The Social Importance of Variant Readings

The great Sanskrit scholar Yādavaśarman Trivikrama Ācārya edited three editions of The Compendium of Suśruta (Suśrutasaṃhitā) (Chakraborty, 2018). They were published in 1915, 1931 and 1938 (Ācārya, 1915; Ācārya, 1931; Ācārya & Ācārya, 1938). These editions, including the manuscripts Ācārya used, were discussed by Wujastyk et al. (On the Plastic Surgery of the Ears and Nose. The Nepalese Version of the Suśrutasaṃhitā, 2023, chap. 3).

The Suśruta Project has been using an etext transcription of the 1938 edition, typed and generously made public by Tsutomu Yamashita and Yasutaka Muroya in 2014. Because of the limited availability of text editions in Japan at the time, this etext used the 1931 edition for the sūtrasthāna and śārīrasthāna parts of the text. The Suśruta Project 2.0 is currently inputting these parts from the 1938 edition, so that the etext will represent the 1938 edition in a unified way.

A side-effect of this work means that we have gained the ability to compare the changes that Ācārya made to these parts of the work between his 1931 and 1938 editions. As an example, here is the 1931 edition of the Compendium with the apparatus showing the changes that Ācārya made to the śārīrasthāna for his 1938 edition.

When should I get married?

If you scroll to passage 10.53 in the śārīrasthāna, where the care of children is being described, you will find a statement advising a young man of 25 years about whom to marry. In the 1915 and 1931 editions, the passage reads :

अथास्मै पञ्चविंशतिवर्षाय द्वादशवर्षां पत्नीमावहेत्पित्र्यधर्मार्थकामप्रजाः प्राप्स्यतीति॥

Then, a man of twenty-five should take a wife of twelve so that he may obtain children for the sake of ancestral duty, wealth, and pleasure.

— Suśrutasaṃhitā Śārīrasthāna 10.53 (Ācārya, 1931, p. 337)

But in the 1938 edition, Ācārya emended the passage to read “a wife of sixteen.” Viewed as an important social injunction, this is a major change.

In his footnote on this change (Ācārya & Ācārya, 1938, p. 392), Ācārya noted that on this point he was adopting the reading of the “palm leaf manuscript” (षोडशवर्षां इति ता। पुस्तके पठ्यते) and that the other manuscripts he examined read “twelve-year-old” (इतीतरेषु हस्तलिखितपुस्तकेषु). The palm leaf manuscript he refers to is MS Kathmandu NAK 5-333 (siglum H), and it does indeed read षोडशवर्षाम् “sixteen” (scribal folio 197r, line 2, image dscn3174 fol196.jpg ).

(As a footnote to a footnote, Ācārya made a typo in his 1938 edition: he printed ṣoḍaṣadaśavarṣāṃ; that this was just a typo is proven by his footnote, where he says “ṣoḍaśavarṣāṃ” (Ācārya & Ācārya, 1938, p. 392).)

The small details of philology and textual criticism can make a large difference to the meaning of a text that has real social impact both for our understanding of the past and for custom in India today. Child marriage is still prevalent in India, although its frequency has been declining since the 1981 census due to modernisation, legal and political action and social activism.

References

1. Jādavjī Trikamjī Ācārya

   Deepro Chakraborty

   2018

   URL
2. On the Plastic Surgery of the Ears and Nose. The Nepalese Version of the Suśrutasaṃhitā

   Dominik Wujastyk, Jason Birch, Andrey Klebanov, and 6 more authors

   2023

   DOI PDF
3. सुश्रुतसंहिता, सुश्रुतेन विरचिता, वैद्यवरश्रीडल्हणाचार्यविरचितया निबन्धसंग्रहाख्यव्याख्यया समुल्लसिता, आचार्योपाह्वेन त्रिविक्रमात्मजेन यादवशर्मणा संशोधिता = The Sushrutasamhita of Sushruta, the Nibandhasangraha Commentary of Shri Dalhaṇāchārya

   Yādavaśarma Trivikrama Ācārya

   1915

   URL
4. सुश्रुतसंहिता, वैद्यवरश्रीडल्हणाचार्यविरचितया निबन्धसंग्रहाख्यव्याख्यया समुल्लसिता, महर्षिणा सुश्रुतेन विरचिता, सूत्र-निदान-शारीर-चिकित्सा-कल्पस्थानोत्तरतन्त्रात्मकः = The Sushrutasaṃhitā of Sushruta with the Nibandhasangraha Commentary of Shree Dalhaṇāchārya

   Yādavaśarma Trivikrama Ācārya

   1931

   URL
5. श्रीडल्हणाचार्यविरचितया निबन्धसंग्रहाख्यव्याख्यया निदानस्थानस्य श्रीगयदासाचार्यविरचितया न्यायचन्द्रिकाख्यपञ्जिकाव्याख्यया च समुल्लसिता महर्षिणा सुश्रुतेन विरचिता सुश्रुतसंहिता

   Yādavaśarma Trivikrama Ācārya and Nārāyaṇa Rāma Ācārya

   1938

   URL