The spring and most of the autumn of 2020 was spent in confined spaces by most of us. This made us realize that our philological work is sometimes similar to the labour of mediaeval monks working in scriptoria.
My work on the Vṛṣasārasaṃgraha has been carried out in this manner. I continue collating manuscripts, and some of the twenty-four chapters of the text are now taking shape. For example, chapter one has now been collated against six Nepalese manuscripts, and has been supplied with a provisional translation and some notes.
Collation is not to be done mechanically. When encountering textual problems, phrases that do not make sense or seem to be out of context, the philologist has to make creative decisions based on supporting evidence, background knowledge or intuition. For example, the third line of the opening verse of the Vṛṣasārasaṃgraha seems problematic. Among other minor problems, the bit āsamagraṃ is difficult to interpret:
anādimadhyāntam anantapāraṃ
susūkṣmam avyaktajagatsusāram|
harīndrabrahmādibhir āsamagraṃ
praṇamya vakṣye vṛṣasārasaṃgraham||1.1||
“Having bowed to [Him] whose boundaries are limitless, who has no beginning, no middle part and no end, [to Him] who is very subtle and who is the unmanifest and fine essence of the world, [to Him] who is …? by Hari, Indra, Brahmā and the other [gods], I shall relate [the work called] `A Compendium on the Essence of the Bull [of Dharma]’.”
Having realized that the syllables sa and pta in our manuscripts look usually similar enough to be the source of scribal mistakes…
…I made the tiny emendation from sa to pta, and the problematic line now makes more sense (although it is still somewhat odd):
harīndrabrahmādibhir āptam agraṃ
“…[to Him] who is respected/received/appointed as the
foremost by Hari, Indra, Brahmā and the other [gods],..”
I can’t wait to have our next reading session (in person or through Zoom) to discuss this!