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 227

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such temendous labour, Dr. Chandra could ascertain some linguistic characteristics of the Jina Vacana--that too when no Prakrit grammarians including Hemacandra, treated AMg. in their treatises.
Dr. Candra's. work was trail-blazing. That was in 1991. Dr. Chandra persisted in his search for Jina Vacana. In 1994 Dr. Chandra published his monograph, "Restoration of the Original Language of Ardha-Māgadhi Texts." Herein Dr. Chandra presents a critical comparative and scientific phonological and morphological study of variants of some vocables from Ācārārga, Part I (MJV. Ed. 1977) and their old variants available in palm-leaf and paper MSS. of the same text. It proves the obvious influence of Mahārāștri on AMg. canon due to environmental circumstances, passage of time and Mahārāștri-oriented scribes who were naturally inclined to use pro-Mahārāştri forms for corrections (?), emendations, additions, etc.. I doubt whether orthodox Jain teachers can (could) even think of "polluting" the Jina Vacana by modernising it for their followers.
With my friend Satya Ranjan Banerjee, I congratulate Dr. Chandra for this brilliant piece of rescarch with meticulous care, though I do not agree with him (Dr. Banerjee) in tracing the affinity of AMg. with old Persian.
The present work under review is an epoch-making piece of research. Herein Dr. Chandra tries to reconstruct the original AMg. canon of Acărănga, Part 1, Chapter 1. Dr. Chandra is eminently capable of undertaking this epoch-making -- somewhat revolutionary work.
Dr. Chandra has tried to take us one step nearer the Jina Vacana. His method is realistic. He has taken the best available edition of the Acărānga, viz. of Mahāvīra Jaina Vidyālaya, Mumbai (1977) as the basic text. It also contains some new AMg., i.e. pro-Mahārāştri forms. He substituted them with old AMg. forms culled from ancient (senior) AMg. texts like Sūtrakītānga, Rși-bhāṣitāni, Uttarādhyayana. He did not try to emend the text as per his discretion. Thus the restored text appears like one excavated at Vaiśāli or some other ancient site in Magadha. He has given us an alphabetical list of such words utilised by him (Part V, pages, 167-195), a tabular statistical statement of phonological changes in AMg. (See Part IV, pages 157-166) and he