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Letter to the Editor / Dr. Madeleine Biardeau's Letter in reply to Sri V.M. Bedekar's article / 180-181

[Dr. Madeleine Biardeau's rejoinder to Shri V. M. Bedekar's article written in reply to her article on the critical editions of the Mahabharata and the Puranas]. Paris, January 21st 1970 Dear Sir, Six months after its publication in the July 1969 issue of Purana I was at least able to read Shri V. M. Bedekar's reply to my article published in the same Journal in July 1968. I wish I had been informed before its publication and given a right to answer in the same issue of the journal according to the normal usage. Anyhow it may not yet be too late to send this letter as a first attempt to answer, pending another article, where I shall take up the same subject from another angle. After reading Shri B.'s article, I feel that the misunderstanding between him and me is just as deep as it was between Sukthankar and Sylvain Levi. Or, to put it in terms more courteous than my opponent's, I was too naive to hope that such a short and general article could be properly understood, given the vast difference in cultural background that Shri B. 's article reveals. Actually, a similar discussion is going on in the West, where the cultural background should be more or less the same. The only difference here is that Shri B.'s ideas of science would be considered as the outdated one. Does he not himself mention the date of 1897 as the origin of the critical edition of the MhBh? As to the idea I tried to express in my ill-fated paper of 1968, it is not mine only, and, I am afraid, it is gaining ground steadily. Georges Dumezil's works bear witness to this, and his name is not and should not be unknown to Indian scholars (cf. R. N. Dandekar, Vedic Religion and Mythology, Poona 1965, p. 48). In one of his recent books, et Epopee Vol. I (Paris 1968), p. 34, he has clearly given his opinion on the critical edition of the MhBh and all critical work of this kind. For his study of the text, he takes into consideration not only the different Sanskrit recensions, but also the translations in modern languages.

Jan., 1970] LETTER TO THE EDITOR 181 Shri B. wants me to apply my "method" to a definite text and publish a critical edition of my own. But what good does he expect from an "obscurantist" like me? Actually I do not believe in critical editions of epic and puranic texts. I did not claim to replace the old method of critical edition by a new one (or an "antiquated" and "outdated" one, according to Shri B.). Writing for people who seemed to be fond of critically editing every possible text and who were thus paving the way for the disappearance of the regional versions, I thought, perhaps mistakenly, that I should give some idea of the limits within which a text can justifiably be critically edited. The principles I advocated were not a positive, but of a restrictive nature; we must be satisfied if we can correct an obviously corrupt ms. by a better one whenever a word or a group of words does not make any sense. shall never reach one completely satisfactory text, let alone the most authentic one. As far as I know, Dumezil, who claims to be a philologist, has never published any "critical edition" of any text, though he has brought to light many unknown pieces of oral literature. Real work is waiting for us elsewhere. But we I hope to show in the next issue of this Journal what kind of work can be done and how it upsets the basic principles of the so-called critical editions. I shall try to show it on an example that will be selected for its being as short and clear as possible. It will be seen then why there cannot be any claim of authenticity for a particular text in the sense advocated by Shri B. and that the old concept of "scientific study" does not apply any longer. It does not mean that we have to give up scientific thinking but only that sometimes we have to alter our concept of science. May I ask you kindly to publish this as early as possible in Purana ? (67 ru Yours sincerely Sd/ Madeleine Biardeau. rue Raymond Losserand Paris 14)