Amrita Collected Papers by A M Ghatage

SR No.: 006968
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: Kasturbhai Lalbhai Smarak Nidhi Ahmedabad
Total Pages: 530
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 10 MB

Page 17

Amrita
ghimsu for grisme, samdāsa for samdama and a number of other words.
More interesting is the fact that this type of alternance makes a number of anomalous constructions in the Prākrit syntax quite understandable and regular. Thus chamā for the regular chamam of the Acc. sing. would explain Pāli sentences like tattheva nipatim chama 'she fell there on the ground' bijāni pavapaṁ chama 'sowing seeds in the ground', pāsādatale chamā patitam 'fallen on the ground or the floor of the palace' which is comparable to the sentence occurring soon after disvāna chamam nisinne which would make the equation of chamā and chamam quite apparent. Similarly often a form of the Acc. appears to be replaced by the form of the Nom. because of this alternance. So Pāli : imā girā abbhudīresum 'they uttered these words', Ardha-Māgadhi itthi pumam pavvaiyam gihim vā l. On the other hand the long vowel of the Nom. is replaced by the short vowel with an anusvāra which produces the semblance of a form of Acc. Thus Pāli : tam bhūmim rāmaneyyakaṁ | for să bhūmi, etc. Ardha-Māgadhi : nāsanti appana param ca natthā | or tāran appāna param ca tinna
Two very frequent constructions are best explained by this alternance. Thus the use of sakkā as a predicate when the subject is Neuter or an Infinitive is only a phonetic variant for the regular form sakkam. So in Pāli : na sakki balimuddhattum | dubbacanaṁ kim sakkā kātuye na ca sakkā aghatamānena | AMg. sakkā saheum āsāi kantagā | Equally frequent is the use of attha for attham in AMg. to express the purpose of an act. Thus we read appanatthā paratthā vā | or annassa atthā ihamāgao mi . This is probably the real explanation of the apparent use of the Acc., where we should expect an Abl. which ends in 2. Thus Pāli : kāla kālam bhavā bhavam akatam dukkatam seyye or Amg. jai param maranam siya.
A further investigation would reveal many such facts both in the morphology and syntax of the Prākrit languages which would find their explanation in such phonetic alternances based on the fundamental principle of syllabic quantity. That this principle would also shed some light on the problem of derivation can be seen in the explanation of the plural forms of the Neuter nouns like phalai or mahūi which correspond to Sanskrit phalāni and madhni. The equation is often denied on the phonetic ground that a loss of a name should nasalize the preceding vowel and not the following one as it does in these cases. One can compare the development of the French nasal vowel in cases like chanter from Latin cantare or vent from Latin ventus. That in the present case the nasal can nasalize the following vowel can be