चान्द्रव्याकरणम् ॥ (Cāndravyākaraṇa)

These few palm leaves must presumably be among the earliest witnesses to Candragomin’s system of Sanskrit grammar (fl. after 470 CE).

The colophon on folio 14verso (image 4b) reads:

samvat ñu-la-dvi {deleted} dvir āṣāḍhaśuklatrayodaśyāṃ likhate [’]yaṃ rājādhirājaparameśvaraparamabhaṭ[ṭ]ārakaḥ śrīmad-Arimalladevasya vijayarāj[y]e deyadharmo 'yam (= a religious gift) śrīmāṇīśukle śrīvitikhāccheṃ vihārak{ṣ}uṭumbaja-Gomendravarddhanena ya<d>dattapuṇyam bhavati

So the year is 332 + 880 = 1212 CE, on the 13th day of the waxing fortnight of the month āṣāḍha, in the reign of King Arimalla. There are two problems with reading this date. Firstly the initial cipher looks more like ā which yields a date 100 years earlier, falling before the documented reign of Arimalla (reg. 1200–16CE). The second is the duplication of the dvi. I am taking the small slanted mark following the first dvi to be a deletion mark.

For some recent work on the Cāndravyākaraṇa see: Oberlies, Thomas Studie zum Candravyakaraṇa. Stuttgart : Franz Steiner Verlag, 1989. Alt- und Neu-Indische Studien der Universität Hamburg, 38. Eine kritische Bearbeitung von Candra IV.4.52-148 und V.2.

Oberlies, Thomas. « Verschiedene neu-entdeckte Texte des Candravyakaraṇa und ihre Verfasser (Studien zum Candravyakaraṇa II) ». Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik. 1992, 16/17, p. 161-184.

Oberlies, Thomas. « Das zeitliche und ideengeschichte Verhältnis der Candra-Vṛtti zu andern V(ai)yakaraṇas (Studien zum Candravyakaraṇa III) ». Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik. 1996, 20, p. 265-317.


(Seen with Sam Fogg Rare Books and Manuscripts, London on the 9th of January 2002, present location unkown. View all of the scanned images here.)


Update 28/02/2006: Thomas Oberlies informs me that the Cāndravyākaraṇa is at last attracting quite a bit of attention: He himself is just finalising an article for the Festschrift for Gustav Roth, Michael Hahn is working with a student on a commentary written in a curious “Pfeilschrift”, Dimitrov is editing the Upasargavṛtti Oberlies discovered, and Pieter Verhagen and Thomas Oberlies plan to edit the Sambandhasiddhisūtra. This should have quite an impact on our current appreciation of Candragomin’s work.