महावीरचरितम् (महाकवि भवभूति - वीररस-प्रधान रामकथा नाटक सम्पूर्ण ७ अङ्क सटीक)

xxv] Proposed by the General Editor of this Series
citations.—The page-numbers are relegated to the inconvenient inner corners
in order to discourage as far as possible the employment of them for
citation. (The page-numbers have their use for the printer and book-
binder.)
Minor typographic details.—As to the corner-citations: The numerals
and letters and dashes should be set close together, without spacing, to the
left or right of the single square bracket. The act-numerals should be
Roman numerals (not Arabic), and lower-case (not capitals). The stanza-
numbers should be Arabic. The letters which indicate the verse of the
stanza should be ‘superiors’ (that is, be set higher than the rest of the
type-line) and Roman (not Italic). The same holds for the figures which
indicate the prose-line. The corner-citations should be set thus:
vii.31⁵—] [—vii.35ᵇ
They should not be set as follows: not thus, [—vii. 35. b; nor thus,
[—VII. 35. b; nor thus, [—VII. 35.ᵇ
I have no quarrel with one who insists on using Arabic figures for the
number of a maṇḍala of the Rigveda, of a parvan of the Mahā-Bhārata,
or of a kāṇḍa of the Rāmāyaṇa. But for an act of a play, the Roman
numeral has undoubted advantages. And if the Roman numeral is used,
let it be in lower-case, not in capitals. As eminent printers have observed
(so Bänsch-Drugulin, De Vinne), the use of many capitals on a page ‘stört
die Ruhe des Satzbildes’, ‘spots the page’, gives it an unrestful look.
For punctuating the elements of one citation, moreover, periods are
much better than commas: thus, iii. 1¹, iv. 2ᶜ, v. 6¹, vii. 35ᵇ. In a mass of
references, the overworked commas give the line a serrated or very ragged
effect: thus, III, 1, 1; IV, 2, c; V, 6, 1; VII, 35, b. The contrast between the
serrated style and the restful style is so great as to make comment needless.
Inconveniences resulting from lack of system or from a bad system.—
These might well be adduced by way of comment on the foregoing
principles and canons and devices, or to serve as arguments therefor.
Their relevance is clear.
Lack of system, good or bad.—As an example may be cited the old
edition of Uttara-Rāma-charita, of Calcutta, 1831. This gives the number
of the page, but not the line of the page, nor any stanza-numbering (good
or bad), nor even the number of the act except at the beginning and end of
each act. Since the edition is long out of print and the page-numbers
of later editions have no determinable relation with the page-numbers of
the old one, all references made to the old one by writers on the drama
and by lexicographers and grammarians and others have of course become
worthless.
Citation by pages and multiple sequences of pagination.—An extreme
d [H.O.S. 21]