महावीरचरितम् (महाकवि भवभूति - वीररस-प्रधान रामकथा नाटक सम्पूर्ण ७ अङ्क सटीक)

xix] Proposed by the General Editor of this Series Canon 1. A good method should utilize the logical divisions of the text—that is, the divisions of the play into acts, and the divisions of the acts into stanzas and prose-passages. Canon 1 forbids us to cite the play by pages, since this ignores the division into acts, and results in endless discord as between different editions. Again, it forbids us to number either the speeches or the lines from the beginning of the act, since this ignores the division of the act into prose and verse, and results in the very undesirable possibility of citing the same verse in more than one way (by stanza-number or speech-number or line-number). Canon 2 (corollary to canon 1). The numbering should start anew with each division.—The numbering of stanzas should start afresh at the beginning of each act; and the numbering of prose-lines should start afresh from the last stanza preceding the prose-passage. Discord from numbering stanzas in one sequence for entire play.— The numbering of all stanzas in one sequence from beginning to end of the play has this result : that any differences in the number of stanzas in prior acts as between different editions become operative or even cumulative for any later act or acts. The serious disadvantages of this bad practice are strikingly illustrated by four European editions of the Śākuntala, namely Böhtlingk's of 1846, Williams's of 1876, Pischel's of 1877, and Cappeller's of 1909. In all these four editions act vii has thirty- five stanzas (no more and no less), and these stanzas (apart from mere variants) are identical. In Böhtlingk they are numbered from 160 to 194; in Williams, from 165 to 199; in Pischel, from 187 to 221; and in Cappeller, from 155 to 189. This is confusion worse confounded, and (with all deference to these honoured names) it is the more inexcusable because it is wholly needless. The discord results primarily from the fact that the numbering of stanzas goes in one sequence from the beginning of the play to the end, and secondarily from the fact that, for example, act iii contains twenty-four stanzas in one text (so Böhtlingk, Cappeller) and forty-one in another (so Pischel). This wholly wrong method of numeration continues the discord of act iii through all the remaining four acts. If only the numeration began anew with each act, the stanza-numbers of act vii would be wholly accordant in all four editions, and the same references would have been precisely correct for each and all. The discord in the other acts is on the whole so slight as to cause little trouble, and even that little is avoidable (see below, p. xx). Canon 3. The citations should be precise.—A citation which makes it necessary to search an entire page or long prose-passage is not precise. It should be so precise that you can instantly find the exact word intended.