412 
G. Thibaut —Contributions to the 
[No. 4, 
stacle is, or I should rather be inclined to say, was the extraordinary corrup¬ 
tion of all the manuscripts containing Somakara’s commentary, a corruption 
extending so far that in more than one passage it is hardly possible to make 
out even the general drift of the argument (I myself have been able to 
procure three MSS. in addition to those used by Prof. Weber, but they be¬ 
long to the same families as his and no additional advantage is to be derived 
from them). The reason for which I prefer to call this second obstacle a 
past one lies in my conviction of Somakara’s commentary being not only of 
slight value, but, the explanations of a few verses excepted, positively harm¬ 
ful as misleading the student of the Jyotislia and preventing him from 
having recourse to the only legitimate method of arriving at its true 
meaning. In fact I consider Somakara to have totally misunderstood 
by far the greater part of the few rules of which the Jyotisha con¬ 
sists. Professor Weber already, in his edition of the Jyotisha, has 
complained in many places of the want of connexion by which Soma¬ 
kara’s method of interpretation is characterized and of the strangeness 
of the results at which we frequently arrive w T hen accepting him for 
our guide ; but I think we may safely go a step farther and, instead of 
regretting the want of ability on our side to construe Somakara’s ex¬ 
planations into a consistent whole, reject his explanations just for the 
very reason that we are unable to elicit a satisfactory sense from them. It 
appears to me that Somakara has grasped the meaning of his text only 
where it either was impossible to misunderstand it (so f. e. in the intro¬ 
ductory verses) or where corresponding passages of the Gargi Samhita 
assisted him in making out the right meaning (so f. e. v. 9, 10). In these 
latter cases his gloss, certainly has some value, since those parts of Garga’s 
work from which he quotes appear to be lost, or have at any rate not been 
recovered up to the present time ; but with regard to the whole remainder 
of the Jyotisha—and this remainder forms by far the greater part of the 
work—his commentary must be declared to be worse than useless. The 
chief objection to Somakara’s manner of commenting—an objection which 
by itself would be sufficient to condemn it—is the complete absence of any¬ 
thing in the way of “ upapattj” or proof. While every good commentary on 
an Indian astronomical work, after having explained one of the rules given 
in the text proceeds to justify it by showing its agreement with the general 
principles of the system, Somakara never makes such an attempt ; he sim¬ 
ply gives a scanty explanation of the words of the text and then leaves the 
reader to his own resources. And the explanations which he gives are for 
the greater part of a very strange nature indeed. Later on, the true explana¬ 
tion of a few passages of the Jyotisha will be given, when Somakara’s mis¬ 
takes with reference to these will clearly appear from a mere comparison ; I 
now direct the reader’s attention to some verses the right sense of which 
