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68
प्राकृतसर्वस्वम्।
in certain respects and probably means to say that Arşa, Amg and Mg agree only in respect of the nom. sing. ending in e of a stems in masculine gender. How-- ever, his treatment of Amg or Arşa is not full despite a number of examples of uses in Ārşa given by him in his grammar. Moreover, this is to be noted that the e ending as mentioned above is not noticed everywhere. The prose of the Arşa canon retains e in nom. sing. whereas the verse shows o in most places. However, the imperfect treatment of Amg or Arşa by Hc left his followers in dark who later on chose not to deal with this dialect in their grammar altogether on account of its independent nature."
The modern scholars are not at one as to the linguistic nature of Amg, the language of the Svetāmbara Jaina canon. COLEBROOKE called it to be Mg whereas LASSEN and JACOBI considered it to be no other than M. The latter also found some amount of kinship of this language with Pāli. Against this WEBER held that it had no close relationship with Mg and that it was decidedly later than Pāli. Pischel has shown some significant archaisms in this dialect proving therby its departure from others and hence its standing as a separate dialect.20 He is, however, in favour of considering this to be more closely rerlated to Mg than to any other dialect on account of the former's nom. sing. in e alone if not for anything else.
24. With the above background of Amg when we judge its treatment by the grammarians and rhetori
19. TATO a tocart Fatra TTT!
78ana are ÅFarit at: 1 PVV. Intro.. St. 7. 20. Op. cit. 18.
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