DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42112#0010
VI
PREFACE
A critical edition of the Meghaduta by Gildemeister, which
was based on a collation of Wilson’s text with three MSS. (two
in Paris and one in Copenhagen) and furnished with a Latin
glossary, appeared at Bonn in 1841. Malliniitha’s commentary
seems to have been printed first at Benares in 1849.1 Among the
numerous later editions of it, that of the learned Isvarachandra
Yidyasagara2 (Calcutta, 1869) marks a considerable advance
on account of its appendix, which contains various readings
of other commentators and important critical notes. Among
subsequent editions of the text with Mallinatha’s commentary
the most useful one is that of G. B. Nandargikar (Bombay,
1894), to which copious critical and explanatory notes are
added. Along with it I have consulted the fifth edition of
Parab (Bombay, 1902) and an edition in Telugu characters
(Madras, 1908).
Gildemeister, whose critical acumen was unsurpassed, showed
that a number of verses in the traditional text of the
Meghaduta are spurious. Already Mallinatha had pronounced
several of them ‘ interpolated ’ (prakshiptn), although he
included them in his commentary, and other verses were
rejected as spurious by Isvarachandra Yidyasagara. Stenzler
followed these critics in omitting most of those verses from
the text and relegating them to an appendix. His well-known
edition (Breslau, 1874) was accompanied by critical notes and
a German vocabulary.
Further assistance to textual criticism is rendered by the
literature of the Jainas, who adapted the Meghaduta to their
own purposes. The second part of the Kdvyamdla (pp. 85-
104) contains the Nemiduta of Vikrama, son of Sangana,
a devotional poem in honour of the Arhat Neminatha. The
fourth line of every stanza of this production is identical with
the last line of one of the stanzas of the Meghaduta in their
\ Catalogue of the Library of the India Office, Sanskrit Books, p. 135.
2 He must not be confounded with his relative Jivanauda Yidyasagara.
PREFACE
A critical edition of the Meghaduta by Gildemeister, which
was based on a collation of Wilson’s text with three MSS. (two
in Paris and one in Copenhagen) and furnished with a Latin
glossary, appeared at Bonn in 1841. Malliniitha’s commentary
seems to have been printed first at Benares in 1849.1 Among the
numerous later editions of it, that of the learned Isvarachandra
Yidyasagara2 (Calcutta, 1869) marks a considerable advance
on account of its appendix, which contains various readings
of other commentators and important critical notes. Among
subsequent editions of the text with Mallinatha’s commentary
the most useful one is that of G. B. Nandargikar (Bombay,
1894), to which copious critical and explanatory notes are
added. Along with it I have consulted the fifth edition of
Parab (Bombay, 1902) and an edition in Telugu characters
(Madras, 1908).
Gildemeister, whose critical acumen was unsurpassed, showed
that a number of verses in the traditional text of the
Meghaduta are spurious. Already Mallinatha had pronounced
several of them ‘ interpolated ’ (prakshiptn), although he
included them in his commentary, and other verses were
rejected as spurious by Isvarachandra Yidyasagara. Stenzler
followed these critics in omitting most of those verses from
the text and relegating them to an appendix. His well-known
edition (Breslau, 1874) was accompanied by critical notes and
a German vocabulary.
Further assistance to textual criticism is rendered by the
literature of the Jainas, who adapted the Meghaduta to their
own purposes. The second part of the Kdvyamdla (pp. 85-
104) contains the Nemiduta of Vikrama, son of Sangana,
a devotional poem in honour of the Arhat Neminatha. The
fourth line of every stanza of this production is identical with
the last line of one of the stanzas of the Meghaduta in their
\ Catalogue of the Library of the India Office, Sanskrit Books, p. 135.
2 He must not be confounded with his relative Jivanauda Yidyasagara.