Madhuvidya

SR No.: 006525
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 2001
Total Pages: 762
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Literature, & Philosophy
File Size: 17 MB

Page 356

PĀLI-ITS HISTORY AND ITS RELATION TO
THE ORIGINAL' CANON
By M. A. MEHENDALE
DĀLI, the language of the sacred writings of the Buddhists
I of Ceylon, represents the earliest recorded stage of the Middle Indo-Aryan. The literature contained in this language is very vast and preserves for us numerous grammatical forms and lexical items to enable us to obtain a clear idea about the language. Although this language belongs to the MIA stage it shows certain phonological and morphological features which cannot be explained on the basis of the classical Sanskrit but have to be traced back to Vedic Sanskrit. Among these features may be counted the occurrence of -!- and -?h- in place of -d-and-dh- exactly as it happens in the Rgveda. Similarly, the instrumental plural termination -chi as in devehi can be explained only as derived from the trisyllabic Vedic form devebhiḥ. Also the Pāli absolutive forms in -tvāna (pitvāna) can be explained only on the basis of the similar ending in the Vedic and not the classical --tvā. Such features compel us to conclude that some of the linguistic features of Pāli had started to develop already very early when the Vedic Sanskrit--especially the one on which the language of the Rgveda was based--was still a spoken language.
Is it possible for us to take further back the history of Păli? Is it possible to demonstrate that some of its features had started to develop even before the period of Vedis Sanskrit, i.e. in the Indo-Iranian period ? Now, among the features which mark off Pāli from an eastern dialect which later developed into Māgadhi we note the following two: (i) it has only the dental sibilant s, while Māgadhi has ś; and (ii) it shows final -as developing into -0, while Māgadhi has -e (thus we have the opposition devo : deve etc.). It is significant to note that in both these points Pāli agrees with Avesta, and hence it seems possible for us to say that the forerunner of Pāli shared some of its isoglosses with those of Avesta. If this is true, it would be unnecessary for us to assume the merger on the Indian soil of the two Sanskrit sibilants s and ś (we leave out Sanskrit s since for some time it must have been only an allo
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