The Unadisutras in Various Recensions: The Unadisutras of Bhoja with The Vrtti of Dandanatha Narayana and The Unadisutras of the Katantra School with The Vrtti of Durgasimha (Part VI) - An Old and Rare Book

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

The text of the Unadisutras in various recensions had been published by Madras University. Only four parts I, II ,I IV and VI) of the work were published. The Unadisutras form one of the supplements to the study Sanskrit Grammar in all its systems. Every systems of Sanskrit Grammar has its Unadisutras and many of them remain unpublished. And Unadisutras of many of these systems have got authoritative commentaries by eminent writers.

The most popular of the several sets of Unadisutras is the one that has been commented upon by Ujjvaladatta, Bhattoji Diksita and others. This most favoured Unadi as it belongs to the system of Panini.

The sixth part of the Madras University Sanskrit Series, No.7, contains two sets of Unadis, both distinct from the Unadis of the Paniniyan system, as published in the first two parts of this number in the series. The first two parts of this number in the series. The first set is the Unadi contained in the Bhojavyakarana, along with the commentary of Dandanatha Narayana. The second set is the Unadi according to the Katantra, along with the commentary of Durgasimha.

Narayanabhatta, whose commentary on the Paniniyan Unadi was published as part II of the number in the series, has brought many of the Unadisutras of Bhoja under the various Paniniyan sutras, while commenting on the latter; and a supplement he has given all the Bhojasutras which he could not bring under the Paniniyan Sutras (vide pp.142 to 149 in the second parts of this number in the series,) adding brief explanatory notes. In this number, the Bhojasutras are given in their proper order and the commentary of Dandanatha is also given. This is the first time that the Bhojavyakarana is being published.

The text of the Katantra has been published in the Bibliotheca Indica Series, with extracts from some commentaries. For the first time, the text of the Unadis belonging to this Vyakarana, with the commentary of Durgasimha, is now published. Apart from giving a correct version of the text and the commentary, there is much to be accomplished by way of setting the authorship and the interrelation of the various works constituting this school of Vyakarana.

I regard it as a great privilege to be able to introduce these two important works to the world.

This edition of the Unadisutras, which form part of the Sarasvatikanthabharana of Bhoja, with the Vrtti of Dandanatha Narayana is based on the following Mss.

1. Text of the Sutras of Bhoja-R. No. 3279,Government Oriental Mss. Library, Madras.

2. Text of the commentary of Dandanatha Narayana, R. No 4179, Government Oriental Mss. Library, Madras.

The ms. Containing the commentary of Dandanatha contains the text also. The differences in the reading of the sutras as found in the mss. referred to above have not been set forth in this edition, as they have been notes in my edition of the text of the Sarasvati-kanthabharana, which will be issued shortly.

The editon of the Unadisutras of the Katantra School with the Vrtti of Durgasimha is based on a single palm leaf Ms. deposited in the Government Oriental Mss.

Library, Madras. The ms. Is pretty old and is in old Kannada characters. Though the ms. is well preserved, several letters have been eaten away by moths. To add, the copyist has made several errors in copying. It was extremely difficult to give a fairly accurate text with the scanty material on hand. Much of the literature connected with the Katantra School is in manuscript form, and necessarily therefore the works belonging to that school could only be sparingly utilized. The excellent edition of the Katantra by Julius Eggeling was perhaps the only guide in several places. Labouring under difficulties of this kind it possible to present only a tentative text.

My professors Mahamahopadhyaya S. Kuppuswami Sastriar and Brahmasri S.K. Padmanabha Sastriar, with their usual kindness helped me in the solution of several knotty problems. My colleagues Dr. C. Kunhan Raja and Brahmasri S. K. Ramanatha Sastriar rendered valuable help in pushing this edition through. Brahmasri S.K. Ramanatha Sastriar read through the proofs in addition and I avail myself of this opportunity to express my grateful thanks to them. I am indebted to the Curator, Government Oriental Mss. Library, Madras and the Director, Adyar Library, Madras, for having very kindly allowed me the use of the mss. In their respective libraries. I thank the Hindi Prachar Prachar for having done the printing satisfactorily.

The Sarasvatikanthabharana, the grammatical work of Bhoja is mainly based on the Astadhyayi of Panini, the Vartikas of Katyayana, the Unadisutras and the Ganapatha, To a large extent, the author Bhoja draws upon the Candrasutras also. Panini, Candra and other grammarians have devoted separate sections for the treatment of the Ganas, the Uadis etc. Bhoja differs from them in this, that he has included all of them in the body of the work and does not treat them separately.

The extent to which Bhoja is indebted to Panini and Candra is indicated in the preface to my edition of the text of the Sarasvatikanthabharana, now in the course of publication. Suffice it to say here that Bhoja has succeeded, remarkably well, in presenting in a cogent from what is found distributed in different works, like the Astadhyayi, Vartika, and Bhasya.

The name of this grammatical treatise was probably Sabdanusasana. I n the preface to his commentary on .ne Yogasutras, Bhoja says:-

Some of the later writers refer to the grammatical work of Bhoja as sabdanusasana. But on the other hand we find in the ms. of the text the name, Sarasvatikantha-bharana alone. The latter name is some what interesting. It was the name of the Parisad Hall of Bhojat; one of the cowherds of Bhoja had that name; some the the panditas of his court had that name. The rhetorical work of Bhoja, published in the Kavyamala series bears that name. The grammar too bears that name in the ms.-The coincidence is not casual, but what is that due to cannot be said at present.

A discussion on the date and works of Bhoja, though essential here, has not been made, as it has been done In the preface to the text of the Sarasvatikanthabharana.

The commentator on the Sarasvatikanthabharana goes by the name of Dandanatha Narayana or commander Narayana. Whose Dandanatha he was is not clear. It is not unlikely that he was the Dandanatha of Bhoja himself. All we know about the him is that he is older than the author of the Madhaviya Dhatuvrtti. We find the latter extracting several passages from the work of Dandanatha Narayana.

Attempts to settle the date and identity of this Narayana have not been successful; we come across several Dandanathas of this name. One Dandanatha Narayalna was assisting the Devagiri King Singana about 1216 A. D. Another Dandanatha Narayana was the brother of Anantapala of the Vanavasi branch of Kadambas. An inscription of the Calukya Vikramaditya VI, dated in Calukya Vikrama Samvat 24 found in Chik-kanahadigol in the Gadag Taluka of the Dharwad District mentions Anantapala and his brother Narayana, two of the Dandanathas of the king. We know that Anantapala was the Governor of Vanavasi in the beginning of the 12th century. Yet another Dandanatha Narayana was the patron of Kaviraja Pandita, the author of Parijataharanakavya-The last mentioned Narayana lived about 1120 A. D. in the Vanavasi country and belonged to the Vanavasi branch of the Kadambas. It is not unlikely that the Narayana of the Sarasvatikantha-bharanavyakhya is identical with the patron of Kaviraja Pandits.

The promulgator of the Katantra system of grammar is known to all to be Sarvavarman. The reference in the Kathasaritsagara to Sarvavarman and how he invented his new grammar is not unknown.

The sutras composed by Sarvavarman for the benefit of his pupil Satavahana do not seem to have covered all the sections of Sanskrit grammar. Durgasimha, the commentator says at the beginning of the Krtprakarana meaning thereby that Sarvavarman adopted in toto the sutras of Katyayana on the Krts, The Unadisutras (be-longing to the krt section) of the Katantra school were therefore not composed by Sarvavarman but by Katyayana alone. It was probably on the basis of this statement that Vimalasarasvati attributes, in his Rupa-mala, the authorship of the Unadis to Vararuci

About Durgasimha, the commentator on sarvavarman much could hardly be said at present.

The quotations in the Vrtti of Durgasimha have not been traced to their sources in separate index because almost all the citations are found in the text of Eggeling's edition of the Katantra.