Das brahmanische Totenritual nach der Antyestipaddhati des Narayanabhatta.

• Author: Rocher, Ludo

The goal of this 1989 Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Heidelberg was "auf Grund der Ubersetzung eines Handbuches das brahmanische Totenritual ausfuhrlich und verstandlich zu dokumentieren" (p. 18). The manual the author chose to achieve that goal was Narayanabhatta's Antyestipaddhati, not only because it is an important text in its own right, but because, like the Pretakalpa of the Garudapurana, it continues to be used today by the brahmanical priests who perform the ritual for the dead (p. 7). In modern times it has also been drawn upon by anthropologists (Veena Des), historians of religion (David Knipe), and authors of studies on dharma generally (P. V. Kane, R. B. Pandey) (p. 16).

Narayanabhatta, a son of the famous pandit Ramesvarabhatta, was born in 1513. Ramesvara, originally from Pratisthana (Paithan), later settled in Banaras, where the extraordinary learning of his son "festigte ... die Tradition sudindischer Lehre in Nordindien" (p. 15). The author only briefly refers to the story of the Bhatta family, which has been told more than once. Haraprasad Shastri (Indian Antiquary 16 [1912]: 7-13) did so on the basis of the biographical Gadhivamsanucarita, composed by Narayana's son Sankara, while P. V. Kane dealt with the history of the Bhatta family in the introduction to his edition of Nilakanthabhatta's Vyavaharamayukha (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1926). I was surprised, neither in connection with Narayana's Tristhalisetu (p. 15) nor in the author's bibliography, to find a reference to Richard Salomon's The Bridge to the Three Holy Cities: The Samanyapraghattaka of Narayana Bhatta's Tristhalisetu (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1985).

The textual tradition of the Antyestipaddhati is complex, Muller distinguishes two versions. The first is represented by the text published at the Nirnaya Sagara Press, in 1915, under the title Uttaranarayanabhatti, i.e., the second part of Narayanabhatta's Prayogaratna (abbreviated AP). The editor was Vasudeva Panasikara (whose contribution went far beyond that of an ordinary editor: "Die AP ist so zwar das Produkt seines Herausgebers," p. 19). The second version is represented by the Antyestipaddhati included in the Rgvediyabrahmakarma (RBK), published at Gopala-Narayana's Press, Bombay (1885), and by a text on which Mailer provides no other information than that it is "aus der Bibliothek des Deccan College in Poona" (p. 17) and, hence, abbreviated AP(D). The fact that it is...