The composition of Sanskrit-Commentary-Literature was a long, uninterrupted, and scholarly activity in Ancient India. A huge number of Pandita-s have contributed to the original fund of knowledge by writing commentaries on the basic texts of Indian Knowledge-Systems. The commentaries were mainly written on the Veda-s, along with six Vedanga-s and nine philosophical systems. This tradition of commentary-writing was adopted by Sanskrit Classical Literature too, and the Mahäkävya-s, Dutakavya-s, Khandakavya-s, and Drama-s also were adorned with commentaries. After the detailed study of renowned commentaries in different fields, it is proposed to frame the Science of Commentary-Writing i.c. Vyakhyana-Samhitä and to get the answer to various questions such as why, when, and how the commentaries originated, developed, and reached to the heights to acquire an important place on the Universal map of scholarship. This book is the first part of the entire project, which, consists of three parts, and will discuss the different genres of commentaries, their definitions, nature, and purpose, along with illustrations. This information will serve as the first step leading to the final goal of the composition of the Science of Commentary-Writing.
Dr. Uma Vaidya is a renowned scholar of Sanskrit, especially in the field of Grammar, Philosophy, and Classical Sanskrit Literature. She has seven books and 150 research articles to her credit, many of which have received awards for creditable research. She has more than twenty prestigious awards including the President's Certificate of Honour for her contribution to the field of Sanskrit Language. She is the recipient of Gold and Silver medals at various Sanskrit Elocution competitions including Kalidasa Samaroha at Ujjain, Madhya Pradesha.
Dr. Vaidya was the Vice Chancellor of the Kavikulaguru Kalidasa Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya, Ramtek, Nagpur, and also was nominated as the Member of the University Grants Commission, New Delhi. She was nominated as the Chairperson of various Committees for the Development of Sanskrit and also of the Committee for the execution of NEP, 2020.
Her contribution as an Academician and administrator is note-worthy.
About 50 years back, since I studied Sanskrit Grammar as a specialized subject in MA class in 1974, the Commentary Literature fascinated me. Significantly, the Bhasya-type of Commentaries, such as the Mahabhasya, Sabara-Bhasya, Samkara-Bhasyas, Sayana- Bhasya-s, and many more commentaries like Mallinatha's Sanjivani on Raghuvamsam by Kalidasa, commentary Locana by Abhinavagupta on Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana, commentary Abhinavabharati on NatyaSastra by Abhinavagupta, etc., have attracted me and study of their characteristics yielded exciting results. As I read them critically, some commonalities and differences were observed, and this urge to study the Commentary Literature has now culminated in this book.
Literary compositions like the ArthaSastra, the Bhagavadgita, the Yogasutra-s of Patanjali, and the Ayurveda-Texts, etc., have gained a very high position in global academics because of the prestigious commentaries thereon. Almost all knowledge systems of India are adorned with wonderful commentaries explaining the texts, with philosophical debate in a lucid language. No doubt some knowledge of Linguistics is a pre-requirement, to understand and enjoy the debate fully. Many more salient features and general characteristics of different types of commentaries are explained in this book.
It is a continuous chain of commentaries on different original texts, coming down through millenniums and thus making it impossible to study them all in one human life. Still, efforts are being made to focus on the commentaries on grammatical texts and occasionally, from different fields such as Veda, Vedanta, Poetics, etc.
The ancient Indian sages studied the facets of Human-life from various angles, and viewpoints. Starting from the physical angle of life, they reached the mental, ecological, economic, historical, social, and environmental angles of the Indian lifestyle. The thoughts arising out of this study were systematized and codified by them. Our ancestors have created different sciences with the keen observation of nature, its recurring events, and the logical and scientific analysis of them. To create a Science is to systematize the observations in a stipulated format of definition, explanation, examples, and counterexamples. In short, these scientist-scholars and commentators were masters in constructing Science out of stray but experience-based thoughts with various criteria. Many illustrations can be cited of Science-making which are later called Samhitas, such as Vyutpatti-Sastra of Yaska, the Ayurveda-Samhita-s of Caraka-Susruta, the Vimana-Sastra-Samhita, titled as the Bharadvaja-Samhita by the sage Bhardvaja, etc. Despite the huge number of commentaries, a compact, consolidated, but all inclusive Science of Commentary writing is yet missing. No doubt, the Grammarians, the Mimamsaka-s, the Naiyayikas, and the Poeticians have framed some canons, rules, and guiding principles to write the commentaries but these thoughts are fragmented. Sometimes they are subject-specific too. What is intended is to create a full-fledged Science of Commentary Writing, which may be titled Vyakhyana- Samhita' and which will accommodate all types of commentaries.
As per plan, this study will include following seven important topics, divided in to three parts.-1. The study of Nature, Types and Definitions of commentary-genre {such as Vṛtti, Varttika, Bhasya, Vyakhya, Vyakhyana, Vivarana, Vivrṛti, Curni, Țika, Tippani, Samgraha, Prabandha, Niryukti etc.). 2. The review of the earlier work done by the stalwarts in the field {Indian, Western and European} 3. The Study of the Oriental and Occidental traditions of Interpretation 4. The study of the principles of Commentary Writing (such as Etymological principles of Yaska, Paninian devices of interpretation, Principles of Interpretation in Purva-Mimaṁsa, various Nyaya-Principles, and principles of interpretation in Poetics and in Classical Literature} in general 5.The study of some important Sanskrit Commentaries in the light of earlier observations and Illustrations. 6. The changing objectives of commentaries in the light of contents of text {Literary, Darsanika, and Scientific texts} and finally, 7. Formatting the entire collected data as a scientific treatise.
It is obvious that due to changes in language and the social contexts of various terms used in vocabulary, the meanings of many words need explanations for interpretation when one reads ancient texts in any language. Therefore, we need specific explanatory dictionaries and commentaries on ancient and medieval texts composed in Latin, Greek, Old English, Old German, and all other old languages that have literature. Sanskrit is no exception to this. In fact, the composition of Sanskrit commentary literature has been a long, uninterrupted, and scholarly activity in ancient India. Several Panditas have contributed to the original corpus of knowledge by writing commentaries on the basic texts.
After a detailed study of well-known commentaries in different fields, Uma Vaidya has proposed to move towards the making of a Science of Commentary Writing (Vyakhyana Samhita) and to get the answer to various questions such as why, when, and how the commentaries originated, developed, and reached their heights so as to get an important place on the universal map of scholarship. This book is the first part of a three-part research project. The project aims to address different genres of commentaries, their definitions, nature, and purpose, along with illustrations. Uma Vaidya has taken up and completed the initial phase of constructing a Science of Sanskrit Commentary Writing in the light of the oriental and occidental traditions known in India. This work is primarily the study and interpretation of vast commentaries in Sanskrit.
The author, Uma Vaidya, has been in the field of teaching and research for more than four decades and has authored seven books on various aspects of Sanskrit studies. The present book is an outcome of her research done during her tenure of scholarship at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute under the Academic Development Programme supported by the Infosys Foundation.
The world-renowned literature in Sanskrit which covers all most all branches of knowledge and which dates to the times immemorial is always assisted by the commentaries thereon. In ancient India, this commentary literature was developed to such an extent that a full- fledged Science about commentary writing may be framed through the study. These commentaries enjoy a major share in fame and popularity that the Sanskrit literature has gained through centuries. The Indian Knowledge Systems sought a place on the Universal map of scholarship on account of its own merits which are underlined by the renowned commentaries.
The student or a researcher in the field of commentary requires sound knowledge of Sanskrit to give justice to this topic as the ancient Indian commentaries are mostly written in Sanskrit. The efforts vested here will serve to create a compendium about Sanskrit Commentary Literature. A compendium is a collection of concise but detailed information about the objects, texts etc. It is to know about the classes, definitions, examples etc. of commentaries coming down through centuries. I am aware that this book is mostly the collection of various thoughts gathered from earlier studies. My earlier research was about the Bhasya-literature with special reference to Sayanacarya, Samkaracarya and Patanjali and it was a small project. It had mainly focused on Bhasya-type of commentaries, though some information about different types of commentaries, in general, was furnished.
While revisiting the project, it is thought that it can be restructured and many more points about the classes of commentaries other than Bhasya can be added to it. Thus, it was decided to reconstruct and enhance the write-up with such additions that it could serve to create a Science out of it. Undoubtedly, it covers a vast field of study, both in horizontal {linear} and vertical mode as the origin of the commentary is seen in the oral Vedic tradition, at least 5000 years back. It is noted earlier, that the interpretation of the original texts is a universal phenomenon and occurs in many languages in the world but in India, it is as old as the Rgveda. The Sanskrit interpretative texts are probably the largest in number as compared to any other language in the world because the Rgveda is the first recorded literature in the globe and its language is Sanskrit. Naturally, the commentaries in India, in Sanskrit, are the oldest ones and date back to the times immemorial. It is very difficult even to take a review of the available Sanskrit Commentaries on Indian Knowledge-Systems because these texts are innumerable and require intelligence par excellence and analytical skills to collect them and to study them in detail. Here are some efforts to understand the techniques of Commentary Writing, to analyze some of the commentaries, and to provide some illustrations of each type of Commentary. This research topic is very interesting though a bit terse. However, it must be admitted that the predecessors have done a great job to facilitate modern studies on the topic.
When one thinks of the scope of the work undertaken, it is wise to know the limits {personal and subject-wise} at the very commencement of it. As the period under consideration is too wide, it is planned to take care of the Commentary Literature till the 19th century. It will be limited to the Sanskrit language only though there will be occasional references to other languages. The focus is on the commentaries on the original texts of Sanskrit Grammar. Still, the illustrations are selected from various texts of Indian Knowledge Systems for different types of Commentaries and this book takes care of the first amongst the seven important topics mentioned above.
As far as the objective of this study is concerned, as mentioned before, it is to try to construct a Science of Commentary Writing with the help of earlier studies done by Indian and Non-Indian scholars about the Interpretative texts in Sanskrit. This book is written as the pre-requirement of creating the Science of Commentary Writing as one must know the basics about commentaries. Dr. Kapil Kapoor observes that there are two ways to look at the meaning of commentary or interpretation. Interpretation unfolds the meaning which is already lying in the text. Interpretation is a reconstruction of the text to be interpreted. He further adds that the tradition of interpretation is continuous and cumulative in India". These two statements will facilitate to analyze the entire gamut of Commentary Literature and new formats other than those mentioned above will be searched if any. The study is also aimed at bringing out the difference between the Oriental and Occidental Traditions and the special attributes of Sanskrit Commentaries.
The standard Research Methodology for language research is used for this study and it uses the Linguistic, Analytical, Historical, and Socio-Cultural approaches as tools. The different methods of interpretations in different disciplines are taken care of.
As stated earlier, there are three main components of any Science i. e. Definition, Explanation and illustrations. This book is the first stage to collect the information of all these three, the second step is to arrange the data systematically and logically and the third would be construct of a Science out of it. It would not be out of place to explain these three components of any Science as a prelude to the work. A definition is a statement that consists of three parts: 1. The term {word or phrase} to be defined. 2. The class of object or concept to which the term belongs. 3. The differentiating characters that distinguish from all other members of that class. It is not expected that all these three parts should always be present in the definitions of the terms indicative of a commentary, but in some cases either of them is found missing then one has to provide it to complete the study.
By referring to Nyayakosa, Ganeri J. informs that there are two sorts of definition: 1. Swarupa Laksana i.e. definition by own nature. 2. Tațastha Laksana: definition by syndrome. As to the first case, it is said that definition by own nature of the Brahman is given by three words, Reality, Knowledge and Infinite {Satyam Jnanam Anantam Brahma). As to the second case it is thought that the definition of Brahman is as the cause of the world. Udyotakara says that 'The function of the definition is to exclude the thing/object defined from similar and dissimilar things/objects.
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