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PALI-ITS HISTORY AND ITS RELATION
stems generally as jane, and then if in a few cases forms ending in -am have to be interpreted as acc. pl. then Lüders considers these as forms retained from the original canon by the Pāli translator. In that case, again, am has to be considered as the normal ending of acc. pl. of a stems in the eastern language.
If the method is simply stated as above, it is not likely to carry conviction. It must therefore be stated that Lüders has tried to justify his conclusions whenever possible by internal and external evidence. This may be described as follows:
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As an example of internal evidence we may point out that Lüders interprets kanham dhammam (vippahāya) of the Dhamma. 87 as acc. pl. because in Pali literature elsewhere these dhammas are spoken of in the pl. (sabbe pi akusala dhamma kanha). This interpretation is further supported by external evidence since in the Udanavarga version in Sanskrit (16.24) we have the pl. forms kṛṣṇān dharman (viprahāya). Occasionally supporting evidence is drawn also from the variant readings in the manuscripts. For example, in the Suttanipata 510, we have pañhe pucchitum where pañhe is the regular Pali acc. pl. form. But in this case the Simhalese manuscripts which usually give the older readings have pañham which shows that the original canon had pañham as soc. pl. which was changed in the other Pali manuscripts to pañhe.
It was stated above that Pali has both r and l. Now if Păli has wrong I and nom.sg. in-e, these are attributed to be due to eastern language. In this case the external evidence is given by Asokan inscriptions which clearly show the eastern dialect to be exclusively I and e dialect.
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