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In Search of the Original Ardhamāgadhi
K.R. Chandra changes they have undergone, are those of tracing and locating old words and meanings, expressions, phrases, verses, stylistic devices, themes, legends and tales that are specific and commonly shared by the early stratum of the Ardhamāgadhi and the Pāli canonical texts.
This is indeed a stupendous, rather Herculean, task of important research work that may be taken up by other veteran scholars and students of the Ardhamāgadhi canon, for which Dr.Chandra has taken for himself the role of a torch-bearer, and which should be undertaken with regard to the senior texts of the Jaina canon. The importance and the stupendity of the undertaking can be realized when it is taken into account that Dr. Chandra could cover only a tiny fraction of the text of just one part of the one of the eleven Āgamic texts. Let us hope, inspite of his uneven health, he continues to inspire some of the like-minded scholars of Prakrit languages and Jainology to take up the bid and continue his researches in the field with all the earnestness it fully deserves.
N. M. Kansara, SAMBODHI, VOL.XXII, pp. 242-44, 1998-99,
L. D. Inst. of Indology, Ahmedabad Several works forming part of the Svetāmbara Jaina Agama (Canon) inform us that Mahāvīra delivered his religious discourses in the Addhamāgaha Bhāsā (i.e., Ardhamāgadhi language). He chose this language for his discourses as it was the spoken language of the people. It was so called, according to one view, because it was current in half of Magadha (modern Bihar) to which region Mahāvīra himself belonged. According to another view, the language was so called because it shared some of the features of the dialects that were current in the adjoining regions. In other words, it was not wholly, but only partly Māgadhi (ardhamāgadhyāḥ). But the language of the Svetāmbara Jain canon which was finally fixed and reduced to writing at the conference of Valabhi under Devarddhi Ganin hardly shows char
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