Agam 01 Ang 01 Acharanga Sutra

Author(s): K R Chandra, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Prakrit Jain Vidya Vikas Fund Ahmedabad

Page 322

288
आचाराङ्ग
the author points out the antiquity and the place of the origin of the Agama texts through the analysis of the language. In the next two chapters IV and V Dr. Chandra's main focussing line is on the. characteristic features of Amg. In this connection, he has cited the views of Hemacandra (pp.68-79) and has also suggested some principles to be adopted for the Amg. language (pp. 80-84). One complete chapter (VI, pp. 85-93) is devoted to the various Prakrit forms of one Sanskrit word kṣetrajña, and this shows how the Agama texts are inundated with several forms of the same word. In chapters VII and VIII Dr Chandra has discussed the question of stylistic presentation of some sentences (pp. 94-99) and finally the conclusion (pp.100-106) of his thesis is synoptically adumbrated.
One of the most interesting points of his treatise is the discussion on the formation of past tenses in Amg. (p.44f). In his opinion the forms like akāsi, ahesi, akarissam., ahaṁsu, abhaviṁsu, himsimsu and so on are the oldest features of the Agama texts. These are,in fact, the remnants of some of the aorist forms crept into the canonical text, and hence the oldest. Pischel in his Grammatik der Prakrit Sprachen (§§ 516, 517) has given some forms which arc the remnants of Vedic Sanskrit imperfect (§ 515), perfect (§ 518) and pluperfect (§ 519). Otherwise the entire systems of Sanskrit past tenses (imperfect, perfect and aorist) are lost in Prakrit, and are replaced by the past participial forms ta and tavat, of which again the latter form is extremely rare.
In judging the older forms of Prakrit what is wanted is to trace whether the forms in any way are connected with the other Sanskrit forms or not. Sometimes the older Vedic forms are preserved in Prakrit without realising that these Prakrit forms have come down to us through some rare Vedic occurrences. For example, the Prakrit words, naim and maim (ana ṇāim nañarthe / maim marthe// He. II 190-1) are the remnants of Vedic nakim and mākim (RV. VI. 54. 7). In a similar way, we have Vedic mäkiḥ Greek me-ti's (unti's) meaning 'no one', 'none' 'never' and nakiḥ=Gk. ti's (tts), Latin quis Av cis also meaning 'no one', 'nothing' which arc supposed to be very old even in Vedic. Just as we have kim, so also we have Vedic kiḥ (eg, ayam yo hotā kiruḥ saḥ, RV. X. 52,3)