________________ Directions of Rehabilitating Ardhamagadhi Dr. Chandra has advanced in the book enough evidence to show that the original language of the Svetambara Agamas has suffered numerous alterations under the impact of later influential literary Sauraseni especially literary Maharastri Prakrit. Some glimpses of a number of original features of Ardhamagadhi, we can get from a few earlier Canonical texts and from some preserved archaic variant readings. Chandra ends with a plea to accept those readings as genuine original features and revise the relevent text-portions of edited Agamic works on that basis. One of the weighty implication of Chandra's findings is quite evidently the fact that they explode the contentions of those cri. tics of the Ardhamagadhi Canon according to whom the whole of the latter is unauthentic and secondary, Chandra's present investigations supplement and corroborate what other scholars and himself have found from the linguistic, formal, stylistic, and content-based features that are shared by the Asokan and Pali on the one hand and Canonical Ardhamagadhi on the other. Dr. Chandra's work necessitates revising prevalent view about the original Ardhamagadhi and invites fresh efforts to determine its real linguistic character. Dr. H. C. Bhayani Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org
