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________________ Hemacandra and the Linguistic Tradition PRABODH B. PANDIT IT MAY be useful to understand the linguistic judgement of Hema candra, the medieval grammarian of Prakrit, even though one may not agree with his mixing up of data and source material or one may charge him with undue leaning on and indiscriminate borrowing from earlier Prakrit grammarians. When a medieval grammarian describes a number of languages and dialects in one treatise, one is curious about the underlying ideas of linguistic relationship during that period; probably the provenience of ideas of linguistic relationship may be the whole period rather than one author, but even then, the author's understanding and application of notions of language relationship may provide a useful framework to assess the medieval grammarians of Prakrit. This short note is an attempt in that direction. Hemacandra (Siddha-Hema VIII. IV onwards; especially VIII, IV 260 onwards) has dealt with the varieties of Prakrit as dialects and has described the major dialect in details. His major dialect is (Maharastri) Prakrit; Sauraseni is described as a dialect variation from the major dialect. The three other dialects Magadhi, Paisaci and Apabhraisa are described as variants within the Sauraseni-as the members of the Sauraseni group. (Hc. ends his description of these dialects by the statement sesam Saurasenivat.) Though no chronological sequence is intended, it is reasonable to separate Maharastri from the
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________________ HEMACANDRA AND THE LINGUISTIC TRADITION : 211 rest, esp. Sauraseni, Magadhi and Paisaci : the total loss of some classes of intervocalic stops in Maharastri on the one hand, and retention or voicing of intervocalic stops in the rest. Hc. groups Apabhramsa also under Sauraseni, because he notices some common phonological features (intervocalic -- > -d-) between the two. Hc. further includes Ardhamagadhi as a subgroup under Magadhi and Culikapaisaci as a subgroup under Paisaci, as variants which are separated only by one or two features. This grouping and subgrouping of languages and dialects (though the data were literary) indicates that the sorting of general features and special features, germane to comparative work in linguistics was not neglected by the author of Siddha-Heina. Prakrit grammarians' classification may, therefore, have some basis in this understanding; even if one may explain it, following the later (14th century) eastern grammarians, Ramasarma and Markandeya, that whatever is used on stage is bhasa or vibhasa, the rest is Apabhramsal, the subgroupings of Hc. and grouping of Apabhramsa in the Sauraseni subgroup indicate a judgement of linguistic relationship. If Hemacandra has won laurels from R. PISCHEL, he has also been severely criticised by Luigia Nitti-Dolci?; but we are less concerned here with his selection of data; Hemacandra could also be interpreted as a witness to the understanding of linguistic relationship in medieval India. Another evidence of his familiarity with the comparativists' tools is his compilation of words of doubtful (native, non-Sanskritic) 1 LUIGA NITTI-DOLCI, 'Les Grammairiens Prakrits', Adrien-Maisonneuve, Paris, 1938. Ramasarman II. 3. 31 : sakarakaudra-Dravidadi-vaco 'pabhramsatam yady api sarsrayanti syan natakadau yadi samprayogo naitasv apabhramsataya tathestih and her comment (on pp. 122) : "Nous voyons ici comment le classement des langues se faisait chez les grammairiens prakrits : d'apres l'usage litteraire et non pas d'apres la nature de la langue. Un dialecte, quel qu'il soit, employe sur la scene etait une bhasa ou une vibhasa, selon le degre de respectabilite des personnages auxquels il etait attribue. Un dialecte employe dans la litterature non theatrale etait un Apabhraisa." 2 Nitti-Dolci, ibid., Chapter 5.
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________________ 212 : SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME origin, his Desi-sadda-samgaho, or Rayanarali (also known as Desinamamala) which supplies a lexical residue, containing items which could not fit in with the Sanskrit-Prakrit correspondences set up by him. We know that this is how a comparativist proceeds; he collects the cognates which display regular correspondences, and separates the rest of the lexicon, which could be taken care of either by analogy or borrowing. It would be, of course, not useful to find fault with Hemacandra's etymologies; we have much more analysed data and refined tools, but we can profitably appreciate his familiarity with the notions of regular and irregular' in comparative historical linguistics.