Abstract
Commentaries on literary texts, be they Kāvyas or Nāṭyas, are a prolific though still much understudied genre in South Asia. The stress on the literary text as the achieved and circumscribed “work of art” has undermined studies on the reception history, transmission, and composing and staging of literary texts, where the poem or drama in its entirety is not always the main unit to be considered. Along these lines, literary commentaries are crucial for understanding the relation between theoretical prescriptions and compositional/performative practices, as they often put these two dimensions of literature (the theoretical and the practical) into dialogue. Moreover, a host of knowledge systems (nāṭyaśāstra, alaṃkāraśāstra, vyākaraṇa, mīmāṃsā, etc.), along with their philosophical insights, technical vocabulary, and hermeneutical techniques, are employed, combined, and creatively refunctionalized in literary commentaries, which therefore represent a liminal genre of śāstra that crosses the seemingly well-established boundaries among disciplines and offers to the modern scholar a unique window into the intellectual life of premodern South Asia.
References
Abhirāma: Abhijnana-Sakuntalam: With the commentary of Abhirama (= Diṅmātradarśana). Srirangam: Sri Vani Vilas Press.Search in Google Scholar
Anandakichenin, Suganya / D’Avella, Victor B. (eds.) (2020): The Commentary Idioms of the Tamil Learned Traditions. Pondicherry: École française d’Extrême-Orient & Institut Français de Pondichéry.Search in Google Scholar
Angot, Michel (2017): Le Sanskrit commentarial I: Les gloses. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.Search in Google Scholar
Assmann, Jan / Gladigow, Burkhard (eds.) (1995): Text und Kommentar. Archäologie der Literarischen Kommunikation IV. Munich.10.1007/978-3-476-03544-8_17Search in Google Scholar
Bai, Indira T. N. (1998): Abhijnanasakuntalacarcā: A Critical Study (Unpublished Thesis). Department of Sanskrit, University of Kerala.Search in Google Scholar
Banerji, Sures Chandra (1972): “Commentaries of Mallinātha”. In: S.K. De Memorial Volume. Edited by R. C. Hazra and S. C. Banerji. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 298–368.Search in Google Scholar
Bansat-Boudon, Lyne (1992): Poétique du théâtre indien. Lectures du Nāṭyaśāstra. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient.Search in Google Scholar
Bronkhorst, Johannes (1990): “Vārttika”. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 34: 123–126.Search in Google Scholar
Bronner, Yigal (1998): “Double-Bodied Poet, Double-Bodied Poem. Ravicandra’s Commentary on the Amaruśatakam and the Rules of Sanskrit Literary Interpretation”. Journal of Indian Philosophy 26: 233–261.10.1023/A:1004358522739Search in Google Scholar
Bronner, Yigal (2016): “Understanding Udbhaṭa: The Invention of Kashmiri Poetics in the Jayāpīḍa Moment”. In: Around Abhinavagupta; Aspects of the Intellectual History of Kashmir from the Ninth to the Eleventh Century. Edited by Eli Franco and Isabelle Ratié. Münster: LIT Verlag, 81–147.Search in Google Scholar
Bronner, Yigal (2020): “In Search of Scholasticism: Sanskrit Poetics and Its Long Path to Śāstrahood”. In: Les scolastiques indiennes. Genèses, développements, interactions. (Études thématiques 32). Edited by Emilie Aussant and Gérard Colas. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 87–101.Search in Google Scholar
Brückner, Heidrun (1995): “Bewahren und Erneuern: Philosophische Kommentartraditionen im indischen Mittelalter”. In: Text und Kommentar. Archäologie der Literarischen Kommunikation IV. Edited by Jan Assmann and Burkhard Gladigow. Munich, 237–246.Search in Google Scholar
Cattoni, Nadia (2012): “Le commentaire littéraire: entre classification et interprétation. Exemples issus de la Śṛṅgāradīpikā et de la Bhāvadīpikā de Vemabhūpāla”. Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques 66.2: 239–260.Search in Google Scholar
Chenet, François (1998): “Le commentaire en Inde”. In: Encyclopédie philosophique universelle, IV: Le discours philosophique. Edited by Jean-François Mattéi. Paris: Presses, 1654–1664.Search in Google Scholar
Cuneo, Daniele (2017): “‘This is Not a Quote’. Quotation Emplotment, Quotational Hoaxes and Other Unusual Cases of Textual Reuse in Sanskrit Poetics-cum-Dramaturgy”. In Adaptive Reuse. Aspects of Creativity in South Asian Cultural History, Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes Band 101. Edited by Elisa Freschi and Philipp Maas. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 219–253.Search in Google Scholar
Dallapiccola, Anna L. (ed.) (1989): Shastric Traditions in Indian Arts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Search in Google Scholar
De, S. K. (1955): “Some Commentators on the Meghadūta”. Our Heritage 3.1: 15–28.10.1108/eb012229Search in Google Scholar
Dundas, Paul (1985): The Sattasaī and Its Commentators. Turin: Indologica Taurinensia.Search in Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1990 [1963]): Naissance de la clinique. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.Search in Google Scholar
Freschi, Elisa / Maas, Philipp A. (eds.) (2017): Adaptive Reuse. Aspects of Creativity in South Asian Cultural History. (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes Band 101). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.10.26530/OAPEN_623411Search in Google Scholar
Ganapati Sastri, T. (ed.) (1909): Vyaktiviveka of Rājānaka Mahimabhaṭṭa and its Commentary of Rājānaka Ruyyaka. Trivandrum: Travancore Government Press.Search in Google Scholar
Ganeri, Jonardon (2010): “Sanskrit Philosophical Commentary”. Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 25.1: 187–207.Search in Google Scholar
Ganser, Elisa (2022): Theatre and Its Other: Abhinavagupta on Dance and Dramatic Acting. (Gonda Indological Studies Series 23). Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004467057Search in Google Scholar
Gerow, Edwin (1979): “Plot Structure and Development of Rasa in Śakuntalā. Part 1”. Journal of the American Oriental Society 99.4: 559–572.10.2307/601446Search in Google Scholar
Gerow, Edwin (1980): “Plot Structure and Development of Rasa in Śakuntalā. Part 2”. Journal of the American Oriental Society 100.3: 267–282.10.2307/601799Search in Google Scholar
Godabole, Narayana Balakrishna / Parab, Kashinath Pandurang (eds.) (1891): The Abhijñāna-Śākuntala of Kālidāsa with the Commentary (Arthadyotanikā) of Rāghavabhaṭṭa (3rd revised ed.). Bombay: Nirnaya-Sagar Press.Search in Google Scholar
Goldman, Robert (1992): “Translating Texts Translating Texts: Issues in the Translation of Popular Literary Texts with Multiple Commentaries”. In: Translation East and West: A Cross-cultural Approach. Edited by Cornelia N. Moore and Lucy Lower. East-West Center: Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, 93–105.Search in Google Scholar
Gomez, Kashi (2022): “Sanskrit and the labour of gender in early modern South India”. Modern Asian Studies, 1–28 (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X21000640).Search in Google Scholar
Goodall, Dominic (2001): “Bhute ʿāha’ iti pramādāt: Firm Evidence for the Direction of Change Where Certain Verses of the Raghuvaṃśa Are Variously Transmitted”. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 151.1: 103–124.Search in Google Scholar
Goodall, Dominic (2009): “Retracer la transmission des textes littéraires à l’aide des textes “théoriques” de l’Alaṅkāraśāstra ancien: quelques exemples tirés du Raghuvaṃśa”. In: Écrire et transmettre en Inde classique. Edited by Gérard Colas and Gerdi Gerschheimer. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 63–77.Search in Google Scholar
Goodall, Dominic / Isaacson, Harunaga (eds.) (2003): The Raghupañcikā of Vallabhadeva. Being the Earliest Commentary on the Raghuvaṃśa of Kālidāsa. vol. 1: Critical Edition with Introduction and Notes. Groningen: Forsten.Search in Google Scholar
Grimal, François (1999): Le commentaire de Harihara sur le Mālatīmādhava de Bhavabhūti, Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry.Search in Google Scholar
Grimal, François (2000): “Pour décrire un commentaire traditionnel sur une œuvre littéraire sanskrite”. Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 87.2: 765–785.10.3406/befeo.2000.3500Search in Google Scholar
Grimal, François (2001): “‘Par désir de faire une faveur à ceux dont l’esprit est lent’ et ‘Pour le plaisir des savants.’ Premières questions pour une étude des commentaires littéraires sanskrits”. In: Les sources et le temps – Sources and Time. Edited by François Grimal. Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry – École française d’Extrême-Orient, 77–92.Search in Google Scholar
Heim, Maria (2018): Voice of the Buddha: Buddhaghosa on the immeasurable words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780190906658.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
von Hinüber, Oskar (2007): “Buddhistische Kommentare aus dem alten Indien. Die Erklärung des Theravāda-Kanons”. In: Kommentarkulturen: Die Auslegung zentraler Texte der Weltreligionen. Ein vergleichender Überblick. Edited by Michael Quisinsky and Peter Walter. Cologne: Böhlau, 99–114.Search in Google Scholar
Hulin, Michel (2000): “Le commentaire dans la littérature philosophique de l’Inde ancienne”. In: Le commentaire entre tradition et innovation. Actes du Colloque International de l’Institut des Traditions Textuelles (Paris et Villejuif, 22- 25 septembre 1999). Edited by Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé. Paris: Vrin, 425–434.Search in Google Scholar
Jyväsjärvi, Mari (2010): “Retrieving the hidden meaning: Jain commentarial techniques and the art of memory”. Journal of Indian Philosophy 38.2: 133–162.10.1007/s10781-010-9086-8Search in Google Scholar
Kapoor, Kapil (2005): Text and Interpretation. The Indian Tradition. New Delhi: D. K. Printworld.Search in Google Scholar
Klebanov, Andrey (2016): Texts Composed While Copying: A Critical Study of the Manuscripts of Selected Commentaries on the Kirātārjunīya, an Epic Poem in Sanskrit. PhD Thesis, Universität Hamburg.Search in Google Scholar
Klebanov, Andrey (2020): “Application of Structure Analysis to the Study of Sanskrit Commentaries on mahākāvya. A General Overview of the Subject with a Special Reference to the Commentaries on the Kirātārjunīya”. In: The Commentary Idioms of the Tamil Learned Traditions. Edited by Suganya Anandakichenin and Victor B. D’Avella. Pondicherry: École française d’Extrême-Orient & Institut Français de Pondichéry, 524–590.Search in Google Scholar
Krishnamoorthy, K. (ed.) (1992): Nātyaśāstra of Bharatamuni with the Commentary Abhinavabhāratī by Abhinavaguptācārya, Vol. 1 (Chapters 1–7), Baroda: Gaekwad’s Oriental Series [4th edition].Search in Google Scholar
Lalye, P.G. (ed.) (1981): Mallināthamaṇīṣā. Hyderabad: Osmania University.Search in Google Scholar
Lalye, P.G. (2002): Mallinātha. (Makers of Indian Literature). New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.Search in Google Scholar
Livio, Chiara (2020): “A Poet with His Philosopher’s Hat On. A Preliminary Study of the Philosophical Section in the Seventeenth Canto of Maṅkha’s Śrīkaṇṭhacarita”. Religions of South Asia 14.1: 11–40.10.1558/rosa.19319Search in Google Scholar
Lubin, Timothy (2019): “Brāhmaṇa as Commentary”. In: Self, Sacrifice, and Cosmos. Edited by Lauren M. Bausch. Delhi: Primus Books, 23–40.Search in Google Scholar
Mainkar, T. G. (1971): Studies in Sanskrit Dramatic Criticism. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.Search in Google Scholar
McCrea, Lawrence (2008): The Teleology of Poetics in Medieval Kashmir. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
McCrea, Lawrence (2010): “Poetry in Chains: Commentary and Control in the Sanskrit Commentarial Tradition”. In: Language, Myth, and Poetry in Ancient India and Iran. Edited by David Shulman. Israel: Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 231–248.Search in Google Scholar
McCrea, Lawrence (2011): “Standards and Practices: Following, Making, and Breaking the Rules of Śāstra”. In: South Asian Texts in History. Critical Engagements with Sheldon Pollock. Edited by Yigal Bronner, Whitney Cox and Lawrence McCrea. Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 229–239.Search in Google Scholar
Minkowski, Christopher (2005): “What Makes a Text ‘Traditional’? On the Success of Nīlakaṇṭhadīkṣita’s Mahābhārata Commentary”. In: Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions in South Asia. Edited by Federico Squarcini. Florence: Firenze University Press, 225–252.10.7135/UPO9781843313977.011Search in Google Scholar
Minkowski, Christopher (2020): “Outlandishness in Sanskrit Commentary”. In : Les scolastiques indiennes. Genèses, développements, interactions. (Études thématiques 32). Edited by Emilie Aussant and Gérard Colas. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 185–202.Search in Google Scholar
Obrock, Luther J. (2015): Translation and History: The Development of a Kashmiri Textual Tradition from ca. 1000-1500 (Ph.D. Thesis). UC Berkeley: South & Southeast Asian Studies.Search in Google Scholar
Patel, Deven M. (2014): Text to Tradition: The Naiṣadhīyacarita and Literary Community in South Asia. New York: Columbia University Press.10.7312/pate16680Search in Google Scholar
Paulose, K. G. (ed.) (1993): Naṭāṅkuśa: A Critique on Dramaturgy. Tripunithura: Government Sanskrit College Committee.Search in Google Scholar
Pillai, Raghavan (1961): Abhijñānaśakuntalacarcā. University of Kerala.Search in Google Scholar
Pollock, Sheldon (1985a): “Review of Vallabhadeva’s Kommentar (Śāradā-Version) zum Kumārasaṃbhava des Kālidāsa by M. S. Narayana Murti, Klaus L. Janert and Vallabhadeva”. Journal of the American Oriental Society 105.2: 381–382.10.2307/601747Search in Google Scholar
Pollock, Sheldon (1985b): “The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian Intellectual History”. Journal of the American Oriental Society 105.3: 499–519.10.2307/601525Search in Google Scholar
Pollock, Sheldon (1989a): “The Idea of Śāstra in Traditional India”. In: Shastric Traditions in Indian Arts. Edited by Anna Libera Dallapiccola. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 17–26.Search in Google Scholar
Pollock, Sheldon (1989b): “Playing by the Rules: Śāstra and Sanskrit Literature”. In: Shastric Traditions in Indian Arts. Edited by Anna Libera Dallapiccola. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 301–312.Search in Google Scholar
Pollock, Sheldon (1989c): “Mīmāṃsā and the Problem of History in Traditional India”. Journal of the American Oriental Society 109.4: 603–610.10.2307/604085Search in Google Scholar
Pollock, Sheldon (2003): “Sanskrit Literary Culture from the Inside Out”. In: Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. Edited by Sheldon Pollock. Berkeley: University of California.10.1525/9780520926738-006Search in Google Scholar
Pollock, Sheldon (2015a): “Introduction”. In: World Philology. Edited by Sheldon Pollock, Benjamin Elman and Ku-ming Kevin Chang. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1–25.Search in Google Scholar
Pollock, Sheldon (2015b): “What Was Philology in Sanskrit”. In: World Philology. Edited by Sheldon Pollock, Benjamin Elman and Ku-ming Kevin Chang. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 114–136.10.4159/harvard.9780674736122.c7Search in Google Scholar
Pollock, Sheldon (2016): A Rasa Reader: Classical Indian Aesthetics. New York: Columbia University Press.10.7312/poll17390Search in Google Scholar
Preisendanz, Karin (2008): “Text, Commentary, Annotation: Some Reflections on the Philosophical Genre”. Journal of Indian Philosophy 36: 599–618.10.1007/s10781-008-9036-xSearch in Google Scholar
Pusalker, A. D. (1960): “Literary Background of Rāghavabhaṭṭa, Author of Padārthādarśa (comm. on Śāradātilaka) and Arthadyotanikā (comm. on Abhijñānaśākuntala)”. Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 41.1: 29-48.Search in Google Scholar
Quisinsky, Michael / Walter, Peter (eds.) (2007): Kommentarkulturen: Die Auslegung zentraler Texte der Weltreligionen. Ein vergleichender Überblick. Cologne: Böhlau.Search in Google Scholar
Rao, Ajay K. (2014): Re-Figuring the Rāmāyaṇa as Theology: A History of Reception in Premodern India. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203521496Search in Google Scholar
Roodbergen, J. A. F. (1984): Mallinātha’s Ghaṇṭāpatha on Kirātārjunīya I–VI. Part One: Introduction, Translation and Notes. Leiden: E. J. Brill.10.1163/9789004652835Search in Google Scholar
Sastri, C. Sankara Rama (ed.) (1947): Abhijñāna Śākuntala of Kālidāsa, with the Commentary Kumāragirirājīya of Kāṭayavema. Madras: Sri Balamanorama Press.Search in Google Scholar
Selby, Martha Ann (1996): “Desire for Meaning: Providing Contexts for Prākrit Gāthās”. The Journal of Asian Studies 55.1: 81–93.10.2307/2943637Search in Google Scholar
Shevchenko, Dimitry (2022): “The Many Selves of an Actor: Perceptibility of Second-order Characters in the Naṭāṅkuśa and Non-dualist Theories of Cognition”. Cracow Indological Studies 24.1: 111–130.10.12797/CIS.24.2022.01.06Search in Google Scholar
Shukla Shastri, Babulal (1992): Śrīdakṣiṇāvartanāthapraṇītam Abhijñānaśākuntalaṭippaṇam. In: Saṃskṛta-saṅgīta-vaijayantī: (Studies in Sanskrit and Musicology) Śrīmatī Kamaleśa Kumārī Kulaśreṣṭha smṛtyabhinandana grantha Studies in Sanskrit and Musicology, Smt. Kamlesh Kumari Kulshreshtha Commemoration Volume. Edited by Sushma Kulshreshtha and Satya Pal Narang. Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers, 233–240.Search in Google Scholar
Skraep, Poul (1978): “Some characteristic features of Pūrṇasarasvatī’s Meghadūta’commentary, Vidyullatā”. Orientalia Suecana 17: 176–210.Search in Google Scholar
Slaje, Walter (2007): “Der Sanskrit-Kommentar”. In: Kommentarkulturen: Die Auslegung zentraler Texte der Weltreligionen. Ein vergleichender Überblick. Edited by Michael Quisinsky and Peter Walter. Cologne: Böhlau, 69–96.Search in Google Scholar
Stietencron, Heinrich von (1995): “Typisierung und Sitz im Leben: Anmerkungen zum Kommentar in Indien”. In: Text und Kommentar. Archäologie der Literarischen Kommunikation IV. Edited by Jan Assmann and Burkhard Gladigow. Munich, 249–255.Search in Google Scholar
Tubb, Gary / Boose, Emery R. (2007): Scholastic Sanskrit: A Manual for Students. New York: American Institute of Buddhist Studies.Search in Google Scholar
Unithiri, N.V.P. (2004): Pūrṇasarasvatī, with the critical edition of a newly discovered work on dramaturgy, Bhāvaviveka by Divākara. Publication Division, University of Calicut.Search in Google Scholar
Unni, N. P. (1975): “The Trivandrum plays and the Abhijñānaśākuntala-carcā”. Vishveshvaranand Indological Journal 13.1–2: 376–384.Search in Google Scholar
Vasudeva, S. (2006): The Recognition of Shakuntala by Kalidasa, edited and translated. New York: New York University Press & JJC Foundation.Search in Google Scholar
Vimala, V. P. (2018): Critique on Performance (A Study of the Abhijñānaśakuntalacarcā). University of Calicut, Publication Division.Search in Google Scholar
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Gracefully twisting the neck: literary commentaries as a (meta)genre of scholarly discourse
- Vṛddhekṣvākuvratam. The commentators’ interpretations of the passages describing the renunciation of kings in the Raghuvaṃśa
- Jonarāja as commentator: specialized literature, philological effort, and poetic interpretation
- The application of Mīmāṁsā interpretive concepts in commentaries on plays
- Plumbing the depths: reading Bhavabhūti in seventeenth-century Kerala
- The literary commentary in Sanskrit as metalinguistic communication
- Rezensionen – Comptes Rendus – Book Reviews
- François Lachaud et Martin Nogueira Ramos: D’un empire l’autre. Premières rencontres entre la France et le Japon au XIX e siècle
- Shi, Lihong: Choosing Daughters: Family Change in Rural China
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Gracefully twisting the neck: literary commentaries as a (meta)genre of scholarly discourse
- Vṛddhekṣvākuvratam. The commentators’ interpretations of the passages describing the renunciation of kings in the Raghuvaṃśa
- Jonarāja as commentator: specialized literature, philological effort, and poetic interpretation
- The application of Mīmāṁsā interpretive concepts in commentaries on plays
- Plumbing the depths: reading Bhavabhūti in seventeenth-century Kerala
- The literary commentary in Sanskrit as metalinguistic communication
- Rezensionen – Comptes Rendus – Book Reviews
- François Lachaud et Martin Nogueira Ramos: D’un empire l’autre. Premières rencontres entre la France et le Japon au XIX e siècle
- Shi, Lihong: Choosing Daughters: Family Change in Rural China