Although now widely recognized as a seminal commentary on the Samkhyakarika of Isvarakrsna, Yuktidipika's (YD) first ever edition arrived on the scene only in 1938, thanks to the efforts of Pulinbehari Chakravarti. In the following period, however, dissatisfaction with this one MS-based edition simmered and led a scholar like V. Raghavan to attempt, in the form of several articles in Annals of Oriental Research (University of Madras 1954-59), to purify the YD text of its numerous "corruptions." In 1967 came R.C. Pandeya's edition of Yuktidipika, based on two manuscripts, which was followed by two more editions (1970) and (1996) respectively. The 1996 edition by Kedara Nath Tripathi even though it had no additional manuscript material to work on, provided a better text than Pandeya's. In 1998 came the German edition, critically edited by A. Wezler and S. Motegi. However, since (i) this edition was in Roman script and so not easily accessible to those many in India and elsewhere who were accustomed to studying a Sanskrit text in Devanagari, and (ii) since it had its own limitations and shortcomings it was felt that there was a clear warrant for a fresh edition. A singular feature of critical edition is that, besides being based, unlike most previous editions, on five MSS, it simultaneously provides almost all the variant readings, whether embodied in Raghvanís corrections/emendations or effected by earlier editions, including the German one. It thus offers the reader an opportunity to select, in a particular context, any of the (given) readings in case he feels skeptical about the reading adopted by the editor. In 'philosophical introductionî, the editor deals with certain principal themes of the Samkhya on the basis of the Yuktidipika, occasionally also alluding to the views/interpretations of other Samkhya texts.
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