Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/73

 February, 1873.] CORRESPONDENCE, Ac. 63 as indeed the perpetual contest between this latter and other Buddhist schools (cf. Hiuen Thsang I. 172) gave occasion to the great council held under Kanishka, which was intended to effect a reconci¬ liation. And although, according to the RAjatarafi- gint, NAgArjuna’s influence was in full bloom under Abhimanyu, yet it would still have been quite pos¬ sible that under his predecessor, Kanishka, the pre¬ dominant feeling might have been hostile to NAgAr- juna, as in point of fact the latter appears never to have had any share in the council held under the presi¬ dency of PArs'va and Vasumitra. With respect to No. 3, the composition of the MahAbhAshya, we will in the first place bring forward here what can be gathered from other sources regarding the author, Patanjali. According to Goldstiicker, the names GonikAputra and Gonardiya, with which in two passages of the MahAbhAshya the view in question is supported, are to be referred to Patanjali himself, seeing that the commentaries (NAges'a on “ GonikAputra,” Kaiyyata on “ Go- nardiya”) explain them by the word “ bhAshyakAra.” As a matter of fact, Patanjali never speaks in the first person, but he is always spoken of in the third person, and his opinion is several times introduced by tu (pas'yati tv AchAryah, in Ballantyne, pp. 195,196, 197, 245, 281, 303, 787) : it is also quite possible therefore that the words “ Gonardiyas t v Aha” do really refer to Patanjali. One only, however, of those two identifications can be correct; the other must to all appearance be false. For according to a communication for which I am indebted to Aufrecht’s kindness, Gonardiya and GonikAputra are two different persons, whom VAtsyAyana, in the introduction of his KAmasfitra, celebrates side by side ashis predecessors in the teaching'of the are amandi : in a very surprising fashion : the one, namely, as author of a manual thereon, showing how one should behave in this matter towards one’s own wife ; the other as author of a work treating of the proper procedure in reference to strange women : Gonardiyo bhAryAdhikArikam, GonikAputrah pAra- dArikam (namely, kAmasfttram samchikshepa): see Aufrecht, Catalogue, p. 215. In the body of the work Gonardiya is specially quoted five times, GonikAputra six times. It would be delightful to get here so unexpected a glimpse into the private life of Patanjali. It may serve to set our minds at rest with reference to his moral character to remember that it is only the comparatively modern NAges'a who identifies him with the Don Juan GonikAputra, while by Kaiyyata, almost a thousand years earlier, the contemporary of the author of the TrikAndas'esha and of Hemachandra, he is compared with the honoured Gonardiya. As regards the name of the latter, Goidstucker, pp. 235-236, calls attention to a passage of the KAsikA, I. 1, 75, in which the word “Gonardiya” (or “Gonardiyas,” as the Calc. Schol. has it) is adduced as an instance of a place situated in the east (prAchAm dee's) ; and also to the circumstance that Kaiyyata sometimes designates Patanjali as “AchAryadesiy a,” ».«., as country¬ man of the A c h A r y a, or rather, contrasts him with the latter, i. «., KAtyAyana, the author of the VArt- tika; and that as KAtyAyana belonged to the east, Patanjali is also hereby assigned to the east. Mention should also have been made here of the special statement :—vyavahite ’pi pfirvasabdo var- tate, tad yathA, pflrvara MathurAyAh PAtaliputram (Ballantyne, p. 650) “ PAtaliputra” lies before Ma- thurA, which is intelligible only in the mouth of a man who lived behind PAtaliputra, and consequently decides for the eastern residence of Patanjali. In case, therefore, that “ Gonardiya” is really to be understood as his name, the word can in fact be referred only to that “prAchAm des/a,” not to the Kashmirian kings called Gonarda, as Lassen’s opi¬ nion is, II. 484, and still less to the people of the same name mentioned by VarAhamihira, XIV. 12, as dwelling in the south, near Dasapura and Kerala. Now, according to what has been remarked with reference to Nos. 1 and 2, the work of Patanjali must have made a name for itself with great rapidity, in order to have been able to be introduced into Kashmir so early as in the reign of Abhimanyu> We come back again to this question further on • meanwhile we turn to what is in fact a highly inte¬ resting representation of the history of the MahA¬ bhAshya, which Goldstiicker adduces for the eluci¬ dation of that verse of the RAjatarafigini whioh refers to the services rendered to the commentary by Abhimanyu, from the seoond book of the VAkya- padiya of Bhartrihari, containing the so-called HarikArikAs. After this long digression on this passage, which seemed to be demanded by its importance, we turn now again to the proper question which is specially engaging our attention here, and on account of which it was was cited by Goldstiicker. There can evidently be no doubt that the recovery, des¬ cribed therein by Hari, of the MahAbhAshya by “Chandra and the others” is the same to which the statement of the RAjatarafigini I. 176 (some five or six centuries later) refers regarding Abhi¬ manyu’s care for the work :— ChandrAchAryAdibhir .labdh(v) A” des'arn tasmAt tadAgamam | Pravartitam mahAbhAshyam, svam cha vyAkara- nam kritam || Now, when Goldstiicker translates :—“ After that Chandra and the others had received command from him (Abhimanyu), they established a text of the MahAbhAshya, such as it could be established by means of his MS. of this work, and composed their own grammars,” this translation rests partly upon an application, demanded by nothing in the pas¬ sage, of the meaning which, without sufficient grounds, he has attached to the word Agama, viz.} “ MS. partly upon the quite gratuitous assumption