The Rise of Wisdom Moon. Krishna mishra
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the following word begins with ch: syac chastravit represents presandhi syat sastravit.
(3) Where a word begins with h and the previous word ends with a double consonant, this is our simplified spelling to show the pre-sandhi form: tad hasati is commonly written as tad dhasati, but we write tadd hasati so that the original initial letter is obvious.
compounds
We also punctuate the division of compounds (samasa), simply by inserting a thin vertical line between words. There are words where the decision whether to regard them as compounds is arbitrary. Our principle has been to try to guide readers to the correct dictionary entries.
Exemplar of CSL Style
Where the Devanagari script reads:
Others would print:
We print:
And in English:
May Ganesha’s domed forehead protect you! Streaked with vermilion dust, it seems to be emitting the spreading rays of the rising sun to pacify the teeming darkness of obstructions.
(“Nava·sahasanka and the Serpent Princess” i.3)
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csl conventions
Drama
Classical Sanskrit literature is in fact itself bilingual, notably in drama. There women and characters of low rank speak one of several Prakrit dialects, an “unrefined” (prakrta) vernacular as opposed to the “refined” (samskrta) language. Editors commonly provide such speeches with a Sanskrit paraphrase, their “shadow” (chaya). We mark Prakrit speeches with [opening and closing] square brackets, and supply the Sanskrit chaya in endnotes. Some stage directions are original to the author but we follow the custom that sometimes editors supplement these; we print them in italics (and within brackets, in mid-text)
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FOREWORD
This new translation of Krishna·mishra’s “The Rise of Wisdom Moon” will be, I believe, welcomed by all lovers of Sanskrit literature and especially by admirers of this marvelous drama. Matthew Kapstein brings out the work’s literary qualities in a manner the earlier translators could not, all the more for the modern literary sensibility. Some of his renderings of Sanskrit proper names are particularly ingenious.
“The Rise of Wisdom Moon” belongs to a literary genre that requires from readers both philosophical knowledge and literary sensibility in order to be able to appreciate it. The work cannot be reduced to a merely philosophical treatise, so compelling is its literary and dramatic effect. The cast of characters, each representing a power of sensible, erotic, intellectual and spiritual life, is at first confounding, but soon, as one identifies each power’s characteristic, familiar role, the entire story of conflict, struggle, and eventual resolution coheres in its depiction of man’s inner life, and is comparable in this respect to Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit.” For while Hegel’s is a philosophical treatise cast, rather severely, as a dramatization, Krishna·mishra’s is ostensibly a drama meant to be staged, but is also explicitly philosophical.
Matthew Kapstein highlights, as contrasted with earlier translators and writers on the text, its literary quality and wishes to underplay its philosophical nature. The irony lies precisely here, in the work’s literary style. This irony ________
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foreword
of style, I would suggest, is particularly suited to conveying the philosophy it does convey in this case, that is, Advaita Vedanta. This is so because, looked at closely, Advaita Vedanta contains a deep irony: knowledge, or pure consciousness, is itself the locus of ignorance, and yet ignorance seeks to conceal just that which harbors and manifests it. Pure knowledge does not destroy, but rather manifests ignorance. Hence, in Krishna·mishra’s play, ignorance and knowledge are cousins, as are the Kauravas and the Pandavas of the great epic. The infinite pure Self chooses to be ensnared by illusion, and then does not strive to free itself. Those who act to free the Self are characters who are themselves the kin of illusion. In fine, they are all bound together, and our initial dichotomous, opposition thinking fails.
What a wonderful portrayal of the inner history of the spirit.
J.N. Mohanty
Philadelphia
12 September, 2008
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INTRODUCTION
T hroughout the long history of the Sanskrit literary tradition, few texts have enjoyed a success comparable to that of “The Rise of Wisdom Moon” (Prabodhacandrodaya), the sole extant work of the otherwise unknown playwright Krishna·mishra·yati, or Krishna·mishra “the ascetic” (yati). Composed during the mid eleventh century in north-central India, it came to be translated numerous times over the centuries into both Indian and foreign languages, and was the subject of as many as a dozen Sanskrit commentaries. What is more, “The Rise of Wisdom Moon” is generally credited with having given birth to a distinctive genre of Sanskrit drama, that of the allegorical play. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Krishna·mishra’s creation has earned high praise indeed.
“The Rise of Wisdom Moon” entered the Western canon of Sanskrit studies early in the nineteenth century: an English translation by J. Taylor appeared in Bombay in 1812 and has been intermittently reprinted ever since; and in 1845 an edition of the Sanskrit text, prepared by Hermann Brockhaus, was published in Leipzig, Germany. By the end of that century, Krishna·mishra’s work was available in German (1820, 1842, 1846), Russian (1847), Dutch (1869) and French (1899) versions in addition to Taylor’s pioneering effort.1 We will examine aspects of the historical background for the early success of “The Rise of Wisdom Moon” in the West later in this introduction. At the outset, however, it will be useful to be familiar with the story told in the play itself.
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introduction
Plot Summary
As the scene opens, following the required benedictions, the Stage-manager relates that he has received an order from Gopala, a lord allied with king Kirti·varman. Gopala, thanks to his valiant conduct in battle, has succeeded in restoring Kirti·varman to the throne after the latter had suffered defeat at the hands of his rival Karna, the ruler of the kingdom of Chedi. Following a period of boisterous celebration, Gopala feels that the time has come to extol the virtue of spiritual peace, and so commands that “The Rise of Wisdom Moon,” a work composed by his own guru Krishna·mishra, be performed before the king. The Stage-manager, speaking to his actress wife of Gopala’s heroism, recites a verse comparing the downfall of Karna and reinstallation of Kirti·varman to spiritual intuition’s overcoming of ignorance, and the birth of wisdom that thereby ensues. The frame of the allegory is thus introduced, together with its protagonists Intuition, Magnus Nescience, and Wisdom Moon.
At the recitation of this verse a commotion is heard backstage: Kama, or Lord Lust in our translation, is indignant that his master Magnus Nescience should be disparaged by a mere actor, and he airs his complaint to his wife, Lady Passion. She, however, senses that Intuition and his party may be more formidable than her husband believes and raises a delicate question: is it true, as she has heard, that Lust—and by implication Magnus Nescience with his entire faction—in fact share common origins with their hated enemies,