passage is
beyond doubt composed in Prakrit, a great deal of the stotras and similar verses
in stronglyrhythmic metres may well have been composed in what to the authors
was essentially Sanskrit, with the admission (by ' poetic licence ') of certain
well-defined abnormalities.
The less Prakritic portions of the iMahEvastu gradually tend towards the
style found commonly in the old prose Avadanas and the canonical works
generally, of which the following is a typical specimen :(c) tena khalu samayena gandhamadane parvate raudrikgo nama
brahmaqag prativasati sma, indrajalavidhijnag.
airaugid raudrikgo
brihmaqo bhadraiillyiq rijadhanyaq candraprabho nama r i j i
sarvaqdado 'smity atmanan) pratijanite. yan nv ahaq gatva iiro yaceyam
iti. tasyaitad abhavat : yadi tavat sarvaqdado bhavigyati, mama diro
dasyaty, api t u dugkaram etad asthanam anavakiiio yad evam igtaq
kantaq priyaq manipam uttamingaq parityakgyati yad uta iirgaq,
nedaq sthiinan) vidyata iti viditvi gandhamadanat parvatad avatirqag.
(DivyEvdZna, p. 320.)
This style might almost be called Buddhist Sanskrit par excellence. I t is in
general tolerably correct in grammar, though it shows the Prakritic part of its
ancestry in some frequently recurring turns of phrase, and a fair sprinkling of
Middle Indian vocabulary.
A further development in the same direction, coupled no doubt with the
benign influence of good poets such as Aivaghoga, led in some places to the use
of an ornate Sanskrit which, apart from its subject-matter, shows very few
distinctively Buddhist features. A good example of this, which might be called
the semi-klvya style, can be seen in the first version of the story of the tigress
in chapter xviii of the SuvarqabhEsottama-sBtra, which commences :-.
(d) divi bhuvi ca visytavimalavipulavividhagurlagatakiraqo'pratihatajninadardanabalapadkramo bhagavan bhikgusahasraparivytab pancalegu
janapadegu janapadacirikaq caramaqo 'nyatamavanakhaq4am anupripto
babhiiva.
sa tatra dadaria haritamydunilaildvalatatavividhakusumapratimaqditaq pythivipradedaq, dygtvi ca bhagavin Byupmantam anandam
amantrayate sma : dobhano 'yam inanda pythivipradedab.
(Suvarqabhcisottama-s4tm, p. 202.)
371
(Piipaparimocana, 17-19.)
priitar
utthiiya
iayaniit
snatvii
caiva
iuce
jale
(f)
nibpraqake jale caiva sarinmahiisarodbhave
... . . ..
sugandhapugpais tatha iastu arghaq dattvii tu japinalj
praqamya iirasa buddhanaq tad5 tu iigyasambhavaq.
(Manjuirz-mcla-kalpa, pp. 97-8.)
A very common feature of this style, which naturally has no literary pretensions,
is the frequent occurrence of ellipsis and anacoluthon, though these do not
normally obscure the sense.
Rather different from these, and in general closer to classical Sanskrit, is
the language of the medieval verse Avadanas. I n its better portions, in fact, it
is hardly to be distinguished from normal medieval narrative ilokas ; but in its
less good parts, occasional blunders appear which are not likely to be found in
Brahmanical works. The author of the following passage clearly demonstrates
by his verse-fillers and his jejune and awkward short sentences the difficulty he
experienced in composing in Sanskrit.
( g ) dadaria bhiipatir jirqa-praqaliq margake 'tha salj :
(DvEviyiaty-avadEna, vi.)
Ed. sanirmalam.
i.e. ' (a voice) spoke to him from the sky '.
MSS. abhyantare yatab.
372
J. BROUGH
A still more striking lack of ability to control the language is found in a later
chapter of the same work (though presumably by a different author), where the
benefits of offering various kinds of flowers to the Buddha is described :(h)
Here again the sense is quite clear, alid the individual words for the most part
appear to be Sanskrit ; but they would defy any attempt at syntactical analysis
in orthodox terms.
The h a 1 decrepitude of Buddhist Sanskrit is reached in a text like the
Aivaghoga-nandimukhEvad~na.I have consulted four manuscripts of this work,
and I find it impossible to follow even the thread of the story without constant
assistance from the Newari translation. Xaking every allowance for scribal
corruption, which is probably considerable, it would still appear that the author
wrote in a style reminiscent of a schoolboy's Latin prose composition. The text
of the following short extract is reasonably certain, apart from the obelized
word. (The Newari version has for this ' looked around ', so that some form of
saqlak~ayatiis needed.)
373
krpakaruqasamudgatiiryasattvii,
divi bhuvi ceha ca labhyate svadeham :
Qataiaiha karotu nirvikiiraq
muditamaniib parajivitopakiiram.
' Koble beings are born of pity and compassion, and an om-n-body is obtained
either in heaven or here on earth : (therefore) here on earth, with joyful mind,
one should in a hundredfold ways unremittingly do that which is of service to
the lives of others.' This, I think, does less violence than the edition to the
1
= the
374
J. BROUGH
375
single scholar, is due the credit for this advance in our understanding. But it is
all too easy, as these two examples shorn-, to fly to the other extreme, and work
on the implicit assumption that ' anything is possible in Buddhist Sanskrit ' ;
and an editor must try to adopt a madhyamii pratipad. The immediate task for
the future is the closer delineation of the various forms and styles of the
Buddhist writings in Sanskrit, and a detailed grammatical analysis of each
type. Those who undertake this task will find in Edgerton's Grammar and
Dictionary an invaluable guide to a very large part of the field, and an
indispensable work of reference not likely soon to be superseded.
2.