Morphological Evidence For Dialectal Variety In Jaina Maharastri

Author(s): Nalini Balbir
Publisher: Nalini Balbir
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269535/1

Page #1

Nalini BALBIR
MORPHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR DIALECTAL VARIETY IN JAINA MĀHĀRĀŞTRI
This paper is concerned with literary Prakrits. Hence the term "dialect " is understood as it is in Pischel's Grammatik : Ardhamāgadhi (= AMg), Māgadhī, Māhārāştrī, Apabhramsa are currently regarded as dialects.
The present study is based on two groups of works, the main dialect of which is Jaina Māhārāștri (= JM) 2. 1. The first group includes the niryuktis and bhāsyas which form the earliest stratum of exegetical texts on the Jaina Canon. Niryuktis are metrical commentaries, mostly, but not exclusively, consisting of lists of catch-words. One can say of them what L. Renou has written about the Brahmasūtras : "des notations concises de mots-clefs, avec une syntaxe rudimentaire, qui les rend souvent inintelligibles sans le secours d'une vștti ou 'glose” 3. They can also aptly be compared with the Pali uddānas, "sommaires versifiés", to quote Helmer Smith 4, all the more so since in both cases the brevity of style affects the grammar. The following material has been surveyed : the Ayāranga- and Sūyagada-nijjuttis; the Dasaveyāliya-nijjutti (= DasavN); parts of the Uttarajjhāyā- and the Oha-nijjutti (= UttN; OhN); the Bțhatkalpabhāșya (= BK Bh) and the Niśītha
1. R. PISCHEL, Grammatik der Prākrit-Sprachen. Strassburg, 1900 (Grundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde I, 8) = Pi.
2. A standard description of JM is provided, for instance, in H. JACOBI, Ausgewählte Erzählungen in Maharashtri. Zur Einführung in das Studium des Prakrit. Leipzig, 1886 (reprint Darmstadt, 1967), p. XXI-LXIX: Jacobi's Māhāraştri is in fact Pischel's JM.
3. Sankara, Prolégomènes au Vedānta. Texte traduit du sanskrit par L. RENOU. Paris, 1951, p. IV.
4. Saddanīti. La grammaire palie d'Aggavamsa. Texte établi par H. SMITH, vol. IV, Tables. Lund, 1949, 5.3.2.1. (and 8.9.5); CPD II, 9 s.v. uddāna.

Page #2

504
N. BALBIR
bhāşya have been occasionally consulted 5. Special emphasis has been laid upon the Avasyaka-niryukti and bhāşya (= AVN, Bh), which I have studied at leisure 7. Finally, the Mahānisīha-sutta has also been examined in this survey 8. 2. The second part of the corpus is represented by narrative works which are probably early, to wit : the Vasudevahindi, mainly written in prose, and the Tarangavas and the Paumacariya in verse'. The cūrņis explaining the niryuktis, as well as Prakrit portions of the tīkās, also belong to this layer : the Avaśyaka-cūrņi 10 and Haribhadra's tīkā (= ĀvC; AvH) 11 are here given the first place..
There is obviously a great difference between these two groups from the points of view of style and contents, but they show a linguistic unity, and, to some extent, they can all be viewed as "specimens of Archaic Jaina Māhārāștrī” 12.
The aim of the present investigation is to identify and analyse morphological traces of dialectal variety in the selected corpus. In other words, it focuses on forms which are ordinary features of
5. Ācārānga and Sūtrakrtängasūtram. With the niryukti of Acārya Bhadrabāhusvāmi and the commentary of Silānkācārya... reedited with appendices, etc., by Muni Jambūvijayajī. Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1978; W. B. BOLLÉE, Studien zum Süyagada... (I) Textteile, Nijjutti, Uebersetzung und Anmerkungen. Wiesbaden, 1977 (Schriftenreihe des Südasien-Instituts der Univ. Heidelberg 24); E. LEUMANN, Daśavaikālika-sūtra und -niryukti, nach dem Erzählungsgehalt untersucht und herausgegeben..., ZDMG 46 (1892), p. 581-612; UttN: E. LEUMANN, Die Legende von Citta und Sambhūta, WZKM 6 (1892), p. 34-46; OhN: A. METTE, Pind'esaņā. Das Kapitel der Oha-nijjutti über den Bettelgang. Wiesbaden, 1974 (Abh. der Geistes- und Sozialwiss. Kl. 1973, Nr. 11); BK Bh: Brihat Kalpa Sutra and Original Niryukti... and a Bhashya.... Ed. by Guru Shri Chaturvijaya and his Shishya Punyavijaya. Bhavnagar, 1933, 1936, 1938, 1942, 6 vols. 6. For references see below n. 11.
7. Nalini BALBIR, Études d'exégèse jaina : les Āvasyaka. Paris, 1986. 3 vols. 976 + 111 p. (Unpublished DLitt. Dissertation, Université de Paris-III).
8. W. SCHUBRING, Das Mahānisiha-Sutta. Berlin, 1918; J. DELEU-W. SCHUBRING, Studien zum Mahānisiha. Kapitel 1-5. Hamburg, 1963 (Alt-und Neu-Indische Studien... Univ. Hamburg 10).
9. See L. ALSDORF, The Vasudevahindi, a Specimen of Archaic Jaina-Māhārāstri, BSOAS 8 (1935-1937) = Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden, 1974, p. 56-70; SamkhittaTarangavaīkahā... edited and translated fin Gujarati] by H. C. BHAYANI, Ahmedabad, 1979 (L.D. Series 75); H. C. BHAYANI, Another rare specimen of Archaic JainMähärästri : Taramgavaīkahā of Padalipta, “Sambodhi" 7 (1978-79), p. 114-119; Acārya Vimalasūri's Paumacariyam... Second revised ed. by Muni Shri Punya vijayaji. Varanasi, 1963 (Prakrit Text Society Series 6).
10. Āvaśyakacūrni. 2 vols. Ratlam, 1928-29. References to page and line numbers.
11. Āvaśyakaniryukti with Haribhadra's commentary. Bombay. Agamodaya Samiti, 1916-1917 : references to page and line numbers. (Reprint Bombay, Vikrama samvat 2038).
12. See Paumacariya, intr. [by V. M. KULKARNI) p. 32. .

Page #3

JAINA MĀHĀRĀȘTRĪ
505
dialects other than JM, but sporadically appear in JM texts. It will be seen that the main dialect (JM) is torn between two extremes: the strong pressure of the Canonical language, and a faint, but unquestionable, attraction toward Apabhramśa 13. In addition, attention is paid to some peculiar forms which are as yet not known from any dialect, but have tried, though unsuccessfully, to make their way into a specific layer of the language : they apparently predate classical JM where they have not been admitted. Finally, scanty remains of a practically lost dialect, the so-called "alt" or "echt" AMG (LüdersAlsdorf) will be examined. They are preserved in six vaitālīya-stanzas in the commentaries.
(1)
• A. Early JM is still under the influence of Canonical Ardhamāgadhi, and the line between the two dialects is not always easy to perceive 14. But a distinction has to be made between all-pervading AMg features, and what may be called “Ardhamāgadhisms", i.e. sporadic forms, the occurrence of which is to a large extent dependent on the literary context or the subject treated. Both these points will be considered in due order.
A fundamental and well-known feature of AMg is the -e nominative singular of -a stems. It determines a clearcut distinction in the chosen corpus between the language of the narrative works and that of the niryuktis, for it is conspicuous by its absence in the former, where only -o is found 15, while it is quite frequent in the enumerative verses of the latter group. Thus commenting upon the nominative niravalāve of ĀvN 1274, Haribhadra observes :
"It has been often reported that the first case (i.e. nominative) has the ending -e in Prakrit".
13. For the relationship between JM and AMg, see the important statement by Alsdorf, BSOAS 8 (1935), p. 332-33 = Kleine Schriften, p. 69-70; on AMg and Apabhramśa influence see K. R. CHANDRA, A Critical Study of Paumacariyam. Vaishali, 1970, p. 577-78. To quote S. GOLDSCHMIDT, Prākṣtica. Strassburg, London, 1879, p. 30 : "Die Depravierung der Māhārāştri- Texte unter dem Einfluss der Apabhramsa ist sehr alt”.
14. See SCHUBRING, Mahānisiha (as in n. 8), p. 84; L. P. TESSITORI, L' "Uvaesamālā "di Dharmadāsa, "Giornale della Società Asiatica Italiana ".25 (1912), p. 172.
15. ALSDORF, BSOAS 8 (1935-1937), p. 328 = Kleine Schriften, p. 65: "The nom. sing. masc. of A-stems ends in -o without a single exception ".

Page #4

506
N. BALBIR
He further quotes one of the pādas mentioned in Hemacandra's grammar to illustrate this peculiarity of arsa 10.
In fact, the actual situation is quite confused. The attempt. undertaken by Schubring to study carefully the distribution of -e and -o nominatives in the Mahānisīha-sutta has revealed some tendencies : -o is, for instance, found in aryās; -e and -o are found side by side in ślokas, etc. 17. But no clear and general conclusion can be drawn. The same can be said of the AvN, where a mixture of endingless stems, and -e and -o endings is likely to be seen in the same verse. Moreover, -e occurs even in traditionally neuter nouns such as dāņa (AvN 458), nikkhamana (ibidem), bhoyana (AvN 726), etc. Whether these e nominatives are true remnants of the Eastern dialects or merely testify to the loss of the masculine-neuter gender distinction, is difficult to decide.
The lengthening of the vowel before the -ka- suffix is a distinct Eastern feature 18 (e.g. -āka, -uka). In the Jaina Canon, it is especially evidenced in the comparatives in -taräga, instances of which were listed long ago by Weber for the Viyahapannatti 19. We find them. sporadically in the niryuktis. Thus vipulatarāgam (DasavN 38). gadhataragam (DasavN 211), annayaragam (DasavN 333). For nouns mülägam in the Ayäranga-nijjutti (178), and muhuttagam in the Ohanijjutti (523).
Some of the Ardhamāgadhisms, i.e. archaisms, scattered in the older layer of JM will be now reviewed.
The locative in msi is, together with the -e nominative, a basic characteristic of AMg. Alsdorf noticed that this type of locative is an artificial relic in the Vasudevahindi, for the forms mostly occur in an inserted Rṣabhacarita, i.e. in a passage which on account of its contents was probably highly liable to the influence of the Canonical phraseology 26, Of the forms quoted by him, kucchimsi also appears in AvBh verses, also in a mythological context, where Mahāvīra's birth and the transfer of the embryo are narrated :
jam rayanim uvavanno kucchimsi mahāyaso Viro (Bh 47cd). "the night when the glorious Vira was born in the (brahmin lady's) womb", clearly recalls the Canonical phrase:
16. e-käräntas ca prakṛte prathamânto bhavatity asakṛd aveditam yatha "kayare agacchai ditta-rūve "[= Utt. 12.6ab; quoted ad Hemacandra 4.287] ity ādi, AvH 664a,
7.
17. SCHUBRING, Mahānisīha, p. 84-86.
18. Pi § 70 it is met with in Eastern Asokan inscriptions see e.g. H. LUEDERS, Bruchstücke Buddhistischer Dramen. Berlin, 1911, p. 40.
19. A. WEBER, Ueber ein Fragment der Bhagavati... "Abhandlungen der Kgl. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin", 1865-66, p. 438.
20. ALSDORF, BSOAS 8 (1935), p. 328 Kleine Schriften, p. 65 with fn. 1.

Page #5

JAINA MĀHĀRĀȘTRĪ
507 jam rayaņim vakkamai / kucchimsi mahāyaso arihā 21. And again :
aha divase bāsīt vasai tahim māhanīě kucchimsi (Bh 48ab), "and he lived for 82 days in this brahmin lady's womb” 22.
The same contextual dependence proves to be true in some cases where -asā is used, more or less adverbially, as an instr. sg. of -a stems.
Thus, for instance, in the Canonical language 23, we find an instrumental paogasā analogically built on the archaic adverbial form vīsasā (cf. Ved. visras) as both terms occur as a pair 24 : they refer to phenomena happening "by (karmic) impulse” or “by spontaneous development". The pressure imposed by the phraseology is the strongest factor. The old form remains unchanged in the Sūyagadanijjutti 5b (and 14b): : davve (bhāve) paoga-vīsasă paogasā mūla uttare c'eva 25. Bhayasā “fearfully” occurs in a sloka pāda common to the AVN (1208c) and the Mulācāra (7.103c), thus in a development which is probably rather old : it is the eleventh of the 32 faults which should be avoided in the carrying out of the vandana 26.
A look at a few verbal forms will also prove, if necessary, that the boundary between AMg and early JM is far from being hard and fast.
Thus, for instance, the absolutive in -ttānam, which is considered to be an Eastern feature of the Canonical language 27, is occasionally met
21. The Kalpasútra of Bhadrabahu. Ed... by H. JACOBI. Leipzig, 1879 (reprint 1966), $ 46b. On the gender of kucchi, see R. L. TURNER, A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages. London, 1966, No. 3213: in Sk., kukşi- is exclusively masc. ; in Middle-Indian, it usually tends towards the fem. ; in Neo-Indian, it is mostly fem.
22. And also AvBh 52cd Siddhartha-bhāriyāe sähara Tisalāě kucchimsi; 57cd jam rayanim sähario kucchimsi mahāyaso Viro; 58ab tihi nānehi samaggo devi Tisalāě so a kucchimsi.
23. E.g. J. DELEU, Viyahapannatti... The Fifth Anga of the Jaina Canon... Brugge, 1970: VI 32; VIII-2; VIII 9.
24. See also Pi 364 “paogasā = prayogena parallel mit visrasā von visras"; in Middle-Indian -asă develops as an adverbial ending : see bibliography for Pali and Prakrit examples in O. von HINUEBER, Das ältere Mittelindisch im Ueberblick. Wien, 1986, $298.
25. "In materieller Hinsicht (Im geistigen Bereich) (gibt es Karaņa) auf Anstoss oder von selbst. (Karaņa) auf Anstoss (erscheint als) primär und sekundar": BOLLÉE, Studien zum Suyagada, p. 11, 33 ff.
26. E. LEUMANN, Uebersicht über die Āvaçyaka-Literatur... Hamburg, 1934, p. 18a, line 9 and p. 12b, line 56 : bhayasā, bhaenam vandai "mā nicchubbhīhāmi sanghāo kulāo ganão gacchão khetto" iti as the cūrņi explains.
27. Pi $ 583; L. A. SCHWARZSCHILD, Some Forms of the Absolutive in Middle IndoAryan, JAOS 76 (1956), p. 113-114 [111-115].

Page #6

508
N. BALBIR
with in our sources. A few cases have been listed by Alsdorf and Bhayani for the Vasudevahindi (2 ex.) and the Tarangavai (3 ex.) 28 I have noted some others in the Ohanijjutti : onāmittānam (Bh 273b), akkamittānam (N 389b), asohaittānam (N 416d), vibhāvaittāņa (N 491b), padikamettāna and padilehettāna (p. 176, 1. 21-22). In the AVN, one such absolutive occurs in a stanza which is a quotation. It is found in a pair of ślokas ultimately borrowed from the Uttarajjhāyā 29 :
kahim bondim caittānam ? kattha gantūņa sijjhai ? iham bondim caittānam, tattha gantūņa sijjhai (ĀvN 958cd,
959cd = Utt. 36.55cd, 56cd, etc.). "Where do [the perfected souls) leave their bodies, and where do they go, on reaching perfection ?... they leave their bodies here (below), and go there, on reaching perfection " 30.
Even there, we notice that the two suffixes, -ttāṇam and -tūņa are found side by side!
Other instances of absolutives in -ttānam available in the ĀvN are free from contextual constraint. They are : osakkaittānam (N 183 = 743), vogasittānam (N 653; ct. vyavakalayya), and apucchittāna (N 1366, 1519; Bh 111) 31.
There is also some slight evidence of the “Ātmanepada" aorist in -itthă 32, which is rather common in the Canonical language 33. It is preserved in the Tarangavai (2 ex.) 34. The Uttarajjhāyā-nijjutti (vs. 390) has :
tam souņa kumāro bhio... palāitthā 35. “Having heard this, the prince was scared and ran away". In the AvN (vs. 487d), the solemnity of the context and style and the retaining of an older form perhaps go together :
28. ALSDORF, BSOAS 8 (1935), p. 332 = Kleine Schriften, p. 69: H. C. BHAYANI, "Sambodhi" 7 (1978-79), p. 115 (as above n. 9).
29. Cp. SCHWARZSCHILD, loc. cit., p. 113:"(This type of absolutive) occurs also in Jain Māhārāștri and Jain Sauraseni in passages that are under the influence of the Śvetāmbara Jain Canon".
30. Trsl. H. JACOBI, “Sacred Books of the East". Vol. XLV. Oxford, 1895 (reprint, Delhi, 1964), p. 211.
31. A similar analysis can be given for the absolutives in - yānam : e.g. samupehiyanam (AvBh 207c = 210c = 211c, etc.) is an old form found in a triştubh : see Pi 8 592.
32. The passive-active distinction tends to be abolished and we get a system sg. 3 -itthā / pl. 3 -isu : see C. CAILLAT, Some Idiosyncrasies of Language and Style in Asoka's Rock Edicts at Girnar, in “Hinduismus und Buddhismus". Festschr. U. Schneider, Freiburg, 1987, n. 41.
33. Pi § 517. 34. BHAYANI, “Sambodhi” 7 (1978-79), p. 115. 35. LEUMANN, WZKM 6 (1892), p. 41 (as above n. 5).

Page #7

JAINA MĀHĀRĀȘTRĪ
509
Magahāě niruvasaggam muņi uu-baddhammi viharitthā. “During summer and winter, the monk (i.e. Mahāvīra) led his religious life in Magadha without suffering any attack". B. On the other hand, some verbal endings which have been scantily documented so far in the Canonical Prakrit, are now confirmed since they occur in early JM literature. They may be of some help in giving a more precise idea of the characteristics of both dialects.
The present first person singular in -am instead of -āmi) was known from a unique form in the Canon : jānam, “I know” in the Ayāradasāo 36. It has also been recorded in the Vasudevahindi (15 ex.), in the Tarangavai (26 ex.) and in the Mahānisīhasutta (at least 25 ex.) 37. In the selected corpus of niryuktis, etc., it appears once, if I am not mistaken :
eyam iccham nāum, ganivara, tubbh' antie niunam (AvN 6910;
tīkās icchāmi), “This I want to know from you, the best of the gaņins, in all its details".
Instances of the -e optatives used as preterites, also known in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit and Epic Sanskrit 38, were collected by Pischel, especially from the Uttarajjhāyā 39. They also occur in the niryukti-language, and they are explained in the Sanskrit commentaries by an aorist-form, a past participle in -tavant, or sometimes also by an indicative present as if the -e forms were temporally unmarked. Thus, for example, in the Uttarajjhāyā-nijjutti (vs. 92cd) 40 :
vaniya-mahilam 41 caittā tattammi silā-yale vihare (ct. vyahār
șit) 42 “Having renounced the merchant's wife (with whom he had enjoyed life, Arahannaa) led his religious life (i.e. died by fasting) on a burning rock";
36. Quoted by Alsdorf, BSOAS 8 (1935), p. 321 = Kleine Schriften, p. 58: commented in von HINUEBER, Das ältere Mittelindisch (as above n. 24), § 420; cp. in AMg and JM the future 1 sg. -āmi or -am : Pi § 520.
37. See, respectively, ALSDORF, loc. cit.; H. C. BHAYANI, “Sambodhi"..., p. 114; SCHUBRING, Mahānisiha, p. 90, and, more detailed, DELEU-SCHUBRING, Studien zum Mahānisiha, p. 12. — These lists include both present indicative and optative forms (-ijjam).
38. See von HINUEBER, Das ältere Mittelindisch, $ 445 with references; L. RENOU, Grammaire sanscrite. Paris, 1930, p. 412, $ 292 note.
39. Pi $ 466, to which add e.g. Utt. 21.10 pavvae (prăvrăjit in the ct.). 40. Sri-Uttaradhyayanasūtram, prathamo vibhāgah. Ujjain, 1950, p. 132. 41. Ed. vaniya-mahila.
42. And also Uttn 376cd in LEUMANN, WZKM 6 (1892) p. 34 : so vi ya (i.e. Municando) Sāgaracandassa antie pavvae samano.

Page #8

510
N. BALBIR
or in the AvN (vs. 197ab) :
auņāpannam juale puttāņā Sumangalā puņo pasave (AvH prasū
tavati). “Sumangalā gave birth to 49 twin sons" 43. The Av. cūrņi retains a form of the active past participle in -tavant, for which Pischel (8 569) gave a single example, namely putthavam from SPRS- in the Ayāranga with a passive meaning :
na ya... nhão, na ya bandhavehi vi ai-neham katavam (AvC 249, 11): "(When he was about to reject worldly life), (Vardhamāna) neither took a bath, nor had any excessive feeling of affection for his relatives”.
Finally, a last example will show how forms which were at first considered doubtful could later be well established when new texts were discovered and analysed. An indeclinable ending -7(y)a which can function as an imperfect, aorist of perfect had been mentioned by the main Prakrit grammarians 44, but no actual form were recognised in the texts until the Vasudevahiņdi provided undisputable cases (4 ex.) 45. The single instance found in the Canonical literature also came to light, namely Uttarajjhāyā 13.18d (triştubh) 46 :
(vayam...) vasīya (ct. avasāva, ușitau 47) Sovāga-nivesanesu almost glossed by the next verse (196):
... vutthā mu Sovāga-nivesanesu, “We lived in the hamlets of Śvapākas" [Jacobi].
More material has been sorted out from the Tarangavai (34 occurrences) 48. I shall only add my gleanings from the niryuktis. From the Sūyagada-nijjutti, we have (vs. 85ab) :
pucchimsu Jambu-ņāmo ajja-Suhammā tao kahesīya, “Jambūsvāmin asked, then the noble Sudharma said".
43. Other similar instances are : samuttāre with a subject in the plural, AvN 471 (ct. samuttāritavantau); pāse AvBh 1 (ct. drstavān); pesae AvBh 34 (ct. preșitavān); uvacchubhe "they threw" AvBh 67; bhave AvN 1150 (AvH chandasat vād abhūt); ĀvN 340, 516, Bh 59, 77, 109.
44. Reference in Pi § 466 : acchia, genhia, etc. 45. ALSDORF, BSOAS 8 (1935), p. 325 = Kleine Schriften, p. 62.
46. See L. ALSDORF, The Story of Citta and Sambhūta in Felicitation Volume presented to Prof. S. K. Belvalkar. Benares, 1957, p. 207, n. 1 = Kleine Schriften, p. 191, n. 1.
47. See Jaina-Agama-Series edition. Bombay, 1977, p. 145, n. 10. 48. BHAYANI, “Sambodhi" 7 (1978-79), p. 115.

Page #9

JAINA MĀHĀRĀȘTRI
511
There are about twenty occurrences in the Avn, e.g. :
Jina-Cakki-Dasārānam vanna pamāņāim nāma gottāim
äŭ pura māi piyaro pariyāya gaim ca sāhia 49 (368). “He (= Bharata) revealed (ct. śistavān) the colour and the size, the name and the family, the life-span, the city, the mother and father of Jinas, Cakravartins, Baladevas, Vāsudevas and Prativāsudevas (= Dasāras)".
Others are pucchia, "he asked ” (ĀvN 367); uvāsīya, "he fasted” (AVN 528, 529; ct. upoșitavān); thāsīya, “he remained standing" (AvN 530), kāsiya, “he did” (AvN 178, 190, 366, 501, 513, 531; ĀvBh 11, 65, 66), āsīya, “there were...” (AvBh 5, 6, 8, N 969) 50.
All this calls for three remarks. 1. “The possibility of declaring the final ya of the forms in question... to be... a spurious ya" (= ca) has been considered by
Alsdorf 51, but, I think, rightly rejected, all the more so since, out of a • total of 58 instances now available, half are located at the end of a sentence, in positions where a ca would make no sense : e.g. Tarangavai 105cd,
nāmam ca bandhavā me piuņo soūņa kāsiya, “Having listened to my father ('s opinion), my brothers gave me a name".
2. Two thirds of the -ī (y) a pasts are used as a third person singular. One fifth of these verbs has a subject in the plural (see e.g. Tarangavai 105 just mentioned) 52. Two instances are used as a first person plural (Utt. 13.18 quoted earlier; Tarangavai 1045), and six as a first person singular (two in the Vasudevahindi, four in the Tarangavai 53). Thus we have here a polyvalent fossilized form. This peculiarity has been taken note of in the "modern recension" of Vararuci's Prākṣtaprakāśa transmitted by Cowell's manuscript W, where it is said :
49. Sahia also appears twice in the Tarangavai (593 and 1131).
50. Both these last forms are equally well documented in the Tarangavai (and the Vasudevahindi).
51. BSOAS 8 (1935), n. 1, p. 325 = Kleine Schriften, p. 62. – In most cases, the (Indian) editors naturally print as two words.
52. Pi $ 516, p. 360 on the invariability of preterite forms.
53. Vasudevahindi : aham... gacchiya and (aham)... dine gamesiya, quoted by ALSDORF, loc. cit.; Tarangavai 800cd to ham... / hiyaeņam puvva-gayā, pacchā (ya) pāehim gacchiya; 1106cd tāhe parissamam ham cintiya chuham ca tanham ca; 1377ab ahayam anantara-bhave io ya asiya hatthi-padihatthi; 639cd (aham) uvavāsa-paranam suha-manena khamanassa kāsiya.

Page #10

512
N. BALBIR
ia bhūte (= Vr 7.23). bhūte vartamānād dhātoh pratyayasya ia ādeśaḥ syāt (= Bhāmaha's ct.) : āsīa, gehia, hasia, padhia (=) āsīt, agrahit, ahasat, apathat, ityādi. puruṣa-traya-rūpāni ekavacana-bahuvacana-rūpāņi ca boddhavyāni 54.
The last sentence may suggest that the same form is valid for all three persons and both numbers, 3. The derivation of the -ī(y)a pasts is a difficult question. Some of them are clearly based on an aorist stem (kāsīya, thāsīya, āsīya); others, like cintiya, seem to be built on the present stem ; a few others, like gacchiya, vocchīya, etc., are ambiguous 55.
C. Traces of Apabhramśa influence are not equally wide-spread in the corpus analysed here.
They are doubtful at the stage of verse-commentaries. For instance, the niryuktis provide evidence for shortening in the nominative singular of feminine -ā stems. Thus we meet citta-sabha in the Ohanijjutti (vs. 452, fourth gana v of an āryā) 56, or Mihila in the Uttarajjhāyā-nijjutti (vs. 396, second gana
) 57. While reading the AVN, I came across many such forms : in sixth gaņas , puccha (366, 492, 1310), padima (489), Aojjha (383), Campa (1284), Vinia (382), etc.; in sixth gaņas , , padima (516), Vijaya (520); in a sixth gaņa - puccha (348); in other metrical positions, padima (490), pavvajja (1298), māla (Bh 95), aņukampa (Bh 2), etc. Though it is probably less significant, a similar tendency can be observed in the case of -ī stems : thus devi (OhN 452, AVN 1288, sixth gaņa -- ), adavi (AvN 146, sixth gaña -), Bāņārasi (Uttn 391 58). All this corresponds to the normal situation in Apabhramśa 59. But one must be cautious since these endings mostly appear in enumerative verses, where there seems to be a certain amount of grammatical 'freedom, and since they are bound by metrical constraints 60.
On the other hand, however, after Jacobi 61, various editors of early
54. The Prākrita-Prakāśa... of Vararuchi... The first complete edition by E. B. COWELL. Reprint Delhi, 1977 (Oxford, 18951), p. 65, note 10 and p. IX about the "W" manuscript.
55. See ALSDORF's suggestions, loc. cit. 56. METTE, Pind'esanā, p. 179. 57. LEUMANN, WZKM 6 (1892), p. 43. 58. LEUMANN, ibidem, p. 42.
59. Pi $ 100, $ 374; G. V. TAGARE, Historical Grammar of Apabhramśa. Poona, 1948, $ 89.
60. For bare-stems in Digambara Prakrit, see K. OKUDA, Eine Digambara Dogmatik. Das fünfte Kapitel von Vattakeras Mülācāra... Wiesbaden, 1975, p. 30 ff.
61. Bhavisatta Kaha von Dhanavāla. Eine Jaina Legende in Apabhramśa. München, 1918, p. 58* ff. : * Vulgarismen ".

Page #11

JAINA MĀHĀRĀSTRI
513
JM narrative works have emphasised that, to some extent, unquestionable Apabhramsa forms such as absolutives in -evi, -eppi, -eviņu have crept in. This trend is documented in Vimalasūri's Paumacariya, in the Dhūrtākhyāna and the Līlāvaīkahā 62. Some attempts have been made to discover a similar trend in the Vasudevahindi, but, in my view, they have remained rather unconvincing since they are not all based on absolutely undeniable criteria 63
I shall here consider two narrative stanzas quoted in the Avaśyaka commentaries which show dialectal variety and efforts towards standardization.
The first one is a triştubh included in the “ Tale of the ElephantDriver” 04. It shows ordinary JM features, except for the absolutive jāņeppi in pāda c:
cira-santhuo vā 'liya-santhueņa mellāvio va 65 dhuva addhuvenam jāņeppi tujjham pagai-ssabhāvam
panno naro ko tuhu (tuha] vissasejjā? "He who was (your) intimate since long is forsaken for the sake of another made intimate through a lie, he who is reliable for the sake of an unreliable. Knowing your innate behaviour which reasonable man could trust you?” 66
The second stanza has a problematic wording. The brahmin Vararuci who wants to take revenge on Sagadāla, the faithful Jaina minister of king Nanda, spreads a rumour in order to drive them apart from each other. In Hemacandra's clear Sanskrit it runs as follows:
na vetti rājā yad asau Sakațālaḥ karisyati vyāpādya Nandam tad-rājye Srīyakam sthāpayişyati 67.
62. Examples are conveniently collected in SCHWARZSCHILD, Some Forms of the Absolutive... (see above n. 27), p. 114 who notes: "(The short forms sevi and -ivi) are the most frequent in Apabhramśa from the beginning, and they appear in Prakrit texts influenced by popular speech where the Ap. endings of the absolutive have penetrated", see also K. R. CHANDRA, A Critical Study (as above n. 13), p. 554-578. esp. p. 572 (karevi 2 x; sunevi 1 x).
63. K. R. CHANDRA, Apabhramsa Forms in the Vasudevahindi, “Sambodhi" 4, 3-4 (1975-76), p. 34-39.
64. AVC 461, 14-465, 6; AvH 349a, 1-352a, 2; etc. See A. METTE, The Tale of the Elephant-Driver in its Āvasyaka-Version in Siddhantacarya Pandit Kailashchandraji Shastri Abhinandanagranth. Rewa (M.P.), 1980, p. 549-559.
65. The cürni edition 464, 11 reads mellevi tāva, a difficult reading : mellävio va is the emendation proposed by Mrs METTE, loc. cit., p. 553.
66. Trsl. A. METTE, loc. cit., p. 553. 67. Parisistapar van VIII, 50. Ed. H. JACOBI. Calcutta, 1932.

Page #12

514
N. BALBIR
“The king is not aware of what Sakațāla will do : he will murder Nanda, and put Śrīyaka [his own son) as the king”. The Prakrit tradition, however, is quite corrupt :
Nando rāyā na vi jāņai jam Sagadālo karehii : rāya- Nandam māreviņu Siriyam rajje havehi tti. a. rāyā Nandu AvH 649b, 3, Devendra's ct. on Utt 29a, 1; b. kāhii ĀvH, Sagadālu karesai, DevUtt; c. rāya-Nandam is the reading of AvH; Nando rāyā, AVC II 184, 10 is obviously wrong; rāya Nandu, DevUtt; māreviņu Avc, mārettā ĀvH, DevUtt; d. įhavehii ĀvH; rajji thavesai DevUtt.
But the absolutive form is striking and has led K. R. Chandra to restore the verse as an ordinary Apabhramśa dohā:
Nandu rāyā na vi jāņai, jam Sagadālu kāhii rāyā-Nandam māreviņu, Siriya rajjě thavehii 68
Leaving aside these difficulties, both Apabhramsa absolutives in the aforesaid quotation have been reinterpreted in Haribhadra's tīkā : jāņeppi has become jāņemi, which makes very little sense ; māreviņu has been normalized as mārettā 69.
Occasionally, we come across a first person singular in -ami 70 : e.g. in the Mahānisīhasutta, niddahami 71. The narrative works and Canonical prose commentaries show the use of the declinable postpositions tanaya and ccaya attached to pronominal bases, and quite common in Apabhramsa : e.g. tujjha-ccaena AVC 468, 11-12 (versus AvH tumam atthāe), tassa ccayāni pottāni AvC II 289, 14, etc. 72; mama tanaenam AVC II 198, 12 (versus H m. kaenam) AVC II 196, 10, etc. 73
68. K. R. CHANDRA, Apabhramsa Passages in the Pre-Tenth Century Śretāmbara Prākrit-Sanskrit Works in Contributions of Jainism to Indian Culture. Ed. R. C. DWIVEDI. Varanasi, 1975, p. 31 (30-41).
69. Apabhramsa influence is also felt in "Digambara Prakrit”: see W. DENECKE, Digambara-Texte. Eine Darstellung ihrer Sprache und ihres Inhalts. Hamburg, 1922 (Diss.), p. 7 ff.; IDEM, Mitteilungen über Digambara-Texte. Festgabe für H. Jacobi. Bonn, 1926, p. 166 f.; W. SCHUBRING, Kundak unda echt und unecht, ZDMG 107 (1957). p. 567 = Kleine Schriften. Wiesbaden, 1977, p. 354.
70. Pi $ 454; TAGARE, op. cit., § 136, p. 286. 71. SCHUBRING, Mahānisiha, p. 90.
72. And AvH 295a, 8; 565b, 5. – On -cca( ya) which serves to build possessive adjectives in Marathi, see H. C. BHAYANI, Some Interesting Features of the Prākrit of the Nanapancamikahā BhV 12 (1951), p. 157, referring to Hemacandra's Prakrit Grammar 2.149, etc.
73. See L. A. SCHWARZSCHILD, Notes on two Postpositions of Late Middle IndoAryan : TAŅAYA and RESI, RESAMMI Bh V 19 (1959), p. 77-87; J. BLOCH, Application de la cartographie à l'histoire de l'indo-aryen. Paris, 1963, p. 6 ff.

Page #13

JAINA MĀHĀRĀSTRĪ
515 The fairly large number of past participles in -ellaya, particularly in the Avaśyaka prose commentaries has been attributed to the influence of popular speech 74. Either they are merely equivalent to -ta participles, or they function as adjectives implying anteriority, in contradistinction to a -ta participle used as the main verb. For instance :
gaạiyā-māue ya jam sahassam... dinnellayam tam se darisiyam, “she showed him... one thousand (dināras) which the courtezan's mother had given to her” (AvC 467, 9) 75.
Elsewhere, the -ellaya participle works as a pluperfect, indicating an incidental event, and is sometimes emphasised by a particle (ya, kira):
tīse gabbho laggo. sa ya amaccena bhanielliyā, “she became pregnant. She had been told by the minister” (ĀvC 448,
13) 76
These forms foreshadow the -I- participles of Western Neo-Indian languages : Marathi and Gujarati 77. In Gujarati, the suffix -elo (-1, -ữ) serves to derive from a verbal base an adjective exactly corresponding to what we saw in the first Prakrit example just mentioned, endowed with a resultative value 78.
74. See L. P. TESSITORI, Notes on the Grammar of the Old Western Rajasthani with Special Reference to Apabhramça and to Gujarati and Marwari, IA 44 (1915), p. 102, with a few instances quoted from Leumann's Āv. Erzählungen (ADD. p. 524).
75. See also śāntisūri's Uttarādhyayana-țīkā quoted by ALSDORF, A New Version of the Agadadatta Story NIA I (1938), p. 284 = Kleine Schriften, p. 110: tāva ya ägao parivvāyao jakkha-deulāo saiellae dālidda-purise ghettūna, and his convincing explanation of saieliae as " who had been sleeping". - Such forms are already sporadically documented in the Canon : e.g. in the narrative cliché ... kumāram ammā-piyaro... sarisiyānam... sarisaehim rāya-kulehinto anilliyānam... rāya-vara-kannāņam pānim ginhavimsu, Viyāhapannatti XI, 1 (Suttāgame I. Gurgaon, 1953, p. 642, 1. 19), ubi alia.
76. Cp. the parallel version included in Haribhadra's Upadeśapada (Baroda, 1923), p. 29a, vs. 10 aha sā puvvam amaccena asi bhaniyā. — Other instances are AvC 280, 5 māriellao; AVC 290, 5 ditthellao: AVC 466, 1 laddhellayam; AvC 529, 13 gaellao; AvC II 188, 3 thiellagă; AvH 188a, 9 jāellao, etc.
77. J. BLCCH, Indo-Aryan from the Vedas to Modern Times. English edition... Paris, 1965, p. 267. IDEM, Application de la cartographie à l'histoire de l'indo-aryen. Paris, 1963, p. 26.
78. See G. P. TAYLOR, The Student's Gujarāti Grammar. Bombay, 19082, $ 152, p. 153; H. M. LAMBERT, Gujarati Language Course. Cambridge, 1971, p. 133; ubi alia.

Page #14

516
N. BALBIR
(II)
The series of forms which will be discussed now cannot be attributed to any known dialect, but they may be taken as isolated representatives of underlying tendencies, or attempts at innovation. As such they are not out of place here. They seem to belong to only one part of our corpus, namely the niryuktis, bhāṣyas, cũrnis (and Prakrit portions of the tīkās).
Very frequently we come across a polyvalent oblique ending -ãe attached to the masculine stems piyā and rāyā. Piyāe and rāyāe are used as instrumentals singular. Thus in a Bṛhatkalpabhäṣya verse. (6101) where two girl-friends are exchanging harsh words (pharusa):
kendnlam pisiyam ?...
kim khù! tumam piyde ariant...
"Who has brought this flesh? ... Who else? Your own father has brought it!" (tīkā tvadiyena pitrânītam),
In the prose commentaries (especially of the AvN) the examples are numerous e.g. rayãe leho visajjio, "the king sent a message" (AvC 546, 13); piyae samam jemei... piyae samam gao, "he ate with his father, ... went with his father" (AvC 544, 9); rāyāe ghosaviyam, "the king has a proclamation made" (AvC II 154, 5), and so on 80.
These forms also function as a genitive-dative. For instance: aham ca piyae kuram äṇāmi," and I am bringing rice to my father" (AvC II 57, 12); rayãe paesu padio, "he threw himself at the king's feet" (AvC II 182, 9 = H); rāyāe samīvam gao, "he went to the king" (AvH 418b, 3), etc. 81.
Ambiguity may arise in the case of elliptic phrases such as räyãe pucchiyam which could either mean "it was asked by the king" or to the king". Though it is generally clarified by the context, this difficulty could perhaps account for the fact that such forms had a very short life and were never really admitted by the tradition. There are variants, for, quite often, the cürni reads rayãe, piyäe, while the parallel text of the tikä has the ordinary JM instrumentals and
79. On tumam sporadically used as a genitive, Pi § 420-421.
80. E.g. rāyāe nintena diṭṭho AvC II 155, 4 (H); rāyāe vāria mo AvC II 182, 2 (H); AvC II 154, 9 (= H); AvC II 181, 8 et 10 (H); AvC II 184, 3 (= H); rāyāe samam jūam ramai AvC 550, 4 (= H); maya-piyae suyam AvC II 206, 8 = Säntisūri's tīkā on Utt., 302a, 1.
81. See also rāyāe uvaṇio AvC II 154, 7 (- H); "he was brought near to the king": rāyāe paya-vadio AvC II 154, 8 (= H), etc.

Page #15

JAINA MĀHĀRĀSTRĪ
517
genitives rāiņā, rannā, ranno, piunā, piuņo 82, and vice-versa 83. Hence, probably, the suspicions of modern scholars. In his critical edition of the Kokkāsa-story (included in the Āv commentaries), Alsdorf introduced the usual răină instead of keeping rāyāe, which both Leumann and the Indian editors had read 84. In another case, it seems to me that Jacobi was wrong to leave aside the reading rāyāe, provided by a good manuscript, and prefer rāie "in the night” which makes no good sense in the particular passage 85.
But how are we to explain these forms which are, to my knowledge, not listed by any Prakrit grammarian or any modern study? One could think of the dative in cãe, which may have spread to masculine and neuter stems in -a starting from the feminine 86. I would be inclined to put forward a possible analogy with feminine -ā stems, for from a synchronic viewpoint there is no difference between mālā, an ordinary -ā stem, māyā “mother "which in Prakrit belongs to the same category 87, and rāyā, if we consider the nominative forms. “The reaction of the feminine on the masculine" 88 is not unknown : in Pali, for instance, usumă, usmā “heat” < Sk. úşman (masc.) can be inflected as a feminine -ā stem, as the oblique in -āya shows 89, or as a neuter. In the present case, however, we would have to admit that a purely formal analogy has prevailed over the basic masculine-feminine gender distinction in words referring to animate beings, and this may explain why these forms quickly disappeared. mālā māyā piyā rāyā mālāe māyāe 90
82. Pi § 391 and 399.
83. For instance : rāyāe varagă pesiyā ĀVC II 58, 4; rannā ĀvH 558b, 7; pirāe suram AVC II 206, 8; piunā AvH 718a, 3; rāyāe sūtā bhaniyā AVC II 279, 7; rannā ĀvH 814b. 9; rāyāe H 694b, 4; rannà AvC; rāyāe samīvam gao AvH 418b, 3; ranno C 547, 4; pijāe kūram anami AVC II 57, 12; piuno AvH 558,6, 1, etc.
84. AvC 540, 6' = ĀvH 409a, 8 = AVM 512b, 2; L. ALSDORF, Zwei neue Belege cur "indischen Herkunft" von 1001 Nacht, ZDMG 14 (1935), p. 302 with fn. 2 = Kleine Schriften, p. 545. Alsdorf's edition is based on the manuscript which was prepared by Leumann when he thought of continuing his Āvasyaka- Erzählungen.
85. H. JACOBI, Ueber die Entstehung der Cvetambara und Digambara Sekten, ZDMG 38 (1884), p. 2 = Kleine Schriften. Wiesbaden, 1970, vol. II, p. 816 : so ( = Sivabhūi)... rāyānam uvagao "..." rannā bhaniyam "..." tāva rāie (v.l. rāyāe) annayā bhanio. The fact that the preceding sentence has rannā could explain Jacobi's choice. The same situation is repeatedly seen in Av. commentaries; it could account for the fact that the abnormal rāyāe was eliminated.
86. Pi $ 364. 87. Pi $ 389: "Die Feminina der Verwandtschaftswörter werden auch als -ā- Stämme flectirt".
88. J. BLOCH, Indo-Aryan, p. 140. 89. CPD II 13 s.v. AMg umhā has both fem. and masc. genders.
90. This form of the instrumental is precisely available in the JM of the Av. Erzählungen : see Pi § 392.

Page #16

518
N. BALBIR
A transitional stage, which supposes that the analogy first took place in a pair of kinship nouns (māyā, piyā) before extending to the word “king", may not be necessary 91
A similar problem of linguistic authenticity and origin arises with the active past participles in -āio, fem. -āiā, already briefly hinted at by Mrs. Mette 92, and found in the Av prose commentaries : e.g. pavvajjam kayāio, “he renounced the world” (ĀvH 714b, 2); Titthayaro dhammam kahiyāio, “the Tīrthamkara taught the Law" (AvH 237b, 6 = tīkā on Bșhatkalpabhāşya vs. 1205); to samane bhaniyāio, “then he told the monks...” (AvH 312b, 11), etc. 93. An older instance is provided by the last verse of the Sūyagada-nijjutti (205ab):
Pāsavaccijjo pucchiyāio ajja-Goyamam Udago. “Udaga, a follower of Pārsva, asked the noble Goyama "... The Sanskrit gloss renders the verb as prstavān.
A comparison of parallel passages in Av cūrņi and tīkās shows that attempts have been made to exclude these odd forms. Thus, instead of p. kayāio, quoted earlier, a passive construction is used in the cūrņi :. pavvajjā kayā (ĀVC II 202, 12); in place of dh. kahiyāio (above), the cūrņi (332, 3) reads pakahio, and Malayagiri's commentary has kahei. Undoubtedly, these participles were considered strange. Pischel nowhere rnentions them, though at least three instances are found in Leumann's Āvas yaka Erzählungen, the material of which he had used for his Grammatik : seviyāio (p. 23, v. 1. 15); jīviyāio (p. 23, 1. 9 and p. 25, 1. 9) is the only example of an intransitive verb in this category. However, as was suggested by Mrs. Mette, they could be Prakrit counterparts of Pali and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit derivatives in -tāvin 94
Finally, attention is drawn to an isolated and curious form preserved in an āryā of the Ayāranga-nijjutti (vs. 67ab):
tattha "akāri karissam” ti bandha-cintā kayā puno hoi. Akāri and karissam are clearly put in asyndeton as a past and a future, and the phrase may represent an old formula (akārīti krtavān
91. Strangely enough I have not come across this type of form in other terms like bhāyā "brother", etc. (Cp. in G. FUSSMAN's article $ 18.3 dhituna, instr. of dhita, Ed.).
92. The tales belonging to the namaskāra-vyākhyā of the Avaśyaka-Curņi, IT 11 (1983), p. 130.
93. And also, in the feminine, piviyāiā "she drank", AVC 152, 10 (= H); nindiyāiya tti “she blamed herself", AvH 486a, 10, etc. (ADD. p. 524).
94. METTE, loc, cit.; references in von HINUEBER, Das ältere Mittelindisch, $ 494; and cp. F. EDGERTON in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar. New Haven, 1953, $ 22.51 : "So far as I can find, no such usage is recorded in Pkt. ".

Page #17

JAINA MĀHĀRĀŞTRĪ
519
karissan ti karisyāmîti anenâtītânāgatôpādānena... is the gloss of the tīkā): "The thought (which creates) bondage, viz. 'I have done / I shall do' is being made". The reading is certain; the form looks identical to a Sanskrit so-called "passive" -i aorist, which may be used very rarely with an active meaning os. But would not it be rather rash to think of such an explanation, all the more so since akāri here appears as a first person singular? 96
(III)
Old JM sources also retain another type of linguistic rarity, namely a small number of vaitālīya-stanzas composed “in einer Sprache, die man aufgrund ihres I für r, aber nicht Ś für s/s als die echte Ardhamāgadhi bezeichnen darf", to quote Alsdorf's words 97. They show how Eastern and Western dialects can mix together or at least can be found side by side.
So far, two groups of such stanzas had been brought to light by Alsdorf himself. The first one has been traced in the Uttarajjhāyānijjutti 98, the second one in the anonymous Maņipaticarita 99, a narrative work of unknown date closely connected with the Avaśyaka tradition. In the latter case, the metre has undergone many distortions in the course of time.
The importance of such verses lies in the fact that they can be seen as remains of the original Eastern dialect from which the Canon was later transposed, and thus of a stage earlier than the so-called “Ardhamāgadhi” of the Svetāmbara Canon and a "missing link dans notre reconstitution d'histoire linguistique” 100. In his Études jaina, Alsdorf observed that there had probably been more such
95. "Apparemment par influence des finales en -it", L. RENOU, Grammaire Sanscrite. Paris, 1930, $ 318, p. 441; ákāri is already Vedic, cf. L. RENOU, Grammaire de la langue védique. Lyon, 1952, $ 350; ubi alia.
96. There are only sporadic traces of this type of aorist in Middle-Indian, namely a few Pali forms: see, recently, von HINUEBER, Das ältere Mittelindisch. $ 462, with reference to GEIGER, S 177.
97. L. ALSDORF, Das Jätaka vom weisen Vidhura, WZKS 15 (1971), p. 28 – Kleine Schriften, p. 385.
98. Uttn 137, 138 : L. ALSDORF, Les études jaina. État présent et tâches futures. Paris, Collège de France, 1965, p. 23-25; IDEM, Ardha-Māgadhi in Die Sprache der ältesten buddhistischen Ueberlieferung... Herausgegeben von H. BECHERT. Göttingen, 1980, p. 17-23.
99. L. ALSDORF, Zwei Proben der Volksdichtung aus dem alten Magadha in Beiträge zur Indienforschung. Ernst Waldschmidt zum 80. Geburtstag gewidmet. Berlin, 1977, p. 17-24.
100. ALSDORF, Études jaina, p. 23.

Page #18

520
N. BALBIR
evidence, but that it had partly been obliterated by standardization : "Il semble certain qu'avant leur normalisation par les copistes, il y [en] ait eu bien davantage [scil. de "ces premiers témoignages directs de la véritable semi-magadhi jaina"], et il est possible qu'on en trouverait d'autres en examinant de plus près la grande masse de textes des commentaires " 101.
I think I can now draw attention to two more similar passages. Like the above mentioned stanzas discovered by Alsdorf, the first one is narrative. It is quoted in the Avasyaka tradition, first embodied by the Avaśyaka cūrņi and Haribhadra's tīka, later continued by parallel versions found in the Akhyanakamanikoša, the Kumarapalapratibodha and the Kathakośa 102. It is also found in Devendra's commentary on Uttarajjhāyā 1.3 103. It is in the form of an enigmatic prophecy announced by a heavenly voice:
samane jai Külavälae Magahiyam ganiyam lamehil laya ya Asogacandae Vesälim nagalim gahissal
a. s. jahā Dev.; b. lamehii AvC, lamissae Dev., lagehii AvH, lagissae Kumarap., labhissai Akhyānakam., gamissae Kathak.; infra about these readings; c. so all except AvC tada laya: better? raya A. Kathāk.; d. nagarim AvCH, Kathak.! Vesäli-nagalim Akhyānakam. "
"If the ascetic Külavälaka enjoys the courtezan Mägadhikä, the king Aśokacandraka will take the city of Vaiśālī".
We are faced with an historical fact clothed in legend and fantasy, namely the last phase of Kūnika Ajätasattu's imperialism. Asokacandra is a pet name invented by the Jainas for this Magadhian king, who is also well-known to Buddhist sources 104. The stanza alludes to the way in which Kūņika took the city of Vaiśālī from his enemy Cetaka by guile the courtezan seduced the monk who then became Kūņika's agent. This particular episode has no counterpart in Buddhist sources Ajātasattu managed to take Vaiśālī in a different, more orthodox way! There is however no doubt that this stanza is an old one: the contents, the metre (vaitālīya) and the language clearly prove
101. Ibidem, p. 25. 102. AvC II 174, 3*-4* AvH 685a, 5* [cf. A. METTE, IT 11 (1983), p. 139]; Acarya Nemicandra's Akhyānakamaņikośa with Acārya Amradeva's Commentary. Ed. by Muni Shri Punyavijayji. Varanasi, Ahmedabad, 1962 (Prakrit Text Series 6), vs. 13. p. 273; Somaprabha, Kumarapalapratibodha. Ed... Muniraja Jinavijaya. Baroda, 1920, p. 162; I. HOFFMANN, Der Kathakośa. Text und Uebersetzung... München, 1974, p. 439. 103. In H. JACOBI, Das Kalakācārya-kathānakam, ZDMG 34 (1880), p. 291, fn. I. 104. It refers to an event of his early childhood: AvC II 166-167; AvH 678b-679a; Prakrit Proper Names..., Ahmedabad, 1970, s.v. Kūņia.

Page #19

JAINA MĀHĀRĀȘTRĪ
521
it 105. Both -e nominative endings, preservation of l-s, and s-s show that the dialect is authentic AMg.
Nevertheless a look at the main variants testifies to a tendency towards normalization : the Avaśyaka-editions have nagarim, the Kathākośa has rāyā; the verb lamehii, lamissae (Sk. RAM), which seems to be the original reading, appears not to have been understood any more and is replaced by loose equivalents : LAG, LABH, or GAM in its technical meaning "to have sexual intercourse with ". Nor are we surprised to see that in the Kathākośa, a Sanskrit work interspersed with Middle-Indian quotations, the rhythm of the vaitālīya has been altered.
On the other hand, we have two curious instances of what might be called hypercorrection. Throughout the tradition, the ascetic's name appears as Kūlavālaka, in the AMg stanzas as well as in the prose accounts. The Avaśyaka-cūrņi, however, distinguishes between verse and prose and hands down a westernized form of the name in the surrounding prose, viz. Kūlavāraka. . I find the second detail more puzzling : in Hemacandra's Trișașțišalākāpuruşacaritra which also includes the same story, our stanza is in the shape of a Māgadhi śloka characterized by the l (lamija) and the palatal sibilant, thus śamane 106, Veśālim, but gahissadi 107.
guniyam ce Māgadhiyam śamane Kulavālake lamijja Kūnie lāyā to Veśālim gahissadi (10.12.316) 108
My second group of AMg vaitālīyas occurs in a dogmatical context in the Bșhatkalpabhāsya. These five verses (1 + 2 + 2, scil. 4325, 4330-31, 4362-63) are milestones in a section otherwise composed of ordinary āryās (BK Bh 4308-4366) and devoted to the discussion of a question which was undoubtedly of great importance for the Svetāmbara Jainas: the distribution of clothes (paribhāyane BK Bh 4308) among nigganthas and nigganthis.
105. Cp. H. JACOBI, Buddhas und Mahāvīras Nirvāna und die politische Entwicklung Magadhas zu jener Zeit, “Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akad. d. Wissenschaften...", 1930, p. 567 = Kleine Schriften, vol. II, p. 813.
106. As expected : see Pi § 202, Māgadhi śāvaka = Sk. śrävaka, etc.
107. We expect -ŚĆ: see Pi § 520. Is this inconsistency due to an error? However, cp. Gāndhārī Dharmapada where the phonetic development of -sy- is different in a future (bhavisadi) and elsewhere (manusa): J. BROUGH, The Gāndhāri Dharmapada. London, 1962, $ 59.
108. This is the text as improved with the help of the aforesaid parallel versions. Both the Bhavnagar edition of Vikrama samvat 1965 and the Sanskrit chāyā available in H. M. JOHNSON, Trisastiśalākāpuruşacaritra or the Lives of Sixty-Three Mustrious Persons... Translated into English, vol. VI. Baroda, 1962 (G.O.S. 140), p. 326, n. 249 (with the correction of p. 379) are unsatisfactory.

Page #20

522
N. BALBIR
Though the connection between the five vaitālīyas is somewhat loose, we can deal with them simultaneously.
4325. jai tāva dalant' agālino dhammadhamma-visesa-bāhilā bahu-samjaya-vinda-majjhake uvakalane si kim eva mucchio? 4330-31. khamae laddhūna ambale dāu gulūņa ya so valitthae bei gulum “em eva sesae deha jaīņa", gulūhi vuccai : "sayam eva ya dehi ambale tava je loyai ettha samjae", ii chandiya-pesio tahim khamao dei lisina ambale. 4362-63. vayanam na vi gavva-bhāliyam elisayam kusalehi pūjiyam ahava na vi ettha lūsimo pagai esa ajānue jane. mūlena vină hu kelise talu pavale ya ghane ya sobhai?
na ya mūla-vibhinnae ghade jalam-ādīni dhalei kanhui. The first stanza indirectly hints at the quarrels which cropped up when the monks came to share among themselves the clothes received from the laymen, and it warns them against envy :
"When even householders who are unconcerned by the difference between dharma and adharma (agree to give (their own garments), how can you, who are living in a group of numerous self-controlled ascetics, be infatuated with a mere implement?". We should notice by the way that the following verse (4326) is a triştubh : it has been observed that vaitālīyas and triştubhs are closely connected 109
The next two vaitālīyas pertain to the sharing of the clothes brought by the kşapaka, scil. the fasting monk who is often given a special treatment in the disciplinary texts 110 :
“Having brought the clothes and having given the best ones to his guru, the kşapaka says to him : “In the same way, please give the other (clothes) to the monks". The guru answers : "Give these clothes yourself to whatever ascetic you want”. Being invited and dismissed in this manner, the kşapaka gives the clothes to the wise".
I am struck by the pedestrian style of this short dialogue and by the apparently indiscriminate use of terms designating the Jaina monk (jai, samjaya, lisi). It looks rather queer in a section which otherwise shows concern for the religious hierarchy.
The last two verses reproach the behaviour of the rebellious monk who claims that the kşapaka should show him deference:
"Such an arrogant word is not praised by the clever ones". Or : "I should not be angry about that : such is the nature of a foolish person".
109. ALSDORF,Das Jātaka (as in n. 97) = Kleine Schriften, p. 384.
110. See, for instance, C. CAILLAT, Atonements in the Ancient Ritual of the Jaina Monks. Ahmedabad, 1975 (L.D. Series 49), p. 113.

Page #21

JAINA MAHĀRĀṢTRĪ
523
Then comes a dṛṣṭānta :
"Without a root, what tree would look excellent and thick? A pot with a broken base would never retain water, etc. ". Throughout these stanzas we find the main "AMg" characteristic, the /(agalino, bahilä, uvakalane, gulu, ambale, talu and so on). As in one of the two cases analysed by Alsdorf, the Sanskrit commentator has here observed the dialectal difference. He has taken note of its specific linguistic feature and quoted the famous sūtra on Magadhi:
iha sarvatrapi ra-karasya la-kärådeśaḥ "ra-sor la-sau "111 iti Magadha-bhäṣā-lakṣaṇa-vaśāt 112,
The other features are not so consistent. Nominatives singular in -e do occur, for instance in the masculine nouns (khamae 4330, je samjae 4331, ghade 4363, etc.), but -o forms are also found (mucchio 4325, pesio... khamao 4331). An extreme case is provided in 4331d:
khamao dei lisiņa ambale,
where and the -o ending stand side by side. The neuter nominative does not show the Eastern ending -e, but the ordinary -am:
see 4362 vayaṇam na vi... pūjiyam.
Again, these are examples of the conflict between conservatism and normalization. Finally, the accusative plural ambale (4330, 4331; Sk. ambarāni) reflects the loss of the masculine-neuter gender distinction in a stems. For this particular word, it is already documented in Pali:
nānāratte ca ambare (Ja VI 230, 29*).
The main tendencies observed in this paper can now be summed up. 1. To some extent, we have seen that a distinction has to be drawn between the two groups of our corpus as far as dialectal influences are concerned.
2. The influence of'AMg on JM seems to be partly limited by stylistic motivations. In several cases, we find in the context some elements which account for it. On the other hand, there are many linguistic features common to these two dialects.
3. The case of Apabhramsa is more difficult. Morphological evidence for the possible influence of this dialect on JM is scarce. It may be
111. See, for instance, Hemacandra's Prakrit Grammar 4.288.
112. Tīkā on the BKBh, vol. IV, p. 1173.

Page #22

524
N. BALBIR
the influence of common speech, and will have to be supplemented
by phonology and vocabulary. 4. A few instances have shown the elimination of innovations at
work, or the normalization of intrusive dialect forms. 5. Writers or commentators very seldom take notice of intrusive,
archaic, new or foreign forms. In other words, they are generally insensitive to the use of different dialects. It was probably no surprise to them. Their grammatical observations mainly concern cases of deviation from Sanskrit grammatical rules which they merely state as being due to prāksta-śaili-. There is however a wellknown exception, namely Uddyotanasūri, the author of the famous Kuvalayamālā who apparently thought about his own way of using dialects and gave a credible picture of linguistic variety in daily life 113
In a paper which came to my knowledge only in May 1988. Prof. Bhavani has also listed instances of the past active participle in -aiya- (< Pāvika-) and proposed a fourfold classification of the past participle extended with -ellaya which can be used 1) attributively, 2) predicatively in the simple past sense, 3) predicatively to convey pluperfect, 4) predicatively in the present perfect sense : Notes on the Prakrit of the Early Commentaries of the Jain Canon, in
Pratishthan Patrika", Research Bulletin of the Rajasthan Oriental Institute Jodhpur, 1987, p. 114-120 [113-124).
RÉSUMÉ
Deux groupes de textes relevant de genres littéraires différents sont ici examinés : d'une part, d'anciens commentaires versifiés du Canon śvetāmbara (niryukti, bhāşya), de l'autre, des cuvres narratives (Vasudevahindi, Tarangavai, Avaśyaka-cūrņi...). On cherche à repérer dans ce corpus, dont le dialecte dominant est la māhārāştri jaina archaïque, des traces morphologiques incontestables de l'influence d'autres dialectes. (1) Ce sont : A. des traits caractéristiques de l'ardhamāgadhi (nomin. sg. en -e, loc. sg. -msi, instr. sg. -asā dans la flexion thématique, absol. en -ttānam, aor. « moyen » en -itthā) dont on peut souvent montrer que l'intrusion est conditionnée stylistiquement; B. quelques désinences verbales d'occurrence rare dans le prakrit canonique, que les progrès de la documentation montrent attestées en jm. (1. sg. présent -am, désinence -e en valeur de prétérit, participe en -tavam, forme fossilisée de l'aor. en -īya); C. certaines désinences qui évoquent l'apabhramsa (cas direct sg. -a des thèmes en -ā, absol. en -evi, 1. sg. présent -ami, participe
113. See Kuvalayamālā ed. A. N. UPADHYE. Bombay, 1970 (Singhi Jain Series 46), p. 77 ff.; and Lilāvaīkahā ed. by the same scholar. Bombay, 1949 (Singhi Jain Series 31): the author himself says that he is writing in marahatha-desi-bhāsā, p. 75 ff.

Page #23
JAINA MAHARASTRI 525 passe en -ellaya). (II) On etudie ensuite une serie de formes curieuses dont on ne peut determiner l'appartenance dialectale, mais dont on constate qu'elles ont eu une existence ephemere en jm., avant d'etre eliminees sous la pression des normalisations grammaticales (obl. -ae des noms du << roi >> et du << pere >>! participe passe actif en-aio). (III) Enfin, on a cru pouvoir enrichir le repertoire, naguere dresse par L. Alsdorf, des stances redigees en << amg. authentique >> (ou l est conserve) en y ajoutant quelques exemples que les commentaires ont transmis vaille que vaille. L'ensemble de ces faits montre notamment les conditions dans lesquelles s'effectuent les melanges dialectaux : les archaismes cotoient les formes courantes, pourvu qu'ils soient bien integres au systeme linguistique (I. A.); les innovations marginales et difficilement explicables ne resistent pas (II ; III). Fevrier 1987. INDEX FORMANTIUM -a, nom. sg. of -a stems, 512. -am, pres. 1 sg., 509. -ami, pres. 1 sg., 514. -asa, instr. sg. of -a stems, 507. -aio, -aja (cf. -tavin), past. participle, 518. . -ae, obl. ending of raya, piya, 516 f. -aga-, 506.. -i, nom. sg. of -i stems, 512. -ittha, aor. ending, 508 f. -iya, preterite ending, 510 f. -el-o, nom. sg. of -a stems, 505 f. -e, optative-preterite ending, 509 f. -eppi, absolutive, 513 f. -ellaya (Guj. -elo), past participle, 515 f. -evinu, absolutive, 514. -ccaya-, postposition, 514. tanaya-, postposition, 514. -taraga-, comparative, 506. -tavam (cf. -tavant), past participle, 510. -ttanam, absolutive, 507 f. -msi, loc. sg., 506 f. 1- (opp. r-), 519 f. PRAKRIT DIALECTS Apabhramsa, 412 ff. "Archaic Jaina Maharastri", 503 f. Ardhamagadhi, 505 ff. "Digambara Prakrit", *n. 60, 69. "Echt Ardha-Magadhi", 519 ff. Jaina Maharastri, 503 Magadhi, 521.