Commentary

First year students can ignore this page. It is intended for students starting out in commentary in their second year.

What follows is a quick and dirty introduction (by way of example).
See Scholastic Sanskrit for a proper one.

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In one common style of commentary on verse poetry, the commentator will often first give a prose reordering of the verse in standard syntax (the anvaya, “connected order” of the sentence). This word-reordering does a great deal of work for you in construing the meaning of any particular verse. We can break that work down into two sets of commentarial functions: (1) it will:

often break up sandhi, identifying words for you
break up compounds (and other complex forms), identifying their meaning and type (or derivation) for you
and of course reorganize the verse in intuitively meaningful syntax

Along the way, however, (2) it will also:

often gloss and grammatically derive various words

This last commentarial function will be useful in saving you trips to the dictionary and in explaining grammatical constructions you might not have been aware of, but it can be bracketed while you focus on the verse’s reordering.

One of the best ways to see both sets of commentarial functions in action is to underline the verse’s words in the commentary. This is not always a straightforward matter as commentators will often use a synonym to stand in for a word in the verse. Here is an example of a verse (from the श्रीकण्ठचरित-महाकाव्य of मङ्ख) whose words (or their synonym stand-ins) have been underlined both in the verse (in larger font) and in Jonarāja’s simple commentary (in smaller font below it):

Jonarāja has used the following synonyms for words in the verse, saving himself the work of subsequently glossing them:

साधु-लोके in the commentary = साधु-जने in the verse; similarly,
दया = अनुकम्पा
दुर्जन-वानरस्य = खल-प्लवंगस्य
अपूर्व-पक्ष = नव-पक्ष
कुरुते = निर्मिमीते

Two notes on the underlining here:

The words in the verse itself were underlined at the same time in order to show whether the commentator left any words out of his comment and/or whether we may have missed any along the way.
Entire vigrahas are underlined, so we don’t mistake the nominatives in them for the subject (its qualifiers, etc.) of their clause in the verse. Remember that compounds are primarily analyzed as consisting of two members. So, for longer compounds तत् is often used to stand for the last member of the 2-member compound just analyzed in order to relate it to the next member of the larger compound. For example, for the vigraha of XYZ compound, we might see X Y vigraha, then (Y=)तत् Z vigraha where तत् stands for Y. In the vigraha above, विद्या एव अपूर्वपक्षाः तेषां सङ्गम् (“the unprecedented wings that are knowledge; an attachment to them,” i.e., X एव Y, (Y=)तेषां Z), तेषाम् stands for अपूर्वपक्षाः, to relate it to सङ्गम्.

In addition to underlining vigrahas, it’s also useful to clearly demarcate them in some way. A highlighter could work here, but I’ll keep it simple and just use parentheses to display their extent, including 1) the use of तत् to reinsert them back into the anvaya’s syntax as well as 2) any glosses. (प्ररोहमाप्ता below is an example of the latter. An example of the former would be सङ्गः तं rather than the सङ्गं we find below.)

Reading just the underlined commentary permits us to read the verse (if sometimes through its synonyms) in an intuitive syntax (vigrahas in red):

शतपत्त्रयोनेः साधुलोके दया अहो कियती दृढं प्ररूढा,
अद्यापि यो दुर्जनवानरस्य विद्यैव अपूर्वपक्षाः तेषां संगं न कुरुते ।

This word-order can be analyzed easily in terms of the grammar it organizes:

Subject			(int.)	Predicate
Complements		Subject	(int.)	Complement	Predicate
शतपत्त्रयोनेः	साधुलोके	दया	अहो	कियती	(दृढं प्ररूढा)
of the lotus-born (creator)	for good-people	compassion	ah!	to what extent?	deeply rooted
Ah, how deeply rooted is the Lotus-born (creator)’s compassion for good people!

Note in the above how the commentator has:

reversed the order of pādas here to place the predicate after the subject
more closely tied the subject’s genitive to it
placed कियती with the predicate
- कियती is adjectival here in gender-, number- and case-agreement with the subject (अनुकम्पा) because verbs such as रुह् meaning, “to grow,” are included in the so-called verbs of incomplete predication (along with those meaning, “to be, seem, appear,” etc.).

Context	Subject	Predicate
Context	Subject	Indirect Object	Direct Object	Verb
अद्यापि	यो	दुर्जनवानरस्य	(विद्यैव अपूर्वपक्षाः तेषां संगं)	न कुरुते
even today	who	for the bad-person—monkey	unprecedented wings that are knowledge; an attachment to them	does not create
who even today does not create for the monkeys—the wicked—an attachment to the unprecedented wings that are knowledge

If this ordering of the grammar does not make immediate sense to you as the expected norm, refer to p. 11 in your Sanskrit Notes handout.

Even if you were only to use commentaries as above, underlining them for their anvayas, that would still be a boon to your reading in instantly construing the grammar for you. But of course the comments between underlined elements in an anvaya can also be a great help. Here, too, your underlining is useful in revealing the structure of the commentary because, in general, glosses and comments follow what they explain:

X-citation Y-comment

Thus, to come back to our verse:

Jonarāja glosses शत-पत्त्र-योनेः literally with पद्म-भुवः and then less literally with ब्रह्मणः, which we might represent: शतपत्त्रयोनेः = पद्मभुवः = ब्रह्मणः — “He whose source is the hundred-petalled one [i.e., lotus]” = “he whose origin is a lotus” = “Brahmā”. Similarly,

अहो = आश्चर्यम्, “Ah!” = “amazement” (the interjection may also be said in grief, etc., but here is explained as being uttered in wonder).
दृढं = स्थिरं प्ररूढा = प्ररोहम् आप्ता, where the compound दृढप्ररूढा is analyzed in the vigraha, दृढं प्ररूढा, i.e., as a द्वितीया-तत्पुरुष, and glossed at the same time: दृढम्, i.e., firmly, rooted, i.e., obtained rooting (where the fact that प्ररूढ is a past participle is displayed by the periphrastic comment: कृदन्त of प्र-√रुह् + pp. of √आप्).
अद्यापि = आ सर्गाद् इयति अपि काले गच्छति, “even today” = “with even this much time elapsing since creation” (Note that this is a locative absolute with the m.s.loc. pres. ptc. of √गम् [गच्छति] agreeing with काले ; आ, “since,” governs the ablative, सर्गात्, “since creation.” The comment reminds us of the time-period specified by अद्यापि in the context of Brahmā.
यो = ब्रह्मा, “who,” i.e., “Brahmā” (clarifying the referent of the relative pronoun since we have no correlative pronoun in the verse)

In general, you can presume the order: X-citation Y-comment. Sometimes, however, the order is reversed. For example, even in an anvaya comments may precede what they’re explaining in a variety of ways, such as with:

आदि-final compounds, in some cases, e.g.: वाच्यादौ अर्थे “in the denotative, etc., meaning”
vigrahas: those that cite the original term will usually conclude (rather than begin) with it: e.g., शास्त्रं जानाति इति शास्त्रज्ञः “(he) knows the sciences: science-knower.”
explanatory doubts, often in a form such as: Y ... इति आशङ्क्य आह ... X “Anticipating Y (query / objection, etc.), (the author) says X.”

On this and everything above, see Scholastic Sanskrit.

Even at this point, then, we can put our understanding of the verse, thanks to Jonarāja, into translation. The prose version has actually already been given in the tables above. Translating by pāda would yield something along the lines of:

दृढप्ररूढा शतपत्त्रयोनेः
कियत्यहो साधुजने ऽनुकम्पा ।
यो ऽद्यापि विद्यानवपक्षसङ्गं
खलप्लवङ्गस्य न निर्मिमीते ॥

Deeply rooted is the Lotus-born Creator’s
compassion for the good—ah, how (deeply)!
Even today an attachment to new wings of knowledge he
does not create for monkey rogues.

Once you’ve made sense of a commentator’s understanding of a verse, you can probe both what has, and has not, been accounted for. In the present verse, we might wonder why Jonarāja has read दृढप्ररूढा as the predicate rather than as a simple adjective (“Ah, how vast is the deeply rooted compassion...”). Which might lead us to ask whether Maṅkha has specifically used the epithet, “lotus-born,” for Brahmā in connection with the foregrounded image of his compassion as “deeply rooted.” That is, lotuses are also noted for their “rooting” or “growing,” and with derivatives from the same verb root as in प्ररूढ (i.e., √रुह् — पङ्केरुह, जलरुह, etc.). That Brahmā’s compassion is “deeply” or “firmly” (दृढ) rooted may suggest that the implicit simile does not reference just any lotus, but the one specifically mentioned in this verse: Brahmā’s lotus-source, which anchors the Creator of the universe in Viṣṇu’s navel.* To turn to the latter half of the verse, the seeming randomness of an image associating monkeys with ‘new’ wings may lead us to suspect a double meaning in पक्ष — i.e., not only meaning “wing” but also a scholastic or philosophical “view.” In which case, नवपक्ष would mean both “new” (or “unprecedented”) “wings” for monkeys and “new views” for rogues, which would be troublesome in necessitating that the good go on refuting them.**

But if we continue Jonarāja’s commentary, he will elaborate on the meaning he’s just specified. What does it mean to say that the Creator doesn’t create knowledge for the wicked? खलाः सर्वदैव मूर्खा एवेत्यर्थः । “The meaning is: rogues are forever nothing but fools.”

* One might wonder (as I initially did) whether a banyan (the sacred fig tree) were obliquely referenced in दृढप्ररूढ, as it is known by the epithet, दृढप्ररोह, “the firmly growing” or “deeply rooting” one. But we needn’t speculate, since Maṅkha himself uses दृढप्ररूढ elsewhere (e.g., 16.21) clearly without any such reference; and since the adjective already makes good sense here in the implicit lotus-simile: Brahmā’s compassion is like his lotus-source in being firmly rooted.

** My tentative translation of this śleṣa in class would likely not have found its way onto this webpage if Lawrence McCrea had not made such a compelling case for it (personal communication). I paraphrase his interpretation above and thank him for sharing his insights with me. Any remaining infelicities in understanding or translation are of course mine alone.

And now that the verse has been grammatically construed and glossed for its meaning, Jonarāja turns to its poetic image (a common commentarial method). The metaphor here is explained first in context (the rogues), and then with reference to the object of comparison (the monkeys): खलाः सविद्या यदि स्युस्तदा साधुषु दोषानारोप्य प्राणानपहरेयुरित्यर्थः । वानरस्य च पक्षा यदि स्युस्तदा विश्वस्योपद्रवं कुर्यात् । “If rogues were to have knowledge, they would (successfully) attribute faults to the good and deprive them of their lives: this is the sense. And if a monkey were to have wings, he would make trouble for the whole world.” If you understood the point of Jonarāja’s vigraha for विद्यानवपक्षसङ्गम् (i.e., where विद्या construes with the contextual subject—rogues—and नवपक्षाः construes with the object of comparison—monkeys), then you likely already understood this image. Rogues being metaphorically identified with “leap-going” monkeys here, the creator’s merciful decision not to create in them an affective attachment to (or propensity for) knowledge is tantamount to the blessing he bestows in not physically attaching wings (of a novel sort) to monkeys.

We might describe the reading practices above as reading-by-commentary and reading-beyond-commentary. The first helps us to understand a work on the level of its grammar, semantics and poetics, while the second is essentially an evaluation of the adequacy of a commentator’s interpretation, and of what the base text may mean beyond it. More broadly, these two kinds of reading give us access to the key ways in which the Sanskrit tradition, over its long and prolific history, has made sense of itself: how series of authors and exegetes constituted that tradition in the process of creating, interpreting and reinterpreting its texts anew. It is only by reading with and (in the sense above) beyond commentaries that we can appreciate that history of cultural self-understanding for what it was (and wasn’t). In short, there is no more direct route into that history, and none more important, than commentary.

If you read commentaries as above (closely comparing their anvaya-citations with their base texts), they can also assist you in editing imperfectly edited texts. Take this example from the same सर्ग of the श्रीकण्ठचरित :

Here we’ve dutifully underlined everything possible, but भूषणम्, “ornament,” in the verse is not given in the अन्वय. What’s more, where we expect it in the first line of commentary we instead find the non-underlined term, मरिचम्, “pepper,” which is also not shown (by vigraha) to be in compound with the gloss of व्युत्पत्ति (नानाशास्त्रपरिचयम्, “a knowledge of many disciplines”). Instead, both व्युत्पत्ति (i.e., its gloss) and मरिच are simply given in the accusative. The first line of commentary reads:

“Because it is excessively sharp, regard (जानीहि = अवैहि) a knowledge of many disciplines (= व्युत्पत्ति “cultivated learning”) as pepper (मरिचम्).”

Since Jonarāja seems to be reading व्युत्पत्तिम् (via its gloss) in the accusative, it would seem that the following syllables in the base text (ऊषणम् or something similar) constitute the word he’s reading for “pepper” (मरिचम्). A quick trip to the dictionary will reveal that ऊषणम् is indeed a word meaning, “pepper.” And as this is the meaning that will make sense in the poetic image to follow, we can have some confidence in emending the printed text (व्युत्पत्तिभूषणम्) to: व्युत्पत्तिम् ऊषणम्.

Commentaries in this way often provide an invaluable tool in ascertaining a base text’s readings at a given (sometimes precisely dateable) time. And often, as in the case of Jonarāja’s 15th c. work, a commentary will predate most if not all of the extant manuscripts we have for a base text. And so, regardless of how recent our manuscripts are for any given commentary, the latter can nevertheless provide our oldest readings for a text. And those readings are not infrequently also our best readings, since commentators also served as editors, comparing and selecting readings on the basis of various philological principles. Together with a base text’s extant manuscripts, they provide a powerful tool for reconstructing our best hypothesis of a text’s form at a much earlier date.

In the present case, presuming that the error, व्युत्पत्तिभूषणम्, is scribal rather than typographical, an attempt to pinpoint its source would likely require a comparison of all of the Śrīkaṇṭhacarita’s manuscripts. Of the handful of ŚKC manuscripts available to me at the moment, all of those in devanāgarī have the error (suggesting that the error is scribal rather than typographical, though a definitive judgment would take into account other instances of the same error elsewhere in the text). On the other hand, my lone manuscript in śāradā (a script popular in Kashmir), penned by the famous 17th c. scholar, Rājānaka Ratnakaṇṭha, correctly reads व्युत्पत्तिमूषणम् :

मान्यकाव्यं त्यज्यते महाकाव्यं त्वाद्रियते इत्यर्थः ॥ ॥ व्युत्पत्तिमूषणमवैहि नितान्ततैक्ष्ण्यान्माधुर्यतो र
समथोन्मिषदिक्षुदीक्षम् । रूढा तयोर्यदि मिथो घटना कवीनां जातैव तद्वचसि पानकरीतिसिद्धिः ॥

Thus, as we have no evidence that the error existed in any Kashmiri manuscripts, our provisional hypotheses would be that it stemmed from:

a misunderstanding of the verse’s actual meaning in later devanāgarī manuscripts (unlikely, as भूषणम् makes no sense here), or
a simple misreading of devanāgarī म् for भ् in a scribe’s copying of the text, and/or
a mistranscription into devanāgarī of the śāradā “m,” which resembles a devanāgarī भ् (see above).

We would need to survey the remaining manuscripts to know for sure. Unfortunately, the likelihood of such simple errors of misreading was increased by the fact that it was not uncommon for base texts and their commentaries to circulate independently of one another.