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Amrita
Instrumental first got mixed up with the Ablative and later on with the Locative. With verbs meaning "to carry" both Instrumental and Locative are found used as in skandhe or skandhena dhr, as also with verbs to mean "conquer" as yuddhe or yuddhena; while on the other hand we find such expressions as samudra iva gambhirye and use of words like śāsane and mate where the sense is more in agreement with the use of Instrumental. Further cases for shadowing this confusion would be udnā na nāvam anayanta RV. 8 "as a ship by water”; eha yātam pathibhir devayānaih RV. "come here on the god-trodden paths”; jagmur vihāyasă Mabh. “they went through the sky”; an illustration in which the same relation has two aspects which can be expressed by Instrumental and Locative is made ahim indro jaghāna RV. "in intoxication Indra killed the dragon”. Na tvayātra mayāvasthitena kāpi cinta kāryā Pañc. shows that there may be here some kind of Instrumental absolute construction in germs.
From these sporadic cases in Sanskrit both Vedic and Classical of such tendencies it can be reasonably assumed that a further development of these very tendencies makes its appearance in Prākrits in a more marked way. While the Sanskrit tradition continued to be preserved with a more or less systematic and scholarly syntax the Prākrits brought into greater play the latent forces of development making for a simplification in this field of language as in others.
DOO
Instrumental and Locative in Ardha-māgadhi
IHQ. XIII. 1. 1937
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