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Jain Education International
On the Name and Gäthā 12
of the Takkārijātaka
by
M. A. Mehendale
This Jataka (No. 481) is so called because in the narrative the Purohita of the king has a pupil who is supposed to have the name Takkariya. We find this name clearly mentioned in the prose portion of the narrative. On pp. 245-46 (Vol. IV of Faus böll's edition) we read tadà Bodhisatto Takkariyo numa minavo hut va tassa santike sippaṁ uggauhati. "At that time Bodhisatta, having become a young Brahmin by name Takkariya, was learning sciences with him (i. e. with the Purohita)". The author of the prose narrative has apparently given this name to the pupil on the basis of Gatha 1 which runs as
aham eva dubbhusitaṁ bhāsi bulo bheko araññe ahim avhayano Tukkariye sobbham imam patimi na kir' eva sidhu ativelabhani
Lüders translates the Gatha as follows: "Ich selbst habe aus Dummheit üble Rede geredet wie der Frosch, der im Walde die Schlange herbeiruft. Takkariya, ich stürze in dies Erdloch. Fürwahr, nicht gut ist unzeitiges Reden "
In the above translation the form takkariye has been interpreted as vocative singular which is irregular for a stem ending in -a. The commentator has sought to explain it away as a voc. sg. of Takkariya which he looks upon as the pupil's name in the feminine gender (tassa Takkariyà ti itthilingam nama). Lüders is
I. Also cf. atthi deva tass' eva antevāsi Takkūriya niūṇavo nāma (IV. 247). 2. That the Gathas alone in the Jatakas are canonical and that the prose is later has now been well established by Lüders. Cf. his Bharhut und die Buddhistische Literatur, p. 139; also cf. Alsdorf, The Akhyana Theory Reconsidered, JOI, Baroda, Vol. 13 (1963-64), p. 199.
3. Bharhut etc. p. 96; also cf. Bharhut Inscriptions, CII, Vol. 11, Part II, P. 139.
Madhu Vidya/318
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