LANMAN. — PALI BOOK-TITLES. 697 



unqualifiedly condemned. They have been common, however, not only 

 with writers of Pali and Sanskrit in Ceylon and India, but also with 

 those of other lands and ages. In Sanskrit, for instance, we have a 

 work entitled The Poet's Secret, Kavi-rahasyam. This is not a vision 

 of Calliope in the grove upon Helicon, but (God save the mark !) a 

 treatise of Sanskrit roots. A work upon Hebrew synonyms by Salomon 

 Urbinas (Venice, 1548) is entitled Tabernacle of the Covenant (Ten- 

 torium Conventus or Ohel Mo'ed). A supercommentary to the bib- 

 lical commentary Rashi, as being the offspring begotten from the 

 spiritual loins of Rabbi Leo of Prague (about 1590), is called The 

 Lion's Whelp (Catulus Leonis, Gur aryeh, with reference to Genesis 

 49.9). A treatise of the Divine clemency by William Sibb is entitled 

 Bowels Opened, and is cited as Sibb's Bowels Opened. Among the 

 fanciful titles of Cotton Mather's works is found one, " Edulcorator. 

 A brief essay on the waters of Marah sweetened." 



Unserviceableness of the fanciful titles of these commentaries. — 

 In giving English equivalents of these titles (in Table III), I have used 

 the utmost pains to reproduce the essential peculiarities of the origi- 

 nals. If a Pa-jjotika is an Il-luminator, then a Jotika should be a 

 Luminator. As serving the second purpose of a title (cp. page 696), 

 nothing could belie itself worse by emptiness than " The Fulfiller of 

 Wishes." My equivalents make clear how utterly unserviceable the 

 fanciful titles are. What difference in meaning is there between a 

 Destroyer of Error and a Dispeller of Folly (no's 2 and 22) such as might 

 help us to associate the one with the Majjhima and the other with the 

 Vibhaiiga-ppakarana 1 And when it comes to holding surely in mem- 

 ory the fact that the Illuminator (Pajjotika) of the Good Religion is 

 the comm. on the Niddesa, while the Illustrator (PakasinI) of the same 

 is the comm. on the Patisambhida, — for me, I confess, it 's like trying 

 to keep my grip on a pendent icicle. The differences between no's 3 

 and 5 and 7 (see Table III) are just as elusive. Even if this were not 

 so, the fact that the same fanciful name is applied to more than one 

 text quite defeats the usefulness of the name (see p. 694, end). 



The Hindus often ignore these fanciful titles. — Buddhaghosa does 

 indeed refer (in his Attha-salinI, p. 97) to his Complete Clarifier by its 

 fanciful title, but explains that it is the comm. on the Vinaya : Atthi- 

 kehi pana Sainanta-pasadikarj Vinay-atthakatham oloketva gahetabbo 

 (cp. p. 98). Later writers, like the author of the Gnvrj. (passim), speak 

 of a given commentary, just as we should do, simply as a commentary, 

 that is, as an atthakatha or vannana or atthavannana or sarjvannana of 

 such and such a text, and add the fanciful title or not, as the case may 

 be. And so do the writers of the colophons. Thus the Gnvrj., p. 59, 



