मानसार शिल्पशास्त्र (प्रसन्ना कुमार आचार्य - प्राचीन भारतीय स्थापत्य, नगर-नियोजन व मूर्ति-शिल्प महाकोश)

PREFACE xix
General method followed in preparing the text
After the brief survey of the present condition of the manu-
scripts, it remains for me to indicate shortly the lines which I have
followed in preparing the text of the first edition from the materials
furnished by the codices.
The variations in the manuscripts consisting in spelling, words,
phrases, sentences and grammatical concordance have been recorded.
Errors in metre, when accidental or results of bad copying, can
easily be corrected. But such errors in the Mānasāra are too
numerous and they can hardly be corrected without tampering with
the original. In all sacred works they have been respected by
mediæval Indian scholars, and accounted for as peculiarities of
holy sages (ārsha). The first editor of the Mānasāra has no other
alternative than to take all these errors as ārsha.
I believe I have thus included in the Notes and Appendices
more than what has any real bearing on the text. This principle
is certainly not economical. But this is, under the circumstances
to be noticed below, unavoidable and not altogether useless.
The chief object of critically editing the ancient manuscripts
is to prepare an intelligible text. At the same time no one could
deny the "mischief done by conjectural criticism of classical scholar-
ship." But with a view to preparing an intelligible text of the
Mānasāra, the ungrammatical or "barbarous" style of which will
be found discussed elsewhere,¹ a certain amount of emendation is
indispensable.
When the office of the Editor, Commentator, and Translator is
all combined in one, the following principle, which, if not sound, is
at least safe under the peculiar circumstances, has been followed in
this edition :
"Let an editor give what there is, and let the commentator
say what might be and what ought to be."
¹ Critical Notes, pp. 1-310; Appendix to Indian Architecture, pp. 190-214.