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On the Sogdian Vessantara Jātaka

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Ilya Gershevitch
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Extract

The publication by Benveniste of the facsimiles of all Sogdian manuscripts preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale (Monumenta Linguarum Asiae Maioris, vol. iii, Codices Sogdiani, Copenhagen, 1940) enables us to check the correctness of Gauthiot's reading of the Vessantara Jātaka (published in JA., 1912, 163–193, 430–510). Since most people interested in Sogdian are more likely at first to try to read the texts so far unpublished than to compare the original with texts already published, it seems convenient to give a list of the comparatively few misreadings or misprints that have been noticed in Gauthiot's edition. I have also thought it useful to confirm the reading of spellings which one would have suspected to be misprints. Thirdly, there will be found a few attempts at explaining unclear words or passages. Here and there I have made use of Dr. Henning's kind permission to quote from his photographs of unpublished texts.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , April 1942 , pp. 97 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1942

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References

page 97 note 1 The connection of this word with OPers. xšaθrita (suggested by Henning apud Eilers, ZDMG., 90, 171 n.), has therefore to be abandoned.

page 97 note 2 The two slight difficulties raised by Gauthiot himself in his second footnote can be solved by comparison with parallel texts, (i) It seems usual to have a feast some days after the birth of the Bodhisattva, after which the soothsayers are called to examine the marks of the child. In accordance with the prophecy which they derive from these, the king chooses a name for his son (cf. Cowell-Rouse, vi, 2 f., 54). Accordingly, one does not expect the name swδ'šn to be mentioned before the end of thp prophecy unfortunately broken off at 1. 14a. (ii) The Chinese version has at this point: “Les vingt milles femmes . . . sautèrent toutes de joie et le lait jaillit spontanément de leurs seins; c'est pourquoi on donna au prince héritier le nom de siu-ta-na (Sudāna).” It is in order to introduce this etymology that this detail is mentioned here.

page 99 note 1 Although this is the general trend of the employment of wysp- in Buddhist texts, it is difficult to see how far this abundance of forms reflects the actual state of the language and what is merely historical spelling, since deviations from this scheme occur often enough. In Christian and Manichean texts wyspw is by far the prevailing form, not only in the Nominative but also in the Oblique cases; the following noun is usually in the singular, the verb in the plural.

page 99 note 2 The examples (to which add Padm. 29, corrected by Benveniste, , BSOS., ix, 496Google Scholar; the explanation there proposed is not convincing) have been collected by Reichelt, loc. cit.

page 100 note 1 A connection with Avestan vis-, OPers. viθ- would yield for 11. 857 f. the translation: “there was a palace, the splendid residency of (or in) the town,” and for 11. 946–7 “oh royal man”; but the presence of š is difficult to explain, and the connection established by Benveniste, (JRAS., 1933, 43)Google Scholar between šykth “sand” and OPers. θikā- is hardly a parallel.