Tulsi Prajna 1990 09

SR No.: 524563
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Mangal Prakash Mehta
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 1990
Total Pages: 80
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Tulsi Prajna, & India
File Size: 4 MB

Page 70

SOME PROBLEMS
OF MĀGADHI DIALECT
Jagat Ram Bhattacharyya*
(Continued from the previous Number)
PHONOLOGY 1. On the Treatment of Sanskrit r In Māgadbī
In Māgadhi Sanskrit r becomes i, for example, naraḥ>nale, puruṣaḥ> puliśe, etc.
On the characteristic features of r changing into 1 in Māgadhi, all the prakrit grammarians are unanimous, except Mārkaņdeya who has made the r changing into l as optional (rasya lo vā bhavet XUI 3). It is difficult to trace the authority of Mārkaņdeya for making this change as optional, because this one of the very vital characteristic features of Māgadhi and even in standard Sanskrit literature, there is hardly any exception to this rule. Though there are some editions where this discrepency is noticed in Dhakki, one of the sub-dialects of Māgadhi, unless their editions are checked by manuscripts it is difficult to comment on them. That r is changed into I in Māgadhi has a long history and this phenomenon can be traced from the Vedic times even if not earlier. In the Rgveda (=RV.) between r and I, r occurs in most of the cases instead of l which occurs mostly in the books which are chronologically later in origin. In the same type of word if r occurs in the earlier text it is noticed that it is replaced by l in later text. Here examples are to be given from the RV. But in the Atharva. Veda l occurs more than RV. and the Atharva Veda (=AV.) is regarded as a vedic text composed in the Eastern region of India. If that is true then the tendency of changing r into 1 is very old. Though historically the documentary evidence of prakrit started from the 6th or 5th century B. C. i e. from the time of Mahāvīra, it's history could be traced from the Vedic times, at least, as early as 1000 B.C.
It is a fact worthnoting that I does not occur in Avestan and old Persian. In Old Persian only in three or four words which are borrowed from some other languages l occurs and if we trace this phenome• Lecturer in the Dept. of Prakrit, J.V.B., Ladaun,