Indian Antiquary Vol 21

SR No.: 032513
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 430
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 187

177
JUNE, 1892.]
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE JAINS.
of d. The perfect indifference with which the engravers use one sign or the other is really quite evident. All that has happened is the same as what we have already proved for. In subsequent times advantage has been taken of this duplication of forms to apply one of them to the notation of the cerebral sh, and it has become fixed in its new function, but the fact is later than our inscriptions.
To sum up, neither the North-Western nor the Indian alphabet could have been at this epoch used to write Sanskrit. The Indian alphabet, the only one of the two which subsequently became applied to Sanskrit, appears before us in the condition of undergoing the modifications, which eventually prepared it for that rôle. We know of no trace of any different alphabet, which could have served for tho notation of Sanskrit, and we are driven to the conclusion that at the time of Piyadasi Sanskrit had not yet been written, and, as all our arguments apply equally to the religious, (Vedic) language, the conclusion holds equally good for it as well as for classical Sanskrit properly so called.
Between these two languages there is, however, one important difference. The elaboration of classical Sanskrit could only have taken place with a view to a wide, profane use, with a view to a written use. To say that it was not written, is to say that it did not yet practically exist, at least in its ultimate form. But it is not so in regard to the Vedic language. Not only could its essential monuments exist in an oral state, but they could have been, in this form, the object of a culture purely oral, and more or less complete. Eminent Indian scholars have considered and still consider that the composition of the prátiéákhyas does not imply the use of writing. I need not here expatiate on a subject to which we shall again be conducted by the conclusions of the following chapter. These remarks have merely for their aim to put forward (while we explain it) an apparent contradiction between these two propositions: on the one hand the paleographic condition of our monuments proves that the classical idiom which subsequently took so prominent a position had either not received as yet its complete elaboration, or had at least not yet been regularly written, while, on the other hand, the orthography of the popular dialects as it is reflected by our monuments, reveals the action, more or less latent, none the less certain, of a previous philological culture. It is to the oral tradition of the religious literature, to the efforts for its preservation and for its phonetic analysis, of which it was the cause, that we have to trace back this influence. The reader cannot fail to remark how happily this origin accounts for the peculiar character of the action, unequal and indirect, incomplete and accidental, which we have been able to describe.
WEBER'S SACRED LITERATURE OF THE JAINS.
TRANSLATED BY DR. HERBERT WEIR SMYTH. (Continued from page 113).
XXXIV. The Tenth païnnam, virathaa, virastava, in 43 vv. Enumeration of the names of the siri Vaddhamana [145] (v. 4). It begins: namiûna jinam jayajivabamdhavam bhaviyakusumarayaniyaram 1 Viram girimdadhiram thunâmi (ataumi) payatthanâmêhim 11111 It conclades : iya namavali samthuyă siri Virajiņimda mamdasnnassa (npassa ?) viyara karunâo Jinavara 1 sitapayamanahatthiram (?) Vira! 11 43 I
The gachhayaram, which in V., in the Ratnasagara, and in the second collection of all the painnas that I have before me, is cited as a part of the collection (see pp. 429, 431) contains in 138 vv. general rules of life, especially those for the bhikkhu and bhikkhuni, in the form of a lesson to Gôyama, who is several times mentioned in it. It begins: namiûņa Mahâvtram gachchâyâram kimchi uddharimô suasamuddâô 11111 atth' êgê Gôyamâ! pânî I
jê ammaggapaïtthiê gachchhammi samvasittânam 1 bhamai bhavaparam param II 211 The metre is almost everywhere ślôka, thongh two syllables are often counted as one, one short being cast away; so for example in v. 15: samgahovaggahaṁ vibinâ na karêi a jogani samana