Sramana 2000 01

SR No.: 525040
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Shivprasad
Publisher: Parshvanath Vidhyashram Varanasi
Publication Year: 2000
Total Pages: 232
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Sramana, & India
File Size: 10 MB

Page 226

Not that the present Pali is the actual Buddha-Vacana (Buddha's speech). Nor is it the language of the first Sangiti at Räjagṛha, convened by Maha Kassapa immediately after the emancipation (nirvāṇa) of Buddha and tried to pool together Buddha's words as remembered by 500 direct disciples of Buddha.
२१७
Dr. B.C. Law in his History of Pāli Literature traces in Pāli the influence of Western Prakrits, especially the Girnar Edict of Aśoka. Whatever be the reason, but Pali could retain some semblance to its older form.
AMg. texts were preserved in their memory by Jain sages. But when devastating famines visited Magadha, their patrons ordinary people themselves became victims of the famine and could hardly support the sages--repositories of certain sections of the Agama. Hiralal Kapadia in his History of the Canonical Literature of the Jains gives us a long list of such sections which are irretrievably lost.
Hemacandra,. the great polymath, in his Commentary on Yoga Sūtras notes: "Finding that the Jina Vacana (Jain Canon) was almost lost (ucchinna-prāya) as a result of the famine the revered Acāryas Nagarjuna and Skandila got (the remnant of it) written down in books"(जिनवचनं दुष्षमाकालवशादुच्छिन्नप्रायमिति मत्वा भगवद्भिर्नागार्जुन - स्कन्दिलाचार्यप्रभृतिभिः पुस्तकेषु न्यस्तम् ।)
Finally Devardhi Gani convened a conference at Valabhi in Kathiawād (Gujrat) in the 6th Cent. A.D. and recorded the available AMg. canon in books. This is generally regarded as the standard AMg. Canon now.
After the fixation of the Canon, the era of scribal errors, emendations and additions (all unauthorised) began. I was not surprised when I found six inexplicable variants of the word kṣetrajña (5) in Mumbai's Mahāvīra Jaina Vidyalaya (MJV.) edition of the Acārānga Sūtrain Dr. Chandra's Hindi book: Prācīna Ardhamāgadhī kī Khoj meṁ. As a text critic, one gets used to it. But I was surprised to find that Dr. Chandra collected 75000 forms (cards) from ancient Jaina texts like Acārānga, Sūtrakṛtānga, Rṣi-bhāṣitāni, Uttarādhayana, Daśavaikâlika and compared them with those in Pāli Sutta-nipāta and Eastern Edicts of Aśoka. With