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Lost in transmission: The case of the Pahlavi-Vīdēvdād manuscripts1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2010

Alberto Cantera
Alberto Cantera*
Affiliation:
University of Salamanca
*
acantera@usal.es
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Abstract

All extant Pahlavi-Vīdēvdād (PV) manuscripts derive from a single copy. The binding of this copy was damaged early on, and some folios were lost and others displaced. A detailed analysis of the extant manuscripts allows us to reconstruct the original order and to discover where some folios are lost, but in previous editions (especially of the Pahlavi translation), this fact was not always noted appropriately and numerous errors occurred. Moreover, other typical transmission errors in this common source have slipped into all extant PV manuscripts and caused omissions of several fragments of the Avestan text and its Pahlavi translation, hence the importance of the Sādes for the edition of the Avestan text of the Vīdēvdād. Geldner was, unfortunately, too confident in the quality of the PV manuscripts and omitted from his edition Avestan texts that should have been included. But not every difference between the Avestan text of the Sāde and Pahlavi manuscripts can be attributed to the transmission. One of the most important differences is the omission of fragard 12 in the Pahlavi-Vīdēvdād manuscripts. Since its omission cannot be attributed to transmission, an alternative explanation for this important difference is proposed.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 73 , Issue 2 , June 2010 , pp. 179 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 2010

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Footnotes

1

This article is part of the outcome of the Avestan Digital Archive Project. M. A. Andrés and Alberto Cantera are the principal participants in this project; further collaborators are Juanjo Ferrer, Elham Afzalian and Mohammed Kangarani. Without their co-operation, especially in checking the different manuscripts, this paper would have been impossible. The Avestan Digital Archive runs thanks to funding from the Junta de Castilla y León and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. I have to express my gratitude to the Cama Oriental Institute and to the Library of Bombay University for allowing us to work with all the Vīdēvdād manuscripts in their collections during our stay in October 2007. Special thanks also go to the Meherji-Rana Library, its trustees, and Dastoor F. M. Kotwal for collaborating on the Avestan Digital Archive. I have also to express my gratitude to Dan Sheffield who has contributed to produce a readable text in English.

References

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