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present Āgamas. So, there is no wonder, if the special features of Ardhamāgadhi are not to be found in the Agamas. If the Jainas, like the Vedic Brahmins, had placed stress on the preservation of the original language of the scriptures, a phenomenon like this would not have occurred. The Prakrit language exhibits a difference corresponding to the difference of tradition between the Svetāmbaras and Digambaras. In the Prakrit works of the Digambara tradition Sauraseni has been given much importance. Sauraseni could never have been the mother-tongue of either Dharasena, the resident of Girinagara in Saurashtra, or Bhūtabali-Puşpadanta who came to him from Dakṣiṇāpatha. And yet the language of the present Satkhandagama and almost all the later works of the Digambaras is Sauraseni irrespective of the place and time of their composition. From this it follows that the Digambaras, like the Vedic Brahmins, exclusively stuck to one particular language which was current in Śūrasena, the region near Mathurā. It is also possible that they migrated from Śūrasena region down to the South carrying with them their language too and that afterwards they composed all their literature in that language alone.
The language of the mss. of the Āgamas, containing no commentary whatsoever, is different from the language of the mss. of the Agamas, containing commentaries thereon. Many a time, the letter
a' has been used in place of the letter ' Generally we can say that the language of the Agamas which was there before the authors of the Cūrnis was different from the language of the same which was there before the Sanskrit commentators. In other words, a recension quite different from the one which had been before the authors of the Cūrnis seems to have been used by the Sanskrit commentators. Or, it may be that these Sanskrit commentators themselves inserted changes in the language of the Cūrnis in order to make it elegant and uniform. It is difficult to say what actually happened. But it is certain that there obtains a difference of language between the Agamas having Cūrnis thereon and those very Āgamas having Sanskrit commentaries thereon. It is a point of dispute whether this difference of language is a result of the mere progress of time or that of the attempts of the Sanskrit commentators, attempts which they made with a view to lending a uniform shape to the language so as to render it easily comprehensible. But it is beyond doubt that till the time of Sanskrit commentaries the language of the Agamas had remained constantly changing and thus had manifested a salient feature of the Prakrit language, viz. to remain constantly changing.
On the basis of the references found in the Agamas it is inferred that in olden days the language of the Āgamas was Ardhamāgadhi, But the language of the present Agamas is very near to what is called
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| SR No. | 001062 |
| Book Title | Nandisutt and Anuogaddaraim |
| Original Sutra Author | Devvachak, Aryarakshit |
| Author | Punyavijay, Dalsukh Malvania, Amrutlal Bhojak |
| Publisher | Mahavir Jain Vidyalay |
| Publication Year | 1968 |
| Total Pages | 764 |
| Language | Prakrit |
| Classification | Book_Devnagari, Agam, Canon, Ethics, agam_nandisutra, & agam_anuyogdwar |
| File Size | 14 MB |