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Newsletter of the NGMCPNumber 1, July 2006

Opening Words

The Newsletter of the NGMCP, of which the first issue is now before you in your hands or on your screen, aimsat making the work of the Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project (NGMCP), a project funded by theDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), and its predecessor, the Nepal-German ManuscriptPreservation Project (NGMPP), which was funded for thirty-two years by the same Foundation, better known in thewider scholarly community.

Many Sanskritists, Tibetologists, specialists in Newari, and other scholars, working in various disciplines, arealready aware, to some extent at least, of the wealth of manuscript material and documents in Nepal microfilmed by the

NGMPP; each year, since several decades already, numerous studies, ranging from brief notices to monograph length,by scholars from South Asia, Europe, the Americas, and the Far East, are published that draw on this huge bodyof material. Still, the greater part of these manuscripts and documents has not yet received scholarly attention, andthe work of cataloguing that is the chief focus of the NGMCP is uncovering practically every day hitherto unknownworks or manuscripts of works thought to have been lost. In our Newsletter we shall regularly be presenting notes onsome of these individual discoveries, as well as, among other things, drawing attention to recent publications using thematerial of the NGMPP, presenting surveys of works microfilmed and catalogued in particular fields or sub-fields, andoccasionally publishing editions of smaller works in their entirety.

In this issue I am pleased to be able to present reports by Dr. des. Dragomir Dimitrov, the local representative ofthe NGMCP and acting director of the Nepal Research Centre in Kathmandu, on the work of the NGMCP in Nepal(p. 3) and on the NRC (p. 17); the first of what promises to be a very enjoyable series of contributions from Prof.Michael Hahn (a self-described frequent user of the NGMPP) on some highlights (or raisins, as he has also describedthem once at least to me) among the texts that he has worked on during nearly thirty-five years of intensive studyof Buddhist Sanskrit literature (p. 4); three brief announcements (p. 9) of editions recently published that have usedmanuscripts microfilmed by the NGMPP; a notice by Oliver Hahn on a manuscript of an unpublished work on Pan. iniangrammar; and, as a bonus (p. 11) for lovers of Sanskrit poetry among our readers, the complete text of an unusualsatirical poem of remarkable metrical virtuosity, the Kaliyugasam.ghataka, edited for the first time (a world-premiere,one might say) by Dr. Diwakar Acharya, its discoverer.

I would like here to extend a general invitation, or rather request, to all those who may read this and who areworking with materials microfilmed by the NGMPP to submit relevant itemswhether editions of brief texts, noteson particular manuscripts, information that might be announced, or perhaps corrigenda to items published herethatmight be considered for publication in future Newsletters (the address will be found in the codicil on p. 24). Finally, letme conclude these opening words by expressing my heartfelt gratitude to the friends and colleagues who have alreadysent contributions, in several cases at very short notice. Thanks to them, this opening issue quickly grew larger thanwe had expected, and some contributions will find their place in our next newsletter, which promises to be no less rich

in content than this one, and which will appear in October 2006. Till then, I leave you to peruse this opening issue,hoping that readers of various kinds may find something in it worthy of their attention.

Welcome to the Newsletter of the NGMCP!

Harunaga Isaacson

Newsletter of NGMCP, Number 1


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Newsletter of the NGMCP Number 1


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The Work of the Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project in Nepal (Report: July 2006) 3

The Work of the Nepalese-German Manu-script Cataloguing Project in Nepal (Report:July 2006)

DragomirDimitrov

The Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project(NGMCP) is based on an agreement of cooperation be-tween the National Archives of the Government of Nepaland the Department of the Culture and History of Indiaand Tibet of the Asia-Africa Institute of the University ofHamburg in Germany. It represents a logical continuationof the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project(NGMPP), under which some 180,000 manuscripts andother historical documents located in Nepal were micro-filmed over a period extending from 1970 to 2001.

It is the aim of the NGMCP to produce an online cata-

logue that will be descriptive of virtually all important as-pects of microfilmed manuscripts, and that will allow easyaccess to such information through appropriate searchcommands. The work of cataloguing has been dividedup between scholars working in Kathmandu and Ham-burg. Each team is under the direction of a local leaderand consists of an upper echelon of experienced schol-ars supported by a group of university students or recentgraduates with a background in some field of Indology.

The former have years of working with texts behindthem; the latter make up for their lack of experience witha zeal to learn, and with a greater expertise in workingwith computers. This cooperative venture, not only be-tween Nepal and Germany, but also between the olderand younger generation of scholars, is proving to be anefficient and constructive way to proceed while catalogu-ing, and also to be a stimulus for the younger scholars tomaintain a long-term commitment to study Nepals richhistorical and cultural past.

The job of cataloguing manuscripts got under way fol-lowing an initial familiarization period. The increasingsense of confidence that has developed in the meantimeis reflected in the fact that, in comparison with the pe-riod up to April 2003, when only some 650 manuscriptswere catalogued, by the beginning of July 2006 this num-

ber had increased to over 15,200. Most of these catalogueentries were produced in Kathmandu, a fact explainableto a not small degree by the larger number of Nepalesepersonnel.

Not all entries are classifiable as complete. Rather, theyare in various stages of completion, depending on the par-ticular procedures involved. Some 7,600 entries may betermed completed, though it is possible that cosmeticchanges may need to be made in the future. A fluctuatingnumber of manuscripts are in process at any one time.Included under this category are entries that are cur-rently being worked on, and also older ones about which

questions still remain unanswered. In addition, there aremore than 3,300 entries that are being done by hand byNepalese pandits. Their work is then entered into thecomputer database by assistants. Such entries are termedhandwritten. Finally, there are some 3,900 entries that

currently exist in a handwritten raw state. These formthe basis for further processing into legitimate entries.

The team in Kathmandu is concentrating on microfilmswith reel numbers in the A (from A 101), B and C series.These are for all practical purposes the most valuable andoldest manuscripts of the National Archives (A and B)and Kesar Library (C). Frequent advantage is taken ofthe presence of the original manuscripts. These are ex-amined in a small office in the National Archives and de-scribed according to a set pattern by Archives scholars.In this way data that were faultily recorded during themicrofilming can be corrected. They are in turn entered

onto computer, and in a final stage checked against whatis on the microfilms. New entries are burnt once a weekonto a DVD, and this backup data is sent to Germany atregular intervals so that the colleagues in Hamburg haveaccess to them.

Ever greater use is being made of digitized images ofthe manuscript material, which are being produced forcataloguing purposes under provisions within the agree-ment. By the beginning of July 2006 a total of 723 micro-film rolls had been digitized, and of these some 662 arealready available on one of 314 DVDs. Two copies arealways made. One of the copies will come into the pos-session of the National Archives at the end of the project;the second copy serves as a backup.

As was to be expected, a large number of more or lesssensational discoveries have been made among the nu-merous manuscripts. A large number of texts that werehidden among multitext manuscripts or entered under afalse title have come to light. Some texts which werelisted as written in Sanskrit have turned out to be inNewari. The majority of Sanskrit texts being worked on inKathmandu come from the areas of Karmakan. d. a, Tantra,Ayurveda, Vyakaran. a and Sahitya. The group workingon the Newari material has catalogued manuscripts con-taining texts having to do with Karmakan. d. a, Nat.aka,

Kos.a and Dharota. These latter are texts that can becatalogued only in Nepal, since the knowledge requiredis restricted to local scholars who are at the receivingend of a long tradition. A few of the new discoveriesmay be mentioned: A manuscript (B 308/21) listed un-der the unobtrusive title Rasamanjar contains not onlyBhanudattas work but also the Rasamanjarbh as.at. k a,a hitherto unknown commentary in Nepali composed bythe meritorious Nepalese scholar Sukr.tidatta Panta (b.1823/24). An incomplete palm-leaf manuscript (B 35/7)listed under the title Upasargarthanirupan. acontains theVim. satyupasargavr.tti, a work ascribed to Candragomin



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4 Some Highlights of the Work of a Frequent User of the NGMPP (I)

on the twenty verbal prefixes in Sanskrit, and known upto now only in the form of a Tibetan translation. Amanuscript of the hitherto unknown saiva tantric textTattvasaranirn. aya has been found (A 89/18)not to beconfused with a Vais.n. ava text of the same name. A col-

lection of texts filmed under A 1218/23 contains new in-formation on the reign of King Bhupatndra Malla andthe history of art in the Kathmandu Valley. In anothermultitext manuscript (A 613/1a) was found an account ofthe mourning ceremonies for the same king following hisdeath. A series of Newari texts (A 236/11, A 251/1, A251/7, A 1365/15) was discovered that sheds light on themilitary system and associated rituals during the Mallaperiod. The oldest hitherto known narrative text writ-ten in Newari (dated NS 625, i.e. 1505 A.D.), namely atranslation of the Bhagavatapuran. a, is also among thematerial. This list of new discoveries could easily be ex-tended, but the above may suffice to provide some idea ofthe contribution the NGMCP is making to uncovering fur-ther unknown or little-known cultural treasures preservedin Nepal and to compiling an accurate descriptive cata-logue of the National Archives huge and indeed uniquemicrofilm collection.

Some Highlights of the Work of a FrequentUser of the NGMPP (I)

Michael Hahn (Marburg)

The newly founded Newsletter of the NGMCP andthe kind invitation of my friend and colleague HarunagaIsaacson to contribute to it offers me a most welcome op-portunity to extract the gist (sara) of almost 35 years ofwork on the Nepalese heritage of Indian Buddhism thatrepresents the core of my scientific life. The form of theNewsletter also permits me to aim at that mixture of sci-entific and popular writing that hopefully contains some-thing which is new or at least useful for the specialist andmoreover is readable and, if I am lucky, also enjoyable fora wider readershipthe taxpayers who support our work,as Gregory Schopen would put it quite directly.

What I intend to do here and in two or three sequelsto this paper is to select some highlights of my studies ofthe Sanskrit Buddhist literature that has been preservedin Nepal and that for a long time was our most impor-tant original source for the study of Indian Buddhism.The present format permits me to include, in an anec-dotal form, the circumstances that led to the discoveryof important texts or manuscripts. I believe that this isalso an integral part of our work, and that much can belearned from the often accidental way in which these dis-coveries were made. I readily admit that I like to read therelevant reports of scholars like Bendall, Levi, Tucci andothers. My observations pertain to manuscripts whichall are of Nepalese provenance, no matter where they arecurrently kept. However, since this is a Newsletter of theNGMCP I will start with some manuscripts that havebecome accessible through the work of the NGMPP.

In the beginning I would like to say a few words aboutfirst contacts with manuscripts from Nepal. Necessar-ily I will have to report some details of my own careerfor which I request your patience in advance. The solepurpose of this part is to show in what a coincidentalmanner the whole story began. I should add that, bya strange coincidence, I had not seen and used a singleIndian manuscript during my studies in Gottingen and

Marburg and my term as Wissenschaftlicher Assistent (as-sistant professor) in Hamburg. The only primary sourcesthat I had been able to consult were Tibetan and Mon-golian manuscripts and block prints. In April of 1972 Iwas, at my own request, transferred from the Seminarfur Kultur und Geschichte Indiens of the University ofHamburg to the Indologisches Seminar at the Universityof Bonn before my term as Wissenschaftlicher Assistenthad ended. This unusual step had a very simple rea-son. Due to a change in the Hamburgisches Hochschulge-setz in 1969 the post of Wissenschaftlicher Assistent hadbecome limited to 6 years so that I knew for sure that



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Some Highlights of the Work of a Frequent User of the NGMPP (I) 5

I would be jobless after June 30, 1974. In the federalstate of Nordrhein-Westfalen, however, it was still possi-ble to serve more than six years in case the D. Litt. thesis(Habilitation) was submitted during the first six years.In order to avail myself of this opportunity I had asked

Frank-Richard Hamm, the then director of the Indologis-ches Seminar in Bonn, in July of 1971 whether the postof Assistent (assistant professor without tenure) that hehad offered me in the beginning of 1968 and that I had re-jected because I had already accepted a similar offer fromHamburg was still vacant. It was, and so I applied forthe transfer. Only two months later the sad and untimelydeath of Prof. Dr. Franz Bernhard, who was my superiorin Hamburg, happened and Ludwig Alsdorf, Bernhardssenior colleague at Hamburg, urged me to apply for thechair which, in my opinion, was by far too early. Als-dorf insisted, however, and that caused me to complete ingreat haste my edition and study of Candragomins playLokananda according to its Tibetan translation which Isubmitted, together with two other works, as part of myD. Litt. thesis to the Fachbereich Orientalistik in Ham-burg in February of 1972.

While studying the Tibetan version of theLokanandaIhad also read the only poetic work of the famous Buddhistgrammarian that was extant in the original Sanskrit, hisLetter to a Disciple or Sis.yalekha. It had been pub-lished by the Russian scholar Minaev on the basis of a19th century copy, done by the famous Nepalese pan. d. itaAmr.tananda. In the Sis.yalekhaI discovered as many asnine stanzas that are obviously identical with nine stanzas

in the Lokananda. This was the most important touch-stone to assess the incredibly poor quality of the Tibetantranslation.

While using Minaevs edition of the Sis.yalekha I couldnot fail to realise the imperfect quality of the printedtext with its many gaps and unclear passages. WhenI joined the Indologisches Seminar in Bonn in April of1972 I found, to my greatest surprise and joy, that Frank-Richard Hamm had procured for the institute a smallcollection of photostat copies of manuscripts from theUniversity Library Cambridge, among them the palm-leaf manuscript of the Sis.yalekhawhich Amr.tananda had

copied at the beginning of the 19th century CE. Thiscopy had later been brought to Sankt Petersburg whereit served as the basis of Minaevs edition. I began to studythe manuscript which, according to its colophon, was writ-ten in 204 nepala sam.vat or 1084 CE, and immediatelyrealised its pivotal role for establishing a better Sanskrittext. The manuscript, together with the re-edition of theSanskrit text, is now generally accessible in my book In-vitation to Enlightenment, Berkeley 1999.

Although the manuscript is comparatively old its tex-tual quality is rather poor. According to my calculationit contains at least 200 scribal mistakes of the usual type

that we know from many younger manuscripts: confusionof the three sibilants, confusion of nasals, omitted visargasand anusvaras, wrongly added visargas and anusvaras,confusion of vowel signs, confusion of similar letters, omit-ted and wrongly added letters. Almost all of them could

easily be corrected. In addition to them there were morethan 40 mistakes or problems of a more serious type, in-cluding those passages where some portions of the textare lost because of mechanical damage of the manuscript.In particular the first folio has suffered considerably, ascan be seen from the reproduction (plate 3 on page 20)of folios 1b, 2a, and 2b. Fortunately most of these pas-sages could be restored with the help of the Tibetantranslations of the basic text and the two commentariesby Vairocanaraks.ita and Prajnakaramati. 18 monthslater I had my second encounter with a manuscript fromNepal. Since 1965 I had begun to study theJatakamalaof Haribhat

.t.a, the Sanskrit original of which was thought

to be irretrievably lost, according to its Tibetan trans-lation. In 1971 I incorporated two of the shortest leg-ends in my Lehrbuch der klassischen tibetischen Schrift-sprache (Dardara- and *Udayajataka). Two more leg-ends ( Adarsamukha- and Syamajataka) had been stud-ied by me in detail and were awaiting publication inthe Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sudasiens. In thefall of 1973 I had completed the philological part of thestudy of the fifth legend, the Sasaj ataka, and began towrite the introduction in which I intended to compareHaribhat.t.as version with the other known parallels ofthat legend. Through a paper of the Sinhalese scholar

Ratna Handurukande, published in 1972, I had learnedof the existence of an unpublished version of the legendin a manuscript from Cambridge (plate 4 on page 21)bearing the title Avadanasarasamuccaya (ASS). In herpaper Ratna Handurukande had requested the scholarlycommunity to send her references to other parallels thanthose she had already found to the 15 legends of the ASS.I had responded to her request and pointed to 9 paral-lels in Haribhat.t.as work. By good luck a copy of themanuscript of the ASS was also available in Bonn andtherefore I felt compelled to use it for my introduction.It is hard to describe my feelings (something close to a

heart attack) after having read the first few lines of theparallelit was nothing but Haribhat.t.as original word-ing, and that held true for the other 8 parallels that Ihad mentioned in my letter to Ratna Handurukande. Asa consequence, my paper was left unfinished and insteadI began to transcribe the nine Haribhat.t.a legends in theASS. A few years later, the Sasaj ataka later became thefirst original text of Haribhat.t.a that I published.

The shock that mere coincidence had saved me frompublishing my desperate attempt at correctly interpret-ing the (rather mediocre) Tibetan translation of a textwhose Sanskrit original was still extant was so great that



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a little later I vowed to myself that this should never hap-pen again. The only way, however, to avoid this was tomake a systematic survey of the extant Buddhist San-skrit literature the biggest portion of which was, at leastat that time, the Buddhist Sanskrit literature of Nepal,

no matter at which places it was preserved. The firststep was to study thoroughly the printed catalogues ofNepalese manuscripts, e.g. those of Bendall (Cambridge),Hara Prasad Shastri (Calcutta), Cabaton and Filliozat(Paris), Matsunami (Tokyo), Buddhisagara Parajuli (BirLibrary, Kathmandu). But what about the numerous un-recorded manuscripts? There was no other option than togo to those places where collections of manuscripts fromNepal were kept. This is what I did from 1976 onwards,and in many cases I succeeded in getting access to uncata-logued manuscripts and preparing brief lists of titles. Thebiggest challenge, actually by far too much for an individ-ual, was, of course, the manuscripts still kept in Nepal.Then I remembered that a few years ago the DeutscheMorgenlandische Gesellschaft had launched a rather bigproject whose aim was to microfilm the extant documentsof the kingdom of Nepal, the Nepal-German ManuscriptPreservation Project. And thus my contacts with thatproject began.

During the first years of the project (i.e. 19701975)the conditions of using the microfilms in Germany hadnot yet been worked out. As a consequence practicallynobody was given access to them. In 1976, while the newagreement with the Nepalese authorities was being worked

out, the situation became less strict, and Dr. WolfgangVoigt, the then director of the project, permitted me tosee the index cards and selected microfilms. This, by theway, was facilitated by the fact that I personally knew Dr.Voigt from the time of my studies in Marburg (19621967)and that my first wife had served under him as librarian.The first check of the index cards, done in less than threehours, yielded four veritable hits because I was able toidentify the manuscripts of four texts that were partic-ularly dear to me at that time: the Vr.ttamalavivr.ti (acommentary on the Vr.ttamalastuti, the text on whoseTibetan translation I had written my Ph. D. thesis), theBodhisattvajatakavadanamala(see plate 5 on page 22; the

archetype of five other manuscripts that contain 9 or 11legends from Haribhat.t.as Jatakamala), and the oldestmanuscripts of theMahajjatakamala(which I was prepar-ing for publication together with Gudrun Buhnemann onthe basis of an inferior copy) and Hars.adevasNagananda(on whose Tibetan translation I was working at thattime). I became so enthusiastic about the new possibilitiesthat I resolved to go through the index cards as system-atically as possible. At that time the Oriental Section ofthe former Preuische Staatsbibliothek was still locatedin Marburg, my former alma mater, while I was teachingand working at the University of Bonn. Fortunately a

very convenient solution could be found. In 1976 ClausVogel had accepted the invitation to become successorof Frank-Richard Hamm as holder of the chair of IndianStudies at the University of Bonn. Since his position atMarburg was not to be filled again, someone was needed

to guide the four students, who had taken Tibetan astheir minor, viz. Ryutaro Tsuchida, Konrad Klaus, Jens-Peter Laut, and Gerhard Ehlers, to their MA and Ph. D.exams. This gave me the opportunity to teach Tibetanat the Indisch-Ostasiatisches Seminar of the University ofMarburg as a visiting lecturer for almost four years. Thatwas a pleasant experience by itself, however my main ob-jective was to see the microfilms. Due to the limited timein Marburg only a very small section could be covered. Inorder to broaden my first-hand knowledge of the BuddhistSanskrit literature from Nepal I visited other importantplaces where these treasures are kept in 1976 and 1977:Paris, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Tokyo and Kyoto.And in 1977 I had the opportunity to visit Kathmandufor the first time. Within two weeks I went through theindex cards of the first campaign of the NGMPP (19701975; National Archives and Kesar Library) and also ofthe second campaign (19751977; manuscripts in privatepossession), altogether 60,000 index cards. The 30,000index cards of the first set were available in Kathmanduonly on microfilm since the originals had already beensent to Berlin. When Dr. Voigt noticed my great interestin the project he suggested to me to become local direc-tor of the NGMPP in Kathmandu as of October 1978.For personal reasons I could accept this offer only for one

year although that period was one of the most pleasantand fruitful of my life. Several years later I received an-other invitation to return to Kathmandu from Dr. Voigtssuccessor Albrecht Wezler but again it was not possiblefor me to accept it. Later I had the pleasure that two ofmy disciples worked or are working for the project, Klaus-Dieter Mathes for seven years and Dragomir Dimitrov forthe last two years.

Now I would like to present a recent publication whichis largely based on three manuscripts from Nepal, theoldest of which has become accessible though the workof the NGMPP: the Bodhisattvavadanamala or Jataka-

malacomposed by the Buddhist poet Aryasura (before400 CE). The publication I refer to is:

Albrecht Hanisch, Aryas uras Jatakamala.Philologische Untersuchungen zu den Legen-den 115. Teil 1: Einleitung, Textausgabe,Anhange, Register. lxxxvii, 255 pp. Teil2: Philologischer Kommentar. ix, 409 pp.Marburg 2005 (Indica et Tibetica. 41/1 and43/2.)

Aryasuras Jatakamala (AJM) is a well-known classic ofthe early period of classical Sanskrit literature. The San-skrit text was published by the Dutch scholar Hendrik



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Some Highlights of the Work of a Frequent User of the NGMPP (I) 7

Kern as volume 1 of the famous Harvard Oriental Seriesin 1891 and later reprinted several times. Kerns text isbased on two manuscripts from Cambridge (A and B) andParis (P). A and P were copied in the 19th century CEwhile B is dated 1637 CE. According to Kern, P seems

to be a (remote?) copy of B in which case the editionwould be based on two manuscripts only. All the threemanuscripts abound in scribal errors.

In 1895 another Dutch scholar, Jacob Samuel Speyer,published the first translation of the work into English.Later the work was translated into Russian (1962), Ital-ian (1964), Hindi (1971), and French (under preparation).In 1983 another popular and rather free English transla-tion was anonymously published from Dharma Publish-ing, Berkeley, and in 1989 Peter Khoroches new Englishtranslation appeared that not only aims at greater legi-bility but also uses an improved text as its basis.

Textual criticism on the text as edited by Kern re-mained meagre in comparison with the flood of emen-dations that were suggested in a great number of papersafter the first edition of Asvaghos.as Buddhacarita hadbeen published by E. B. Cowell. This was mainly due tothe apparently better condition of the text established byKern compared to Cowells version of the Buddhacarita.In this connection we might again quote Max Mullersjudgement in the preface of Speyers English translation:The edition of the Sanskrit text by Prof. Kern is not onlyan editio princeps, but the text as restored by him willprobably remain the final text, (. . . ).

In the notes accompanying his English translationSpeyer suggested 16 emendations, 10 of which are correctwhile the remaining 6 are to be rejected according to ourpresent knowledge. A greater number of emendations (al-together 38) was suggested by the Polish scholar AndrzejGawronski in a paper that appeared in 1919. About 4050 per cent of them are correct. In 1955 Friedrich Wellerpublished fragments of the Sanskrit text that were foundin Central Asia (Murtuq and Toyoq) and brought to Ger-many. These fragments are the oldest known testimoniesof the Sanskrit text and they enabled him to establish fivebetter readings. In 2002 Jens-Uwe Hartmann published17 fragments from the Schyen Collection that were found

in Afghanistan. The few fragments that belongs to leg-ends 115 do not provide us with better readings.

With the exception of Wellers contribution none of theemendations is based on new primary source material.Only Gnolis Italian translation occasionally uses the Ti-betan translation, thereby arriving at better solutions.Real progress began only when Peter Khoroche, whileworking on his English translation of the Jatakamala,consulted the manuscripts used by Kern for his editionand detected that full use had not been made of them.Their readings are not fully recorded, quite often the textwas altered tacitly, and occasionally a correct reading was

overlooked. In this connection I might refer to the very in-teresting statistical observations of Albrecht Hanisch con-cerning Kerns text of the first 15 legends.

a) Correct restorations of corrupt manuscript readings:124 cases

b) Wrong restorations of corrupt manuscript readings:21 cases

c) Wrong alterations of basically correct manuscriptreadings: 127 cases

This list does not contain those numerous cases where theolder manuscripts (see below) have better readings thatare substantially different from the younger manuscripts.

After Peter Khoroche had become suspicious about thetext as edited by Kern he began to look for new and morereliable manuscripts sources. He discovered two impor-tant manuscripts that are now kept in the University Li-

brary, Tokyo. They were brought to Japan from Nepal.One of them was an almost complete, beautifully writtenand well preserved palm-leaf manuscript that accordingto its script might stem from the 12th century CE. In thenew critical edition it is designated as T. The second is amuch younger manuscript (dated 1725 CE) that containsa commentary (t. k a) on legends 1 through 15. Folio 58of its 65 folios is missing. It is replaced by another foliothat contains a commentary on AJM 19.2131. Thereforewe know that the t. k aoriginally went beyond legend No.15, at least till legend No. 19 and perhaps even until theend of the work. Khoroche carefully went through the

two new manuscripts and found scores of new and betterreadings.In 1986 Peter Khoroche came to Bonn and discussed his

projects with me. I could inform him about some papermanuscripts ofAJM filmed by the NGMPP that I hadcollected for the institute in Bonn. In 1976 I had read thefirst six legends together with Tissa Rajapatirana in com-parison with the Tibetan translation ofAJM (AJMtib).We had observed that these manuscripts contained nu-merous better readings, most of which were confirmedbyAJMtib. Peter Khoroche compared these manuscriptswith his text and came to the conclusion that they ba-sically represented the wording of the manuscripts used

by Kern, only without their corruptions. More importantwas the microfilm of an incomplete palm-leaf manuscriptfrom the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, which seemed to bereally old. When I began to check my notes about otherAJM manuscripts I found that there was one more palm-leaf manuscript filmed by the NGMPP (Ms 3-359 Jataka2 [second part], microfilmed by the NGMPP on reel nr.A 33/11) that I had not yet seen. After I had receiveda microfilm from Berlin I found that this was the com-plement of the manuscript in Calcutta. According to thescript and the numerals the manuscripts seems to havebeen written in the 11th century CE. Thus it is the old-



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est manuscript ofAryasuras work if we neglect the veryfragmentary portions from Central Asia and Afghanistan.In a paper and a short monograph Peter Khoroche pub-lished a great portion of the variant readings contained inthe three new primary sources. He wisely refrained from

a final judgement about the value of this new materialsince he was fully aware of the importance of the Tibetansources which had not yet been analysed:

a) the Tibetan translation of the AJM

b) the Tibetan translation of the t.k a by a certainDharmakrti

c) the Tibetan translation of the panjika by a certainVryasim.ha.

At that time Ratna Basu from Calcutta had begun toprepare editions of the anonymous Sanskrit t. k a and ofVryasim.has panjika. These editions were completed in

1988 and are available as Dissertationsdruck in the majorGerman libraries. Unfortunately new important commit-ments after her return to Calcutta prevented Ratna Basufrom revising and finalizing her editions for publication.

The next phase in preparing the ground for a new edi-tion ofAJM was a series of three papers in which I triedto gain an impression about the progress that could beachieved by using all the source material that is currentlyknown and accessible. In these papersthe second ofwhich was written in collaboration with Roland SteinerI studied the legends 6 (Sasa), 10 (Yajna), 33 and 34(Mahis.a and Satapattra). After presenting, discussing

and critically assessing the variant readings I came to theconclusion, by way of extrapolation, that for every sin-gle page in Kerns edition c. 89 better readings can besuggested or c. 2,000 better readings for the whole text.After these test-runs I felt confident enough to commis-sion to Albrecht Hanisch the task of a new edition of leg-ends 115 ofAJM in 1995/6. The result has now beenpresented before the public. The new edition is the firstreal critical edition ofAJM in the sense that it is basedon all the known (independent) sources in Sanskrit andTibetan and that the reader can clearly distinguish be-tween the readings of the manuscripts and the work ofthe editor. There are no tacit emendations and moreover

the reasons for selecting a particular reading or alterationagainst the primary sources are fully documented in thelong philological commentary that forms the second vol-ume. The number of variant readings against the text ofKern is 1,200. More than 800 are to be regarded as betterreadings. Since the legends 115 cover 98 pages in Kernsedition my previous estimate of 89 better readings perpage is confirmed by the new partial edition of the textof Hanisch.

The main sources for the new text ofAJM are the threemanuscripts from Nepal (N, T, and the t.k amanuscript)and the excellent Tibetan translation (AJMtib), done

around 800 CE and based on an excellent Sanskritmanuscript. Without the work of the NGMPP the pre-cious manuscript N might have been overlooked and itsrelationship to the folios preserved in Calcutta might nothave been detected.

On page 2324 are two samples of N (plate 6) and T(plate 7). One can see that both manuscripts are care-fully written and contain many corrections of mistakesthat were obviously detected during the process of proof-reading. Albrecht Hanisch observed that both N and Tcontain numerous glosses in the margin, a great portion ofwhich are quotations from theanonymous Sanskrit t.k a.Since these glosses can be found throughout the work,not only until legend No. 15, this can be regarded as ev-idence that the t.k awas complete and commented uponthe whole AJM.

As a single example of the kind of textual improvementthat has been possible, I would like to point to stanza 8.31,where the mistake asatyam instead ofasabhyam almostremained undetected because of the great similarity ofthe letters ta and bha (ortya and bhya) in certain formsof the Nepalese script. King Maitrbala explains to hisministers why he has to fulfil the wish of a beggar underall circumstances:

sam.vidyamanam. nastti bruyad asmadvidhah.katham|na dadamty asabhyam. (asatyam. Kern) vavispas. t.am api yacitah.

These are the two translations by Speyer and Khoroche:

Being requested in distinct terms, how may any-body like me say I have not, when having, orI will not give, speaking falsely? (Speyer)

If someone plainly asks for something, how cananyone such as I say I havent got it when Ihaveor shamefully reply I will not give it?(Khoroche)

When Hanisch and I read the stanza our suspicion wasaroused by the Tibetan translation brtul te bluntlywhich would be rather strange for asatyam. Thet. k a ex-plains the word as lajjavaham producing shame, mak-

ing someone blush which is obviously the source ofKhoroches rendering shameful. But it was Dharma-krtis paraphrasetshogs par mi dbyun banot to be raisedin an assembly which made me think ofsabha and ul-timately led to the correct reading asabhyam. What thet.k akarawishes to express is the fact that a rude reply toa request makes the supplicant blush and caused him tofeel ashamed. Hence falsely (Speyer) and shamefully(Khoroche) have to be replaced by rudely or bluntly.

The reader of this report will perhaps ask: When willwe see the remaining part of the new edition ofAJM?The answer is: Hopefully in a not too distant future.



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Book announcements 9

A grant of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (GermanResearch Foundation) enabled Dr. Hanisch to edit legends1623 in a similar manner between 2001 and 2003, themain difference being that the t.k ais lost for the legends1634. Hanischs book covers 40 per cent ofAJM, the

legends 1623 another 25 percent so that about 35 percent are now left to be done. We hope that another grantwill enable Dr. Hanisch to complete the critical editionalso of the remaining third of this masterwork of earlyclassical Sanskrit literature.

Book announcements

Das Kompendium der moralischenVollkommenheiten

!

!

. Vairocana-

raks.itas tibetische Ubertragungvon Aryasuras Paramitasamasasamt Neuausgabe des Sanskrit-textes. Von Naoki Saito. Marburg2005. x, 412 S. 48,00. ISBN3-923776-38-1 (Indica et Tibetica.Band 38)

[The Compendium of Moral Per-fections. Vairocanaraks.itas Tibetan translation ofAryasuras Paramitasamasa together with a new editionof the Sanskrit text. By Naoki Saito. Marburg 2005.x, 412 pages. 48.00. ISBN 3-923776-38-1 (Indica et

Tibetica. Vol. 38)]The main purpose of this Ph.D. thesis (Marburg Uni-versity, 2000) is the minute analysis of Vairocanaraks.itasTibetan translation of Aryasuras Paramitasamasa orCompendium of the Moral Perfections (sc. of a Bodhi-sattva). The latter work has so far not received the at-tention it deserves. It consists of 363 stanzas of a highliterary quality and composed in a great variety of me-tres, and is divided into six chapters in which it describesthe moral virtues of giving or charity (dana), morality(sla), forbearance (ks. anti), energy (vrya), meditation(dhyana), and wisdom (prajna). This description aimsat summarizing and systematizing the stray remarks that

can be found in the older Buddhist canonical literature.The original Sanskrit text was edited twice. The first

edition by Alfonsa Ferrari (Roma 1946), accompaniedby an Italian translation, was based on a modern tran-script of rather poor quality. Although Ferrari could im-prove the text in many places, it remains far from sat-isfactory. The second edition by Carol Meadows (Bonn1984), accompanied by an English translation and a thor-ough study ofAryasuras sources, is based on the solemanuscript known at present to survive, which is keptin the National Archives, Kathmandu, and became gen-erally accessible through the work of the NGMPP (MS

5-145, NGMPP reel nr. A 39/2). Unfortunately the sec-ond edition, too, suffers from two major short-comings.First, due to a certain weakness of the author in thefields of palaeography and philology, K (the manuscriptfrom Kathmandu) was not deciphered correctly in several

places. Second, due to the absence of a critical edition andstudy of the Tibetan translation the information that canbe gleaned from it about correct or variant readings (orinterpretations) of the difficult Sanskrit could not suffi-ciently be exploited.

Saitos book successfully tries to make up for theseshortcomings. Its first and main result is a text of theTibetan translation that is purged of c. 100 mistakes thathave crept in the course of its transmission, i.e., duringthe 900 years between it was first written down (around800 CE) and its incorporation into the five known editionsof the Tibetan Tanjur in the 18th century CE. Its secondtangible result is the third (and hopefully final) editionof the Sanskrit with a reasonably lean critical apparatusthat refers only to K and the Tibetan translation (as es-tablished by Saito) and omits everything which is unnec-essary in the apparatus of Meadows. In four cases Saitowas able to identify later interpolations that are thereforeomitted from the main text. This edition can be regardedas the future reference edition of this important work onBuddhist ethics.

A final word should be said with regard to Vairocana-raks.itas Tibetan translation. It is unusually free, some-times boldly omitting (or adding) words or even wholepassages, but is nevertheless quite faithful to the inten-

tions of the author Aryasura. One gets the impressionthat it might have been done before the principles of howto translate Indian texts into Tibetan were laid down inthe beginning of the 9th century CE. The high esteemit enjoyed (and enjoys) in Tibet can be seen from thefact that Tsongkhapa quotes more than 60 stanzas fromit in his celebrated Lam rim chen mo. The peculiaritiesof Vairocanaraks.itas translation are analyzed in detail inthe introductory part of Saitos book. So far no other Ti-betan text of this kind has ever been edited and studied.

(Michael Hahn)

Aryas uras Jatakamala. Philologis-che Untersuchungen zu den Legen-den 1 bis 15. Teil 1: Einleitung,Textausgabe, Anhange, Register.Teil 2: Philologischer Kommentar.Von Albrecht Hanisch. Marburg2005, lxxxvii, 255 S., ix, 409 S. (In-dica et Tibetica, Band 43/1 und43/2).

Aryasuras Jatakamala (AJM) isone of the most famous texts of

early classical Buddhist poetry, written in beautiful or-



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10 Book announcements

nate Sanskrit in a mixture of prose and verses called thecampu style and for its content highly esteemed as anillustration of Buddhist ethics in 34 legends. The edi-tion hitherto referred to by scholars was presented by theDutch scholar Hendrik Kern as early as 1891, using three

comparatively young Nepalese MSS. The present work of-fers a new edition of legends 1 to 15 on the basis of mucholder and better sources in Sanskrit and Tibetan, namelytwo palm-leaf MSS of the AJM from the 11. and 12thcent., the only Sanskrit commentary on the work traced sofar (containingAJM 1 to 15 only), the Tibetan translationof the AJM prepared already at the very beginning of the9th cent., and the commentary of Dharmakrti preservedin Tibetan only. The thorough examination of these newmaterials yielded more than 800 improvements of the textedited by Kern.

The detailed introduction (vol. 1, pp. xiiilxxxvii) givesinformation about the work and its author, a survey ofthe history of research on the AJM, a description of thesources and their mutual relations, a sketch of the charac-ter of the Tibetan translation, and notes on Dharmakrtiscommentary and other Tibetan commentaries.

The main body of vol. 1 forms a critical edition of leg-ends 1 to 15 (pp. 1140). The appendices contain a listof variants on the text not reported so far (pp. 143151),a list of mistakes, corrections and glosses in the palm-leafMSS (152-174), statistics on the relations between thesources of the text (175184), selected indices of Sanskritand Tibetan words treated in the philological commen-tary (185236), a list of abbreviations and a bibliography

(237255).Vol. 2 consists in a philological commentary in which

all variants on the text ofAJM 1 to 15 are presented,discussed and evaluated. This commentary contains nu-merous collections of instances of certain Sanskrit andTibetan words and phrases, and many linguistic, gram-matical and stylistic observations. The word indices invol. 1, pp. 185236 are meant to serve as a guide to theseand in combination with vol. 2 may be used as a glossaryto the Sanskrit text and its Tibetan translation.

This publication aims to put further studies on this veryimportant Sanskrit text on a much more reliable ground

than before, and to provide scholars of Buddhist Sanskritliterature with rich material on lexical, grammatical andstylistic issues in Sanskrit and Tibetan.

(Albrecht Hanisch)

The Sekoddesat. k a by N aropa(Paramarthasam.graha). CriticalEdition of the Sanskrit Text byFrancesco Sferra. Critical Editionof the Tibetan Translation by

Stefania Merzagora. Roma 2006.460 pages. ISBN 88-85320-37-6.Serie Orientale Roma xcix

The Sekoddesat.ka or Parama-rthasam.graha, the only work by thecelebrated Buddhist tantric siddha

Naropa/Nad. apada known to survive in Sanskrit, is oneof the very small number of Buddhist tantric texts thatwas edited and published in Sanskrit before the middle ofthe twentieth century. Since 1941, the year in which theeditio princepsby Mario Carelli appeared in the Gaek-wads Oriental Series, many more editions, translations

and studies of Vajrayana works have been published, al-though this area can still be called one of the least re-searched within South Asian Buddhism. Sixty-five yearslater, Francesco Sferra has now published a new criticaledition of the Sanskrit, working together with StefaniaMerzagora, who provides in the same volume a criticaledition of the Tibetan translation.

The single manuscript on which Carelli based his edi-tion was one which his teacher, Giuseppe Tucci, had bor-rowed from the library of the Maharaja of Nepal. Itone of a number of manuscripts from the royal librarythat we know of that seem to have disappeared before

the NGMPP was able to microfilm it (for the details onwhat can be now uncovered about this manuscript seeSferras introduction, pp. 1417). Fortunately, Sferra hasbeen able to use two other Nepalese manuscripts, one inthe National Archives in Kathmandu (MS 5116, micro-filmed by the NGMPP on reel nr. A 940/6), and one inthe Bodleian Library in Oxford (MS Sansk. c. 28 (r)). Hiscareful critical edition takes into account the evidence ofthese manuscripts, of Carellis edition, and of the Tibetantranslation, as well as of a large number of testimonia andparallel texts. The result is a text that completely super-sedes that of Carellis laudable editio princeps; the newmaterial has allowed nearly all the lacunae of Carellis

sole manuscript to be filled, and a very large numberin the several hundreds, at a cursory estimate,of er-rors have been corrected. The edition has a full, positive,critical apparatus, and gives details of over fifty parallelpassages, sometimes lengthy ones, in other works; mostare cases where Naropa has borrowed freely from earlyKalacakra texts such as the Vimalaprabha. Apart fromNaropas commentary, Sferra has provided also a new andimproved text of the stanzaspurported to be a chapterfrom the Kalacakra root tantraof the Sekoddesa it-self, improving in a number of places on the two earliereditions published by Raniero Gnoli. An Appendix by



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Kaliyugasam. ghataka 11

Merzagora on the Apabhram.sa verses quoted in the text,and detailed Indices, add to the value of this publication,which anyone interested in Indian tantric Buddhism, andthe Kalacakra in particular, will wish to consult.

The legacy of the pioneering scholar of tantric Bud-

dhist studies (only one of many areas in which he worked),Giuseppe Tucci, is continued, in this publication, at thehighest level. One notes that the Serie Orientale Romain which it appears was founded by Tucci; that Tuccimade the manuscript that Carelli used available to himand guided his work; and that the two young scholars towhom we owe this volume were both taught by RanieroGnoli, another pupil of the great Italian scholar.

(Harunaga Isaacson)

Kaliyugasam.ghataka

DiwakarAcharya(University of Kyoto)

I discovered this text of 50 verses in various metres enti-

tledKaliyugasam.ghataka in the NGMPP microfilms. Theoriginal palmleaf manuscript is preserved in the NationalArchives, Kathmandu. Its manuscript number is 1-866and the NGMPP reel number is B 4/7. It has 12 folios of22 x 4 cm size, including a blank folio at the end servingas a cover. Each folio contains four lines on both sides,a line contains about 36 aks. aras. The author of the textis not known, and none of these 50 verses are known tobe included in any anthology. However, the manuscriptis dated, the colophon telling us that it was copied onthe first of the waning half of Marga, NS 501 (November,1380 A.D.), a terminus ad quem.

It is possible that the text was written in, and did not

circulate beyond the boundaries of, mediaeval Nepal. Theauthor is innovative in choosing metres, and critical inpresenting his feelings and reflections on what was goingon around him. It is conceivable that the poem reflectssome particular events that took place in the society inwhich the poet lived. His vocabulary is spectacular; heuses many rare words.

As the title says, it is An Assemblage [of Verses =A Poem] on the Dark Age. TheKavyadarsaof Dan. d. inknows sam.ghata[ka] as a type of poem. Dan. d. in namesmuktaka, kulaka, kosa and sam.ghata[ka] as categories ofpoem inferior to an epic poem with chapter divisions,

and one of its commentaries takes sam.ghata[ka] to bea poem on a certain theme in one single metre. How-ever, our text which contains the (categorical?) ele-ment sam.ghataka in its title is not written in one but32 various metres. The poem begins with a metre of sixsyllables and goes on increasing up to 24 syllables tillverse 49, with the exception of the last verse, writtenin a 14 syllable metre chosen as conclusion.1 I presenthere the list of these metres in the consecutive orderof their use in the poem: Vidyullekha, Us.n. ik, Acala,Praman. ika, Ravipula, Anus.t.ubh, a new metre that Ihave not traced in Sanskrit works on prosody,2 anothernew metre,3 Viyogin, Svagata, Rathoddhata, Indra-

1The closest parallel to this display of metrical virtuousity knownto me at present is in the Karn. ananda of Kr.s.n. adasa (ed. and trsl.N.S. Shukla, Pondicherry 1971, PIFI no. 41), in which from verse62 onwards the author gradually increases the length of the metreshe uses from a one-syllable metre to one with thirty-nine syllables.Kr.s.n. adasa is a sixteenth-century poet, however, and hence cannothave influenced the author of the Kaliyugasam.ghataka.

2This metre of nine syllables consists ofna-, ra- and ma-gan. as( ) It is also possible that the poet combined two shortmetre to invent a new metre. For example, it can be treated aseither a combination of Dr.k () and Malin Nlatoya ( ) orof Manojna ( ) and Str ().

3This is a metre with two different patterns in odd and evenpadas. The odd padas consist of na-, ra- and ya-gan. as, and a



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13/24


14/24

14

a%,4%/%Y&!F*2M%G#i%4MPd

Kaliyugasam. ghataka

7?.dU7LD.%PM!D.J!(D%9GKGa#O1f.a.CDK#Q|4c.D%4DP.(t%2(D%F:KM{%&F3K4.D%>5( !.!4"U./0


15/24

The Paribhas.aman. imalaof Candradattaa rare text on Pan. inian paribhas. as 15

The Paribhas.aman. imala of Candradattaarare text on Pan. inian paribhas.as

Oliver Hahn

Among the numerous manuscripts (some 2360) micro-filmed by the NGMPP which contain grammatical texts,there is only a single one (A 554/4, 7 fols., written in De-vanagari characters) containing a text called Paribhas.a-man. imala(i.e. the necklace of pearls/jewels of paribhas.a-s), as far as can be guessed at the present state of affairsfrom the preliminary list of manuscripts.1

In the New Catalogus Catalogorum (vol. xi p. 221),there is the following entry: Paribhas.aman. imala gr. byCandradatta Jha. Mithila2 (2 mss.). Until recently,nothing more was known about the text and its authoron a wider scale.

To begin with, there are two indications that speakfor Candradattas coming from Mithila. First, the twomanuscripts mentioned in the NCC hail from Mithila,while our Nepalese manuscript is hardly counter-evidence,as a great number of manuscripts found in Nepal originatefrom the region of Mithila.

iti srmadupadhyayopanamadheyavidehanagara-dhivasina srcam.dra-dattasam.jnavata viracitaparibhas.aman. imala samapta samvat 1918jyes.t.a(!)sukla 10 vasare 3 likhitam idam. pu-stakam. balakr.s.n. a-sarman. a arjyalapadavacyenasubham

The date corresponds to the 10th tithi in the light half ofthe moon in the month of jyais.t.ha (Mai/June), Tuesday,in Vikramasamvat 1918 (A.D. 1861/62). As we shall seebelow, the peculiar thing about Candradattas text is thefact that it is virtually a versification of Nagoj Bhat.t.asParibhas.endusekhara, the well-known and, so to speak,definitive text on the interpretative rules (paribhas.a)accepted in the Pan. inian system of grammar. We maytherefore conclude, to start with, that Candradatta livedafter Nago j Bhat.t.a, especially since he appears not to liewithin the direct main line of pupils of the great gram-marian.3 Taking into consideration Nago j Bhat.t.as time

(about 16701750) and the relatively late date of our

1This cannot, of course, be said with absolute certainty, sincethere are still many manuscripts to be catalogued, one of whichmight yet turn out to contain another specimen of this text. Thesaid list (Preliminary List of Manuscripts, Blockprints and His-torical Documents microfilmed by the Nepal-German ManuscriptPreservation Project) is available on CD with the NGMCP in Ham-burg.

2Cf. ibid. p. xvii: Without any other reference. A hand-list ofSanskrit manuscripts in Mithila to be described in the subsequentvolumes of the Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in Mithil a bythe Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Patna.

3Cf. the list of Nagoj Bhat.t.asparamparaas given in Kielhornsedition and translation of the Paribhas.endusekhara(pt. 2 p. 7).

manuscript (1861/2 A.D.), probably we can safely nar-row down Candradattas time to a period of some 100years between the end of the 18th and the end of the 19thcentury A.D.

Now, let us have a closer look at Candradattas text.

First of all, it may be noted that, besides using theanus.t.ubh metre here and there, he is fond of mixing theupajati (i.e. indravajra and upendravajra) and vam.sasthametres. The text starts thus (fol. 1v12):

srgan. esaya namah.om

akum.citorddhvabahubhyam.rim.gaman. am. vrajam.gan. e

srnam.danam.danam. vandepracam. vacam agocaram 1

santha paribhas.a yah.paribhas.endusekhare

ta hetum. phalapurvam. canibadhnami yathamati 2

I praise the son of Nanda (i.e. Kr.s.n. a), [who]crawls in the cow-yard with [his] two bent armsraised, [and who is] beyond the reach of thewords of the easterners (?).4

In this [book] (iha) are [to be found] paribhas.a-s which are in the Paribhas.endusekhara; I writethem down [in metrical form], and the reason[for their formulation] accompanied by the fruit(?), to the best of [my] judgement.

Having completed his two introductory verses, in thesecond of which Candradatta explicitly states theParibhas.endusekhara to be the source of the paribhas.a-s he is going to versify, he jumps right into the subjectmatter of his work which comprises 118 verses in all. 115of them contain paraphrases of the paribhas.a-s of NagojBhat.t.a (numbering 122). Candradatta deals with them inthe same sequence as his forerunner, now and then givingtwo paribhas.a-s within one verse (e.g. in verse 4, wherehe treats paribhas.a-s 2 and 3 together). The text goes onas follows (fol. 1v29):

savarn.

avarn.

apratipadakadavan. adipurvottaran. adisam.saye

vyakhyanato nyanta(!)nivarttakam. dvidhan. akaram evanubabam.dha yan munih.

5 3

(cf. paribhas.a 1)

4From this introductory verse of his we may assume that Candra-datta had Kr.s.n. a for his is. t.adevata. If the reading pracam. vacamagocaram [who is] out of the reach of the words (i.e. chants?) ofthe easterners(?) (or should this be taken rather as meaning ofthe ancients) is correct, the author might just possibly have meantto allude ironically to a certain sect of Vis.n. uites in the east, perhapsto the followers of sr Caitanya in Bengal.

5I.e. Pan. ini.



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16 The Paribhas.aman. imalaof Candradattaa rare text on Pan. inianparibhas. as

yathasrutagrahi vises.adarsijanaprabhedadd (!) viditam. matadvayam

sastre yathoddesam atho hi karya-kalam. tathaiva vyavatis.t.hate rthatah.4

(cf. paribhas.a-s 23)

vidhyamane [[]]nubabam.dha yan munistat kim. tadyo vayavo na veti

matadvayam. kadikiduktilabhya (!)srutiprayuktam. prathamam. tu yuktam 5

(cf. paribhas.a-s 45)

ayam. tv anekalabhidhaya(!)sitpadam.cakara canekavidhatvam als.u

naivanubam.dha[[o]] na bhavaty ato rvan. astradesakaryam.

6 sakalasya naiva 6

(cf. paribhas.a 6)

ittham. tv anubam.dhakr.ta7

na kr.ta nakutracid bhavaty anejam.tapadabhidheyata

nirdis.ya mano vyatihara8 atvam.

dadadi (!) daipo na karoty aghutvat 7

(cf. paribhas.a 7)

na tair asarupyam api prayojakam.yad va sarupeti kr.te vibhas.aya

sapratyayam. sasti dadatidhator9

ato na godadipade n. kadacit 8

(cf. paribhas.a 8)

na kr.trima vai(!)tisadam.tasam.khya

yat kanvidhau10 tat pratis.edhatttham dvayor apha grahan. am. yadr.chaya (!)

bhavaty atah. pasvaka(!)saptakadi11 9

(cf. paribhas.a 9)

The Paribhas.aman. imalaends thus (fol. 7r17):

asiddhakam.d. asthitaghatvasasana (!)dvitve na purva (!) bhavati

(gdha)siddham12 ato na dogdhra(!)dis.u ghatvat.atve

13 (!)dvitve kr.te stah. sakales.t.asiddhih.111

6Cf. Pan. 6.4.127: arvan. as tr asav ananah. 7Here, the long u in anubam.dha

seems to be acceptable out ofmetrical reasons (cf. also a similar lengthening in the Vedic termanubandhya to be fastened (as a sacrificial animal) for slaughter-ing).

8Cf. Pan. 3.4.19: udcam. mano vyathare 9Cf. Pan. 3.1.139: dadatidadhatyor vibhas.a 10Cf. Pan. 5.1.22: sam.khyaya atisadantayah. kan11I.e. pancakasaptakadi.12The manuscript reads tgha. In this connection, it may be inter-

esting to note a similar convention of writing the combined lettersgdha and ddha as tdha and tgha respectively in another Nagarimanuscript (A 554/6 Paribhas.arthamanjar, undated but not veryold).

13Emendation: ato na drogdhadis.u ghatvad. hatve.. . , cf. NagojBhat.t.a on this paribhas.a.

(cf. paribhas.a 117)

anyarthatvaprasam.gena[yac]14 canyakr.timat kvacit

tena svam gavam asves.viti naiva kadacana 112


prasaran. am. 15 tajjanitam. cca (!) karyam.

balya ity apy avamenire pare vivyadhasiddhyadiphalasya canyatha

siddhih. kr.ta yat phan. inayakena 113


stipa sapetyadivacas tu caikajyada tatha bebhiditeti siddhyati

kvacin na yad yanluki purvakham.d. egun. am.

16 vidhatte na ca bhas.ya-

sam.matam 114

(cf. paribhas.a 120.3)

upadis.t.aprattih. syadupadis.t.aprayuktayoh.

vikr.tih. prakr.tim. yat-tyady anars.an na likhyate 115

(cf. paribhas.a 120.1+2)

vibhajya yogam. padagaurava(d) dhivyakhyanam eva prabalam. laghutvat

idam. tu t.aneti17 vidhau viruddham.

pratyate bhas.yamatad ato na 116


sabda(!)kantarasakhinna(!)-buddhir18 matrarddhalaghavat

manute putrajananatsukhad apy adhiom.

19 (!) sukham 117

14This emendation may be justified on both metrical and syn-tactical grounds: Since (yad) in some cases, however, [a word(sc. karan. a)] may have another [grammatical] form by [its] con-nection with another sense, therefore (tena), [in spite of Pan.2.3.39, one should] never [employ the genitive and the locativeside by side in the same sense], as: the owner of the cattle(gen.) [and] the horses (loc.) . The reason is that an ex-pression like svam gav am asves. u might be intended to meangavam. svamy asves.u vartate, i.e. the owner of the cattle is[now] with the horses. Cf. also Nagoj Bhat.t.as comment on hisown paribhas.a, which Candradatta has worked into the first half ofhis verse: yatranyakr. tikaran. e bhinnarthatvasam.bhavana tadvis.ayoyam. nyaya ity anyatra vistarah.

15Here, Candradatta usesprasaran. ammetri causa in the sense ofsam.prasaran. am.

16Cf. Pan. . 7.4.82: gun. o yanlukoh.17Cf. Pan. . 7.1.12: t.anasinasam inatsyah. 18Emendation: sabdakantarasam.khinnabuddhir, i.e. [a gram-

marian, whos] mind has become completely tired [by following this]difficult path [through] the forest of [the science of] words etc.

19I.e. adhikam.



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The Nepal Research Centre: Past and Present 17

(cf. paribhas.a 122)Candradatta winds up his work with the following verse

in the arya metre (fol. 7r78):

paribhas.aman. imalaparibhas

.endusekharal labdha

enam. vidhr.tya kan. t.hesadasi lasam.to bhavantu vidvam.sah.118

[This] Paribhas.aman. imala (i.e. this necklaceof pearls (or: jewels) of paribhas.a-s) has beenobtained from the Paribhas.endusekhara. Car-rying it on/in [their] throats (i.e. having learntit by heart), let the wise shine in the assembly[halls].20

In conclusion, the few excerpts of Candradattas textpresented here should give an idea of its complexityand difficulties of interpretation, which cannot be solved

without a very clear and deep understanding of theParibhas.endusekhara itself in the first place. Here wehave an example of a rare work of considerable sophisti-cation, itself possibly quite recent but standing in the an-cient Pan. inian tradition of grammar which lives on evento the present day.

Bibliography:

The Paribhas. endusekhara of Nagojbhat.t.a. Ed. criticallywith the commentary Tattvadarsa of V. S. Abhyankarby K. V. Abhyankar. Pt. 1. Bhandarkar Oriental Re-search Institute, Poona 1962.

The Paribhas. endusekhara of Nagojbhat.t.a. Ed. and ex-plained by F. Kielhorn. Pt. 2 Translation and Notes.2nd ed. by K. V. Abhyankar. Bhandarkar Oriental Re-search Institute, Poona 1960.

New Catalogus Catalogorum: An Alphabetical Register ofSanskrit and Allied Works and Authors. Ed. K. Kun-junni Raja, N. Veezhinathan. vol. 11. Madras 1983.

20The application of the sles.a with reference to the literal senseof man. imalagives a second meaning for (enam.) vidhr. tya kan. t.he:bearing it (i.e. this necklace of pearls) on (i.e. around) [their]necks.

The Nepal Research Centre: Past and Present

DragomirDimitrov

Bas-relief of Vis.n. u at ChanguNarayan. a

The Past The Nepal Re-

search Centre (NRC) is theoldest German cooperativeinstitution in Nepal. TheNRCs earliest beginningscan be traced back to theso-called Research SchemeNepal Himalaya establishedin 1959. After the Re-search Scheme came to anend in 1965, the so-calledThyssen House, a forerunnerof the NRC, was established

in Chauni, Kathmandu, inOctober 1965. After a seriesof negotiations, the Thyssen House was put on firm le-gal footing as a result of the conclusion of an agreement,in late 1967, between His Majestys Government and theFederal Republic of Germany. This agreement constitutedthe de facto foundation of the NRC. It also provided forthe establishment of a more or less permanent institu-tion (equipped with a library, laboratory and other fa-cilities) to facilitate the exchange of ideas and researchbetween Nepalese and foreign scholars. Under the aus-pices of the NRC, a large number of projects have beenundertaken over the past thirty-odd years. Perhaps the

most important of these have been the Nepal-GermanManuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP), the NepalResearch Programme, and the restoration of the Pujari-math in Bhaktapur (see http://www.uni-hamburg.de/ngmcp/nrc/history.html for a more detailed history ofthe NRC).

The NRC in Baluwatar, Kathmandu

The Present

In May 2002 theNRC moved toa new buildingand is now situ-

ated in peacefulsurroundings inBaluwatar, inthe northernpart of Kath-mandu (see http:

//www.uni-hamburg.de/ngmcp/nrc/location.html fora location map). Currently the NRC hosts anotherlong-term project funded by the German ReseachFoundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), namelythe Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project(NGMCP) which was launched in April 2002. The

http://www.uni-hamburg.de/ngmcp/nrc/history.htmlhttp://www.uni-hamburg.de/ngmcp/nrc/history.htmlhttp://www.uni-hamburg.de/ngmcp/nrc/location.htmlhttp://www.uni-hamburg.de/ngmcp/nrc/location.htmlhttp://www.uni-hamburg.de/ngmcp/nrc/history.htmlhttp://www.uni-hamburg.de/ngmcp/nrc/history.html


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18 The Nepal Research Centre: Past and Present

NGMCPs staff members contribute actively to main-taining and developing the services provided by theNRC. Today the NRC is proud to play a significant rolein assisting scholars, facilitating research on Nepal, andmaking the results of academic projects reach the public.

King Bhupatndramalla (AD16961721)

Assistance to scholars

The NRC provides assistanceto scholars from any coun-try in preparing and carryingout research projects by sup-plying information and otherhelp. The NRC assists schol-ars in planning their workmore efficiently and in gear-ing their research, whereverpossible, to the developmen-tal needs of this country.

The NRC helps to arrangecontacts with Nepalese col-leagues in their area of spe-

cialization, and should they require field assistants, it aidsin finding prospective candidates. The NRC, on the basisof its agreement of cooperation with Tribhuvan Universityand its long liaison experience, is in an excellent positionto assist in providing contacts between Nepalese and for-eign researchers both in the humanities and in the natu-ral sciences. Furthermore, the NRC helps foreign scholarswho come to do research in this country to complete thenecessary formalities required under Nepalese law. The

NRC also helps scholars to arrange for interpreters ortranslators, or for private instruction in Nepali, Newari,Sanskrit, Tibetan and other languages relevant to theirresearch.

MS of the Amr.tasuryapuja-vidhi (NGMPP A 435/29)

Handling of orders for

microfilm copies Anotherservice by the NRC partic-ularly appreciated by schol-ars is the handling of ordersfor microfilm copies from theNational Archives in Kath-mandu. Any individual or

institution can order micro-film copies of manuscripts filmed during the 31 years ofactivities by the NGMPP. As the National Archives cur-rently cannot handle orders from abroad, the NRC hasagreed to supply this service to the public. The NRC of-fers facilities for placing orders for microfilm copies, andmakes every effort to guarantee a speedy and reliable pro-cessing of the orders at the National Archives.

The lounge of Nepal ResearchCentre

Provision of working fa-

cilities The NRC provideswork space, facilities andother assistance to projectswhich are in need of a contin-

uous representation in Kath-mandu. The NRC placestechnical equipment such asmicrofilm readers and PCs at

the disposal of visiting Nepalese and foreign scholars. Atthe NRC it is also possible to arrange practical trainingfor students of Indology. The NRC exudes peaceful andpleasant atmosphere and ensures most comfortable con-ditions for short-term and long-term academic work inNepal.

The Nepal Research CentreLibrary

Library of the NRC TheNRC houses an academic ref-

erence library, and everyoneis welcome to use it. Thelibrary contains more than3,500 items relating chieflyto Nepal. The books coversubjects such as literature,grammar, palaeography, his-

tory, art and culture. The library also includes vari-ous Nepalese and Western Indological journals. Thereis a well-stocked collection of Nepali, Hindi, Newari, San-skrit, Classical and Modern Tibetan, English and Ger-man dictionaries. Catalogues of different collections ofIndian, Nepalese and Tibetan manuscripts, block printsand other documents are also available. The library pos-sesses a paper copy of all index cards of the items (morethan 180,000) microfilmed by the NGMPP. It also housesthe original logbooks of the NGMPP prepared duringmore than 30 years of microfilming across the width andbreadth of Nepal. In addition, microfilm copies of selectedNepalese newspapers, mainly The Rising Nepal, are avail-able.

Public reading at Ses.aNarayan. a in Pharping

Organization of lectures

and workshops The NRCperiodically organizes lec-tures, seminars, discussions

and get-togethers on a widerange of topics. Since it isgenerally the case that West-ern and Japanese scholarstend to publish their research

findings in their respective countries, and a great bulk ofthat often in their own language, the NRC encouragesscholars to communicate their findings directly here inNepal in the form of a publication or a public lecture inEnglish. In fact, every scholar working under the auspicesof the NRC is expected to make some sort of presentationlocally. At the same time the NRC encourages young



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20 Plates

Plate3:Folios1b,2a,and2b

oftheSis.yalekhamanuscriptfrom

Cambridge



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Plates 21

Plate4:Folios6

3band64aoftheAvadanasarasamuccayamanuscriptfrom

Cambridge.TheSasajatakabegins63b4



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22 Plates

Plate5:Folios2band3aoftheBodhisattvajatakavadanamalamanuscriptfrom

theNationalArchives,Kathmandu.TheSasajatakabegins3b2



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24 Plates

Plate7:ManuscriptTofAryasurasJatakamala(12thcenturyCE?),

folios47band48a
