LANMAN. — PALI BOOK-TITLES. C99 



mentario = L. commentarium = G. Commentar). Hence, not Cy. nor 

 Comni. (which last is long). Lists 2 and 1 1 have C, which is a capital 

 and is too short and suggests Culla, etc. Either com. or cm. would 

 serve very well ; but since cm. is as readily suggestive as com., and 

 shorter, and does not suggest anything else, I think that cm. is on the 

 whole the best. 



Supercommentaries. — The same objections to fanciful titles are 

 cogent here as before. Moreover, the Hindus often employ a special 

 word for a supercommentary, namely, tika. Thus they apply this 

 name to the very important supercommentary of Anandagiri upon 

 Qarjkara's commentary (bhashya) upon the Upanishads. This word 

 tika is a short and convenient one ; and since it begins with a charac- 

 teristic and very rare initial, t, and one which is very suggestive, and 

 since supercommentary is a long word and difficult to abbreviate 

 satisfactorily, I favor designating these works by t. For Dhammapala's 

 supercommentary upon Buddhaghosa's commentary entitled Destroyer 

 of Error or Papanca-sudanI, we write, not Linattha-ppakasini (which 

 may be any one of six different things : cp. p. 696), but simply M.cm.t, 

 and read it as Supercommentary on the Majjhima-commentary. 



Methods of designating the manuscripts. — In classical philology, 

 the codices are named after persons who once owned them (thus the 

 Vossianus of Ovid), or after the places where they are kept (thus, Paris- 

 inus, Guelferbytanus ; Bodleianus, Vaticanus). 45 In a discipline which 

 has so long been cultivated, it would be a questionable proceeding to 

 depart from long-accepted usage, especially in the case of mss. cele- 

 brated the world over. But Pali philology is very young, and definitive 

 designations are in large measure yet to be made. Considering broadly 

 the ways of literary tradition in the Orient, the multiplicity of the 

 mss., and the inevitable modernity of many of them, the complete 

 insignificance of temporary ownership, and the comparative insignifi- 

 cance of the place of keeping, — it is evidently a headless thing to 



45 Sometimes even the material employed gives the name to a ms. Tims 

 the world-famed ms. of Ulfilas at Upsala is called the Codex argenteus, be- 

 cause it is in letters of silver on purple parchment. The first Cingalese ms M)f 

 the Kathavatthu is designated as P, either because it belonged to a Professor, 

 or, more probably, because it is written on Paper leaves as distinguished from 

 Palm-leaves. This reminds me of the old woman who always marked the 

 upper crust of her pies, not only her mince-pies but also her apple-pies, with 

 "TM" meaning in the one case '"Tis mince," and in the other case '"Taint 

 mince." — For the benefit of the dwellers in partibus, I observe that mince- 

 pies are made of pastry filled with minced meat, that 'T is = It is, and that 

 'T aint = It is not. 



