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fa-1 (31) Introduction*
The Acaränga is the oldest Ardhamāgadhi Text of the Svetambara Canonical literature but its language has undergone constant changes at the hands of readers and copyists from generation to generation due to influence of the changing form of the popular Prakrit language, and also on account of the influences of the grammatical treatises of post-dated grammarians. There is no uniformity of language (see in Section 2 Comparative Tables of Variant Readings, specially in the spellings of the words, i. e. in the phonology) in any published edition or in the availble Mss. (whether palm-leaf or paper) of the text. One comes across Prakrit forms of three different stages, sometimes in the same sentence, verse, paragraph or chapter, occasionally archaic and younger forms go together. Additionally there are soemtimes younger forms in older texts and older forms in younger texts of Ardhamägadhi as well as Mss.
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Readers are requested to go through the following three works of the author published by Prakrit Jain Vidya Vikas Fund, Ahmedabad-15
1. प्राचीन अर्धमागधी की खोज में, 1991-1992
2. Restoration of the Original Language of Ardhamägadhi Texts, 1994
3. परम्परागत प्राकृत व्याकरण की समीक्षा और अर्धमागधी, 1995
Their study will be helpful in understanding properly the method followed in preparing this edition and reconstituting the oldest form of the language of the text as far as possible.
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