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Hāla's stanzas on life and love in Ancient India: A review article

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2011

J. C. Wright
J. C. Wright
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies
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Abstract

A new English translation, by Peter Khoroche and Herman Tieken, of “Hāla's 700” Prakrit verses caters for a long-felt want in the field of classical Indology. It is an attractive literary rendering, succinctly annotated, of stanzas epitomizing the delights and sorrows of love. The result is not, however, in every case an improvement upon previous efforts, and it emphasizes the need for more objective textual criticism. It is the compilers' personal selection, both from among the thousand or so verses that vie to represent the nominal 700, and from among the multifarious variant readings that have accrued over the centuries in half a dozen distinct recensions. It is particularly regrettable that the work is based substantially upon Weber's Madhyadeśa Vulgate text, despite the indications, largely provided by Tieken's own previous work on the text, of the reliability of the “Jaina” recension, especially Bhuvanapāla's readings when supported and corrected by their Madhyadeśa and Kerala offshoots. The evidence does not really justify postulation, following Weber, of an underlying original corpus of 700 verses.

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Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 74 , Issue 1 , February 2011 , pp. 77 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 2011

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References

1 Khoroche, Peter and Tieken, Herman, Poems on Life and Love in Ancient India: Hāla's Sattasaī. Translated from the Prakrit and Introduced (SUNY Series in Hindu Studies), vii, 212 pp. Albany NY: Excelsior Editions, 2009Google Scholar. $75 HC. ISBN 978 0 7914 9391 5. $24.95 PB. ISBN 978 0 7914 9392 2.

2 gottakkhalaṇaṃ soūṇa piaame ajja tīa chaṇadiahe, vajjhamahisassa māla vva maṇḍaṇaṃ uaha paḍihāi.

3 aha sā tahiṃtahiṃ cia vāṇīravaṇammi cukkasaṃkeā, tuha daṃsaṇaṃ vimaggai pabbhaṭṭhaṇihāṇaṭhāṇaṃ va.

4 The Grimms' Deutsches Wörterbuch shows that Weber's rendering “Muhme” could refer to a relative of similar age; but surprisingly he used “Tante” in some occurrences in the final 1881 edition (358, AW 431; 613, AW 592; 16, AW 610).

5 kaha sā ṇivvaṇṇijjau jīa jahāloiammi aṃgammi, diṭṭhī dubbalagāi vva pakapaḍiā ṇa uttarai.

6 āaṇṇei aḍaaṇā kuḍuṃgaheṭṭhammi diṇṇasaṃkeā, aggapaapelliāṇaṃ mammaraaṃ juṇṇapattāṇaṃ.

7 R, γ: ṇa kuṇaṃti ccia māṇaṃ ṇisāsu suhasuttadaravivuddhāṇaṃ, suṇṇaiapāsaparimusaṇaveaṇaṃ jai si jāṇaṃtī. Bh.: kuṇanta ccia … jāṇaṃto; his kuṇanta, probably erroneous for kuṇanti, explains his own jāṇanto and others' kuṇaṃto, jāṇaṃto (Vulgate except ɣ, and S, followed by AW). The attractive Bh. reading ṇisāsu pāsutta- is supported by the translators' recourse to “falling asleep”, in spite of their “beside” which indicates that sahasutta- (Kerala, ψ) has been tacitly adopted.

8 veārijjasi, muddhe, gottakkhaliehi mā khu tuṃ ruvasu, kiṃ va ṇa pecchai aṇṇaha eddahamettehi acchīhiṃ?

9 ai caṇḍi, kiṃ ṇa pecchasi? jai so vāharai aṇṇagotteṇa, aha de icchai maccharapaṇacciacchaṃ muhaṃ daṭṭhuṃ “… it's that he wants to see your eyes dance with jealousy”.

10 Even in HS, 185, the support of neighbouring Telinga for the Kerala reading pāaḍa for AW 2 was discounted at the outset; and although kaha te … was adopted there on that basis alone, Weber's te kahã … gives a preferable emphasis.

11 From Bh. and Kerala, the convincingly “ascertained” (HS, 50) reading anisam (isaṃ-taṃsa-) for 19, AW 370, and confident solutions for such as AW 22, 325, 532 (HS, 38), 160 (HS, 219), 233 (HS, 57), and 315 (HS, 83) have been ignored. For 203, AW 156, the rendering “need for the pleasures of love” reflects Vulgate suraasuharasa-taṇhā “suratasukharasa-t ṣṇā”, rather than the more plausible and forceful suraa-sarahasataṇhā “surata-sarabhasat ṣṇā” (HS, 49). Their “faces” red with jealous fury seem preferable for 270, AW 106 (HS, 37), since the red “eyes” of the Vulgate are more in need of explanation, and the translators' suppletion “sleepless” is rather less convincing than Weber's two different suggestions. The reading paiṇṇa has been kept as “(lotus) surrounded by” in 186, AW 78, despite its rejection in HS, 49, in favour of Telinga-Kerala pa(p)hulla “blooming”; but Bh. pahalla, R pailla, S paala “(an)dolita, pracala” implies that they both are wrong emendations of *payalla < pracala (cf. callai, oalla: Pischel, GrPk., §197), and the resulting “lotus shaken by” yields a more appropriate simile for “locks shaken by”. It was not observed in HS, 37, that for 545, AW 165, the K misreading -magalaṃgale, probably reflecting Bh. -magale magalaṃ, explains the unsatisfactory emendations, R hale, Vulgate-Kerala lagale. For 188, AW 176, a paraphrase attempts to deal with the Vulgate reading phukkaṃto “blowing”, although the pūmeṃto of Kerala supports Bh. phūmitta- “with just a puff”. An inverted bahuvrīhi maṇṇusamuppaṇṇeṇa “utpannamanyunā” is correctly recognized in 379, AW 184; but there the Kerala reading aṇṇama- again supports Bh. unnama “do stand up!” against the less attractive Vulgate aṇṇua “you fool!”.

12 saccaṃ bhaṇāmi, vālaa, ṇa tthi asakkaṃ (Bh., R, T: asajjhaṃ) vasaṃtamāsassa, gaṃdheṇa kuravaāṇaṃ maṇaṃ pi asaittaṇaṃ ṇa gaā (Bh. maṇammi asaittaṇaṃ pattā, T: ahaṃ pi asaittaṇaṃ gamiā).

13 R: sa cciya rāmeu tumaṃ paṇḍiya ittaṃ, alaṃ mha ramieṇa …. AW: “Möge die denn stetig mit dir kosen, du Feiner! – lass ab von der Liebe zu uns …”.

14 aṇṇāvarāhakuvio jaha taha kāleṇa gacchai pasāaṃ, vesattaṇāvarāhe kuviaṃ kaha taṃ pasāemi? AW: “Ein wegen anderer Vergehen Erzürnter wird wohl mit der Zeit irgendwie wieder gut. Wie soll ich aber ihn wieder gewinnen, der darüber zürnt, weil ich ihm feindlich gesinnt sei (oder: weil ich ihm unaustehlich bin)?” Gagādhara's syntactically misguided gloss anyaḥ ājñākhaṇḍanādirūpaḥ [aparādhaḥ] does not make a reading *ājñāparādha- any more plausible.

15 Bh.: uṇhāĩ ṇīsasaṃto sayaṇaddhe kīsa me parāhuttiṃ, hiyayaṃ palīviuṃ (R: palīviaṃ) aṇusaeṇa paṭṭhiṃ palīvesi? Vulgate, followed by AW: uṇhāĩ ṇīsasaṃto kīsa maha paraṃmuhīa saaṇaddhe, hiaaṃ palīviuṃ … . “Nachdem du mir das Herz verbrannt, was verbrennst du mir, die ich auf meiner Lagerhälfte von dir abgewendet liege, nun auch noch den Rücken, heisse Seufzer ausstossend?”. Kerala, Telinga: uhṇāi ṇīsasaṃto (Kerala: uṇhaṃ vi-) āligasi kīsa maṃ parāhuttiṃ, hiaaṃ palīviaṃ … .

16 Construing Hāla's “700” together with “ornate stanzas” (as in Bh. and Weber), rather than koḍī “myriad” together with “elegant poems” in general, is justified by the tendency of Sanskrit and Prakrit verses to encapsulate, by associating or construing together a verse's opening and closing words: cf. AW 33 ṇa kuṇaṃti ccia … jai si jāṇaṃtī (n. 7, above), AW 372 uṇhāĩ … palīvesi (n. 15).

17 Perhaps metri gratia for *Sālaiṇā, rather than Weber's *Sāleṇa, as a *Haṃsakinā might conceivably, in similar straits, be coined to represent Haṃsavāhanena: it is unlikely that an obvious instrumental -eṇa would be miswritten as -aïṇa.

18 The translators' rendering “countless” could, intentionally or otherwise, further allow the implication that 700 were originally culled solely from the thousand or so attributed to Hāla: but presumably there was never any thought of crediting him alone with the “Unzahl” or ten million verses that are actually specified.

19 Sādhāraṇadeva's verse colophons use rac- and virac- (for metrical convenience, versus k - in prose) to refer, not as Weber implies (AW, xxxviii) to his thematic arrangement of the verses, but to his composition of a Sanskrit Ṭīkā (-viracitāṃ ṭīkām … Rasikā-Muktāvalī-nāmnīm). It was Viśvanātha, SD, §565, who transferred the verb and the title to the editorial activity involved (koṣaḥ … vrajyākrameṇa racitaḥ … yathā Muktāvalī).

20 The Vulgate reading -ṇimmaie sattasayammi confirms the sense “composed” for satta saāiṃ … viraiāiṃ in AW 3. R reads -viraie against the metre, the copyist evidently influenced by viraiāiṃ in R 3 = AW 3, above. Though the verse recurs in the Vulgate in sporadic adaptations to centuries other than the last, it would be perverse to deny the verse the status of colophon for the work as a whole in R, as Weber did for the analogous verse 698 that closes the Gagādhara Vulgate.