A Preliminary List and Description of the Nyāyamañjarī Manuscripts

The present paper is an inventory and a description of the known manuscripts of the Nyāyamañjarī, meant as a tool for philological research on Bhaṭṭa Jayanta’s magnum opus. The inventory is gradually built through a systematic analysis of archival data found in catalogi catalogorum, bibliographies of catalogues, individual catalogues, unpublished lists, and editions of the Nyāyamañjarī. The list is followed by a concise description of each manuscript, including an external description, an outline of the contents, and historical information.

two major reasons. First, critical editions rarely cover the full span of works, except for very short ones, so the documentation justifiably embraces only manuscripts relevant to the portion that is about to be edited. Second, introductions of critical editions are often quite bulky, since they need to convey a great amount of information related to the applied method, to the historical background, to the genealogy of the transmission, etc.; therefore, a documentation of not directly relevant manuscript sources is generally left out for pragmatic reasons, and the precious ground-work done by zealous editors risks to be left unpublished. Yet, a wide dissemination of the inventorial research done in preparation of sound editions is certainly desirable and contributes to the growth of the discipline by saving the time and energy of specialists, who can thus easily locate the needed manuscript sources. In classical studies the separate publication of such inventories is well established in the form of "special catalogues", which can be catalogues of manuscripts of a single work, author, discipline, tradition, epoch, genre, etc. 2 The following list of NM manuscripts is of course not conclusive, since it is very likely that more NM manuscripts will be discovered in the enormous quantity of not yet surveyed manuscript material in South Asia. As for the published catalogues, however, it is intended as fairly exhaustive. It was gradually built through the following progressive steps: 1. consultation of the catalogi catalogorum; 2. consultation of individual catalogues; 3. consultation of published and unpublished hand-lists, indexes, and registers; 4. identification of the manuscripts used in printed editions in the above mentioned catalogues; 5. integration of manuscripts information gathered from colleagues.
One should keep in mind that when compilers of the Catalogus Catalogorum (CC) and the New Catalogus Catalogorum (NCC) gathered entries of a given work that was detected in more than one catalogue, they did not necessarily check whether such entries referred to one or more physical manuscripts, as it will be seen below in some cases of NM records. A single manuscript, indeed, may have been recorded again in a new catalogue, for instance after a library reshuffle, under a different number; or, it may have been shifted from or to a different collection or library, and thus be recorded in other hand-lists or catalogues under an altogether different identifier. Also, the information about authors and works found in catalogues often needs to be taken with a grain of salt, since general catalogues cannot be specialized in every genre and mistakes are always a distinct possibility. Since a catalogus catalogorum is a meta-catalogue containing mostly second-hand information, such errors can be reproduced along with new potential errors. To assess the reliability of the information, it is therefore important to unravel the information from catalogi catalogorum by reconstructing the path synthesized in their records, and gather all the available data about published and unpublished inventories, lists and catalogues. In the best scenarios, one could even trace back a detailed description of the manuscript contained in a descriptive catalogue, where decisive pieces of evidence such as an incipit or a colophon could be provided. For all this purposes, the amount of information found in the bibliographies of catalogues done by Janert (ABC) and Biswas (BBC) cannot be overestimated. Without these works, the interpretation of many forgotten names of lists and catalogues mentioned in CC and NCC would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. Rā 13.14 refers to the "Pustakānāṁ Sūcipatram, 48 pages in 8", a list referring to the collection of Paṅḋit Rādhākṙṡṅa of Lahore. The list was compiled by the Kāśmīrī paṅḋit named Rājarāma Śāstrī, as for the colophon at the end: likhitaṃ paṇḍitarājarāmaśāstriṇā kāśmīrivāsinā. Biswas (BBC, p. 237) mentions this collection under Rājarāma Ś āstrī's name, without specifying Rādhākṙṡṅa's, while Janert (ABC, p. 144) reports the bare information from the CC. The printed list of the Rādhākṙṡṅa collection, a copy of which is preserved in Tübingen, records the NM manuscript at p. 13, no. 119. The list is also available in Berlin and London (India Office). It was likely compiled or printed in 1871 or before, according to a hand-written note present in the first page of the Tübingen copy. The number 13 in the CC entry may refer to p. 13 of this Sūcipatra.
Report XXV refers to Cat. Report 1875, p. XXV, where the manuscript purchased in 1875 by Georg Bühler is described. Bühler was appointed by the Bombay Presidency of the British Government to search for Sanskrit manuscripts in areas of central and northern India. In his Report this manuscript is listed with the catalogue no. 390 (see description below, BORI 390/1875-76).
This piece of information needs to be disentangled, first of all according to the bibliographical information on catalogues given in the Abbreviations, NCC1, VIII-XXIX and in their revised version (NCC Abbreviations). As it is often the case with catalogi catalogorum entries, manuscripts are registered more than once under different labels: -Adyar II. p. 98a. This entry refers to Cat. AL 1928, p. 98 (cf. NCC1, p. i;ABC, p. 93;BBC, p. 155). In the catalogue, the manuscript is listed as "24 C 16 ke 280 (atiśithilā ["very brittle"])". According to Cat. AL 1926, vi-viii, 24 Ben. 1897Ben. -1901. The NCC reference is to Cat. SC 1902, p. 14, no. 50. In Cat. SBhL 1962 the same manuscript is listed under serial no. 33668, repeating the same access no., i.e. 3465 (see description below, SSV 3465).

Further Catalogued NM Manuscripts
The following are additional manuscripts of the NM listed in individual catalogues, but not in the CC or NCC. I also came across some further NM catalogue entries that most likely refer to the Nyāyasiddhāntamañjarī and erroneously mention Jayanta as the author, as it is the case with Adyar D. VIII 463 in the NCC, listed above. For instance, at the Osmania University Library in Hyderabad, there is a record of four "Nyāyasiddhāntamañjarī, also called Nyāyamañjarī" manuscripts ascribed to Jayanta, one in Telugu script (17th c.), complete and damaged, and three in Devanāgarī script (18th c.), fragmentary (Cat. OUH 1964, pp. 160-161). These, however, are most likely references to Jānakīnātha's later work, since the extant parts are described in the catalogue according to the division of the Nyāyasiddhāntamañjarī (pratyakṣaparicchedaḥ, etc.), and not according to those of the NM (prathamam āhnikam, etc.).

Further Non-Catalogued NM Manuscripts
Three further NM manuscripts came to my attention through the personal communication with colleagues, and to date I could not find any printed catalogue or list mentioning or describing them. In conclusion, among the NM entries in CC and NCC there are still three manuscripts, MU RKS 543, Ph 13 and Rā 13.14, whose identity or location remains unclear. Light on MU RKS 543 may be shed by the staff at the University Library in Madras. As for Ph 13 and Rā 13.14, one possible source for further clarification could be some additional record at the NCC Office in Madras.

Description of the NM Manuscripts
In the following I will supply a concise external description, an outline of their extent, and some historical information about these manuscripts, derived from the direct examination of their photographs, microfilms, or photocopies, as well as from the descriptions given in catalogues. Copies of one manuscript (ABhSP 2381) were not available to me, so in its case the description is based on the information from the catalogue and on the collation by Kei Kataoka (see KKc and KKd).
The manuscripts are alphabetically ordered according to the place where the manuscript is presently located. The headings mention the city and the last known repository. The abbreviated form with number, used in this paper for cross referencing purpose, is repeated in parentheses at the end of the heading.
The external description of the manuscripts, in smaller typeface, mentions in order all or some of the following: date of the manuscript, available only in two cases 5 ; number of leaves; size of leaves in millimeters (height 9 width); support (paper, birch-bark, palm-leaf); script. Lastly, the nature of the consulted copy (photocopy, digital photographs, microfilm) is also mentioned.
The extent of the manuscripts has been determined as carefully as possible. Incipit and explicit of the whole text in the case of complete manuscripts, and of major portions of text in the case of incomplete ones, are provided to give possible clues about the scribe's personality, and to facilitate a precise assessment of the missing parts. In the case of the only two dated manuscripts, the extract of the colophon is separately quoted. Extracts are not strictly diplomatic: obvious errors have been occasionally corrected. Punctuation marks specific of script (dots, half daṇḍas, etc.) are all rendered as slashes.
Miscellaneous notes, including historical information, and bibliographical references close the descriptions. It was used in the two volumes of the Mysore edition. In KSV, vol. I, its variants are listed in the appendix, since the manuscript was obtained only after the completion of the apparatus. In KSV, vol. II, it is collated in the apparatus with the siglum ca (KSV, vol. I, Prastāvanā, p. ii). It is a direct copy of ORI C-1374 above, at least as far as NM 6 is concerned, 6 as evident to me after a thorough stemmatic analysis of that āhnika. 7 This fact seems to have escaped the attention of Varadācārya, who collated both manuscripts in his edition. Bibliography: Cat. GJRI 1967, p. 549;KKa, p. 118;KKb, p. 135;KKc, p. 60; KKd, p. 129.

Chennai, Adyar Library (AL 70179b)
142; 60 9 480; palm-leaf; Malayālam; digital photographs. 6 Kataoka, after studying the beginning of NM 5, reaches a different conclusion, i.e. that the two manuscripts derive from a common exemplar (see KKh,. 7 A critical edition of NM 6, based on the collation of all the available manuscripts and a thorough stemmatic analysis is presently in its final editing process and will soon be published. Contents: NM 1-5 are lost. Contains NM 6-12, but with several missing folios and the serious damage on most leaves. In the original foliation, written in letter numerals of the alphabetical variety (see Grünendahl 2001, p. xiv), NM 6 began probably on folio ka 8 and ends at jhau; foll. ka and kā are missing, and the extant part begins from ki. Perhaps ka was empty, used as cover, or the manuscript began from the recto side, according to the missing amount of NM 6 text at the beginning. Incipit: [3r1 ( Contains marginalia related to Cakradhara's Nyāyamañjarīgranthibhaṅga (see Muroya 2009Muroya -2010. Bibliography: Cat. VOHD 1970, p. 228;KKd, p. 129;Muroya (2009Muroya ( -2010 Contains marginalia related to Cakradhara's Nyāyamañjarīgranthibhaṅga (see Muroya 2009Muroya -2010. Bibliography: Cat. VOHD 1970, p. 229;KKd, p. 129;Muroya (2009Muroya ( -2010 There are marginalia with passages from the GBh (see Muroya 2009Muroya -2010. Bibliography: Cat. AS 1957, 105-108;Muroya (2009Muroya ( -2010 The manuscript was written in Kaśmīra in śāka 1394 (1472 CE). 10 It is signed by Ā cārya Ś itikaṅt˙ha Svāmī, son of Arjuna Svāmī. Ā cārya Śitikaṅṫha was also the author of a commentary (Nyāsa) of Jagaddhara's (14th c.) grammatical work Kātantrabālabodhinī (see Coward and Kunjunni Raja 2001, p. 486 and NCC 3, p. 317), as confirmed by the identical form of the signature in a Nyāsa manuscript listed in VOHD 6219 (2.17, p. 111), ity ācāryārjun-asvāmiputraśitikaṇṭhasvāmi…, as well as by the date, which in VOHD 6219 is Ś āka 1393, the year before the date of BORI 390/ 1875-76. In the digital photographs seen by me (taken between 2004 and 2007), several leaves are damaged, with missing fragments and peeled-off areas; most leaves had been framed with a white ribbon, probably to contain the typical birch-bark deterioration. The ribbon occasionally hides lines or parts of lines, marginalia, and foliation. 11 Bibliography: Cat. Report 1875, p. XXV;Cat. DC 1888, p. 95;GDh, Bhūmikā, p. 5;Muroya (2009Muroya ( -2010 For more details about Ā cārya Ś itikaṅṫha and his works, see Sanderson (2007, p. 301) and Muroya (2009Muroya ( -2010 (KSV II 15,(9)(10)(11). The last third of NM8 and the complete NM 9-10 are also preserved. Incipit: [1v1] oṃ namaḥ śivāya gurave // oṃ namaḥ śāśvatikānaṃdajñānaiśvaryamayātmane […] (KSV I 1,1). Explicit: [80r17] -yitum iti hi vyāharad vṛttikāraḥ // avayavapadārthaḥ // iti śrībhaṭṭajayaṃtasya kṛtau nyāyamaṃjaryām daśamam āhnikaṃ samāptam // śubham astu sarvajagatām parahitaniratā bhavaṃtu bhūtagaṇāḥ // doṣā prayāṃtu śāṃtiṃ sarvatra sukhe bhavaṃtu lokāḥ // śubham // śubham (KSV II 583,4-7). Notes: The library label on the cover reads "228. [corrected to 237 by hand] Nyayamanjari | by Bhattajayanta | Calligraphy | (Big Size) | pp. 160" in type, and "C. No. 1015", and other unintelligible numbers written by hand. Thus it describes the manuscript as being composed of 160 pages, i.e. 80 folios; the mistake may have been caused by a superficial glance at the foliation of the first and last folios only. In the bipartite foliation, in an approximate calculation, the second part must have started again from 1 soon after the preserved fol. 83 at the beginning of NM 5. The original manuscript was possibly already missing NM 11-12, judging from the elaborate colophon at the end of NM 10. The margins of the first four folios are filled with notes, containing passages of the Granthibhaṅga (see Muroya 2009Muroya -2010. Bibliography: Cat. BHU 1971;KKa, p. 118;KKb, p. 135;KKc, p. 60;KKd, p. 129;Muroya (2009Muroya ( -2010 [320v8] śubham astu sarveṣāṃ lekhakāḥ saṃvat 1794 mārgaśīrasu 4 amātyavāra pure (?). Notes: In Cat. SC 1902, p. 14, it is described as follows: "Devanāgarī script on paper, foll. 320, Saṁ vat 1794 (CE 1736-1737)". In this very list it is also confirmed that the manuscript was used as the source of GDh ([…] yasmād vijayanagarasaṃskṛtasīrījasañjñikāyāṃ […] nyāyamañjarīpustakaṃ mudritam). The manuscript contains frequent corrections, interlinear and in margins. Some of these appear to be by a second hand, written in a thinner trait. Several emendations are not clearly visible in the photocopies. The presence of lost emendations can be in many cases inferred from the presence of interlinear correction and reference marks. It is likely that two different hands corrected the manuscript, and it cannot be excluded that one of them may even be Gaṅgādhara's own. The date is written in a second hand. The manuscript is read with some difficulty, because of the thin and transparent paper that reveals the ink of the back side and can hide or blur, particularly, the frequent interlinear corrections. Bibliography: Cat. SC 1902, p. 14;Cat. SBhL 1962;GDh, Bhūmikā, p. 5.

A Synopsis of the Descriptive List
In conclusion, the following manuscripts, although explicitly mentioned in catalogues and editions, still need to be located and examined: -MU RKS 543, Ph 13 and Rā 13.14, attested only in the CC and in the NCC.
-BHU C-4666 is supposedly listed in Cat. BHU 1971, although I could not yet consult this catalogue. Recent attempts to retrieve it failed because it was not found on shelf by the staff at the Library. -LU 45440, catalogued in Cat. LU 1951, p. 40. -MyA, a transcript owned by Ā tmakūru Dīkṡācārya, cited in the Mysore edition.
In KSV, vol. I, Prastāvanā, p. i, this document is described as follows: "While engaged in searching for other documents, we heard that there was one document in the Parakāla Mat˙ha in Mysore, but […] we went there to collect it and we found that this document was not available. Still, we have found that there is now a text owned by Ā tmakuru Dīkṡācārya which was edited on the basis of that document, […]". On the basis of this description, a possible conjecture is that MyA may have been a transcription of an unidentified manuscript, as suggested in KKa, p. 117.
The following table provides an overview of the manuscripts surveyed in this paper. The first column indicates the sequential order in which they have been described above. The second column mentions the place where they are currently preserved, the third the manuscript identifier, the fourth the content and the fifth the script (D = Devanāgarī, M = Malayālam, Ś = Ś āradā). The sixth column cites editions that have used the manuscripts.