Reflection on the Word and Meaning

The Śabdārthacintā or Reflection on the Word and Meaning represents a highly intriguing treatise on Sanskrit grammar. It was composed in the mid-10th century by Ratnaśrījñāna, a prodigious Sinhalese Buddhist scholar who went by the name of Ratnamati during his early career, before becoming known as Ratnaśrījñāna and still later as Upatissa. Despite Ratna’s work occupying a central position in the Cāndra system of grammar, established by Candragomin (ca. 5th century AD), and exerting a significant influence on grammatical thought in South and Southeast Asia, it remained forgotten for many centuries. In order to rescue Ratna’s ‟reflections” from oblivion, it was necessary to use the only surviving textual witness, a heavily damaged palm-leaf manuscript discovered in Nepal and kept in Calcutta for a long time. The text was recovered entirely with the help of Ratna’s own commentary called the Śabdārthacintāvivr̥ti and Dhammasenāpati’s Kārikā (ca. 12th century) which was found to contain an unacknowledged, very precise Pali translation of the Sanskrit text. Besides the editio princeps of the Śabdārthacintā printed in Latin script, Dragomir Dimitrov and Mahesh Deokar present the first critical edition and an English translation of the surviving part of Ratna’s autocommentary ( Śabdārthacintāvivr̥ti 1.16–2.47), an English rendering of the main treatise as well as two appendices with the Śabdārthacintā typeset in Devanagari script and a facsimile edition with a diplomatic transcript of the Śabdārthacintāvivr̥ti . Now that Ratna’s magnificent contribution to Indian grammar has risen like a phoenix from the ashes, no serious student of Sanskrit and Pali grammar should ignore it.