Lilavai

SR No.: 002796
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: A N Upadhye
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
Publication Year: 1966
Total Pages: 500
Language: Sanskrit, Hindi, English
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Literature
File Size: 15 MB

Page 103

76
LĪLĀVAĪ
etc. have the sense of the Gerund which as a rule is represented by the forms of the -una type. The Gerund form samanavi (v. 1. samaniya) is quite interesting.
The above details are noted not with a view to give a grammatical analysis of the language of this text' but just to record a few striking and salient features of it that they might easily catch the eye of a Prakrit philologist or a critical student of Middle Indo-Aryan, Most of them are discussed in the Notes in the back-ground of the rules of Prakrit grammars. The change of t to d is looked upon by grammarians as a feature of Sauraseni and other dialects as distinguished from that in Mähäräṣṭri. In a strict sense of the term, it is not a dialectal trait, but it is just a common phenomenon in the evolution of Prakrit which shows different stages: retention of t, softening of it into d, change of it into light d and lastly loss of it leaving only the constituent vowel behind. These stages are more chronological than dialectal, but because the various Prakrits are stereotyped literary languages, even with generalisations of broad traits, it was natural that such traits could be assigned to some Prakrits and not to others. The only question is whether the grammarians had in view any literary works showing or not showing such traits. The Lilavati specifies its dialect as Maharastra-desi-bhāṣa. Throughout the text, no change of t to d is seen in the initial, intervocalic or conjunct position; but t is dropped leaving behind the constituent vowel. Here, in this text, words like dava aada (here agaya), nivvudi (here nivvui ), suidi (cf. sukaya or sukayam here ), hada (here haya) sampadi ( here sampai ) and jado, and the Abl. sing. form in -do or -du etc. are conspicuously absent. With poems like the Lilavati before Hemacandra, it is but natural that he could remark thus in his Prakrit grammar:
VIII. i. 209: अत्र केचिद् ऋत्वादिषु द इत्यारब्धवन्तः स तु शौरसेनी मागधीविषय एव -दृश्यते इति नोच्यते । प्राकृते हि । ऋतुः etc.
1 With the exhaustive Glossary that is given at the end, it is not difficult now to prepare a full grammatical analysis of this poem, a veritable manual ol Maharastri, following the paragraphs of Pischel's Grammatik as Printz has done in his Bhasa's Prakrit or on the model of what Jacobi has done in the Intro, to his Ausgewählte Erzählungen in Mähärastrī or what Schmidt has done in his Elementar buch der Sauraseni.
2
The Natyasastra XVII. 12 observes thus: sa etc. 3 Vararuci's Prakṛta-prakāša II. 7
4 Possibly following Vararuci, VI. 9, Hemacandra allows kado, jado, tado etc. in VIII. ii. 160; but the Lilavati gives the forms kao, tao etc, besides katto etc.