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ANCIENT JAINA HYMNS
(Prakrit viņınavemi, Sanskrit vijñāpayāmi), at the side of lagaum, jugaum.
Forms like the latter ones are rare in, if not alien to, even later Apabhramsa, such as represented by the Apabhramsa portions of Somaprabha Sūri's Kumārapāla-pratibodha' (not to speak of the earlier Bhaviyasattakahā” and the Harivaṁsa-purāņa by Dhanapāla, or of the Vasudevahiņài), and characterize the earlier stages of Middle Gujarati rather than Apabhramsa, gaining more and more ground in Modern Gujarati.
All those phonological phenomena, it is true, cannot be ascribed with certainty to the poet himself, as for some of them (just as for occasional "ya-sruti”), clerical influence might be responsible. Yet a number of them are testified as doubtlessly genuine by metre, rhyme, as well as by the persistency of their occurrence. On this basis, the language of the poem can safely be defined as being either very late Gaurjara Apabhramsa, or, with more probability, early Middle Gujarati.
The mixture of archaic and recent forms, the numerous tatsamas, such as nikara, tāta, sampūraka, durita, tāraka, rāyaka, papa, tāpapaha, sādara, rddhikara, kathina, hatha, ghata, lobha, rāga, bhoga, indra, pada, gati, nati, abhinava, mada, bodha, dāyaka," the frequent ignoring of Sandhi-rules, even in compounds, such as in iramira-sulya-asura, sāra-upayāra, vişaya-visama-amiya-bhara, Nami-añtaram, all these peculiarities
(1) V. S. 1241. (2) Pre-Hemacandra.
(3) Probably earlier than 7th century (V. S.) xide M. D. Desai, Short History para 203.
(4) Kesavarāma, p. 158, 181, 189, 221, 232, 236, and 265. (5) General tendency of Middle Gujarati, stabilised in the modern
anguage.
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