DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42112#0016
PREFACE
xii
quotations which are liable to perplex and distract beginners,
and Vallabhadeva’s system of stating at the outset the
contents and construction of each verse, instead of cramming
bis comments into a single long sentence, has its decided
advantages. But what renders them specially valuable to us
is the fact that they represent the text of Kalidasa and
Magha as it was current in Kasmlr about a.d. 900. The table
on pp. xv-xix shows that Yallabhadeva's text omits all the
verses which were considered spurious by Stenzler, while all
the other recensions (with the exception of the Vidyullata)
exhibit several of them. In the remarks on No. xiv of
the Appendix, I have demonstrated that Vallabhadeva, the
Vidi/ii/lata, and Gfildemeister are right in excluding also the
verse which did not appear suspicious to Stenzler
and others. It may be mentioned here that there remain
two verses which are suspected by a competent judge,
Tsvarachandra Vidyasiigara : 62 and 70, and that the second
of them is actually omitted in the Vidyullata. Jinasena,
though anterior in time to Vallabhadeva, has incorporated in
his poem nine of the spurious verses of the Meghaduta, five
of which are stamped as interpolations even by so late a writer
as Mallinatha.1 This fact makes me hesitate to attach much
value to the numerous various readings of Jinasena’s text,
some of which, on aesthetic grounds as well, appear to me
due to innovations just as much as the spurious verses. The
secluded position of that home of SarasvatT, the Kasmlr valley,
would account for the fact that Kalidasa’s work was there
handed down in a purer condition to the time of Yallabhadeva,
who may have had no cognizance of the corruptions which
had already crept into the text on the other side of the
snowy range in the time of Jinasena. At any rate, as the
present edition embraces the commentary of Vallabhadeva,
See Appendix, Nos. iii-vii.
xii
quotations which are liable to perplex and distract beginners,
and Vallabhadeva’s system of stating at the outset the
contents and construction of each verse, instead of cramming
bis comments into a single long sentence, has its decided
advantages. But what renders them specially valuable to us
is the fact that they represent the text of Kalidasa and
Magha as it was current in Kasmlr about a.d. 900. The table
on pp. xv-xix shows that Yallabhadeva's text omits all the
verses which were considered spurious by Stenzler, while all
the other recensions (with the exception of the Vidyullata)
exhibit several of them. In the remarks on No. xiv of
the Appendix, I have demonstrated that Vallabhadeva, the
Vidi/ii/lata, and Gfildemeister are right in excluding also the
verse which did not appear suspicious to Stenzler
and others. It may be mentioned here that there remain
two verses which are suspected by a competent judge,
Tsvarachandra Vidyasiigara : 62 and 70, and that the second
of them is actually omitted in the Vidyullata. Jinasena,
though anterior in time to Vallabhadeva, has incorporated in
his poem nine of the spurious verses of the Meghaduta, five
of which are stamped as interpolations even by so late a writer
as Mallinatha.1 This fact makes me hesitate to attach much
value to the numerous various readings of Jinasena’s text,
some of which, on aesthetic grounds as well, appear to me
due to innovations just as much as the spurious verses. The
secluded position of that home of SarasvatT, the Kasmlr valley,
would account for the fact that Kalidasa’s work was there
handed down in a purer condition to the time of Yallabhadeva,
who may have had no cognizance of the corruptions which
had already crept into the text on the other side of the
snowy range in the time of Jinasena. At any rate, as the
present edition embraces the commentary of Vallabhadeva,
See Appendix, Nos. iii-vii.