Transmission history and textual criticism of the Sanskrit Jīvakapustaka in light of the Mahātikta formula and its Siddhasāra parallel
Abstract
The Āyurvedic medical treatise known as Jīvakapustaka is preserved in an incomplete tenth-century manuscript from Dunhuang, which alternates Sanskrit verse and Late Khotanese prose. This article pursues two primary objectives. Firstly, it offers a new edition, translation, and linguistic commentary on both the Sanskrit original and the Khotanese rendition of the Mahātikta formula (Jīvakapustaka 38), with comparative remarks on its parallel in the Sanskrit Siddhasāra 12.11. Secondly, it traces the transmission history of the sole surviving manuscript of the Jīvakapustaka, focusing on omissions in the Mahātikta formula as a key piece of evidence.
Funding source: Sapienza Università di Roma
Award Identifier / Grant number: RG123188B0B4B391
Acknowledgements
Research for this paper was carried out as part of the project “Language contact and the transmission of medical knowledge from the Ancient Near East to Central Asia” (Grant no. RG123188B0B4B391, PI Alessandro Del Tomba), funded by Sapienza University of Rome. I am grateful to Mauro Maggi and two anonymous reviewers for their meticulous reading of an earlier draft and their insightful comments, which helped me refine aspects of my argument and correct certain errors. I also thank Silvia Luzzietti and Francesca Michetti for discussions on specific issues.
Conventions and abbreviations
- ⟨abc⟩
-
editorial supplement
- ⟦abc⟧
-
deletion by the copyist
- {abc}
-
editorial deletion
- ○
-
blank for the string hole
- * after a word
-
presumed Sanskrit equivalent in the Khotanese translation
- expl.
-
explicit
- om.
-
omitted (by)
- B
-
Bailey, KT1 (first edition, 1945) and KT2 (second edition, 1969)
- B1
-
Bailey, KT1 (first edition, 1945)
- B2
-
Bailey, KT2 (second edition, 1969)
- DT
-
Del Tomba
- K
-
Konow 1941
- Ṭ
-
Ṭāme 2014
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Research ethics: Not applicable.
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Informed consent: Not applicable.
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Author contributions: The author has accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.
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Use of Large Language Models, AI and Machine Learning Tools: None declared.
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Conflict of interest: The author states no conflict of interest.
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Research funding: The research for this article was conducted as part of the project “Language contact and the transmission of medical knowledge from the Ancient Near East to Central Asia” (Grant no. RG123188B0B4B391, PI Alessandro Del Tomba), funded by Sapienza University of Rome.
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Data availability: Not applicable.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Animacy, postpositions, and the spatial cases in Niya Prakrit
- Transmission history and textual criticism of the Sanskrit Jīvakapustaka in light of the Mahātikta formula and its Siddhasāra parallel
- Postpositional locative expressions in Dogri: a syntactic-semantic analysis of spatial, directional, and temporal relations
- Agentive and non-agentive light verb constructions in Pahari-Pothwari
- Ergative marking system in Changki
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Animacy, postpositions, and the spatial cases in Niya Prakrit
- Transmission history and textual criticism of the Sanskrit Jīvakapustaka in light of the Mahātikta formula and its Siddhasāra parallel
- Postpositional locative expressions in Dogri: a syntactic-semantic analysis of spatial, directional, and temporal relations
- Agentive and non-agentive light verb constructions in Pahari-Pothwari
- Ergative marking system in Changki
