Agam 01 Ang 01 Acharanga Sutra

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

Page 327

परिशिष्ट
293
preserved. But It cannot be vouched that the texts preserved and also. produced after the Păţaliputra Vācană conformed to the original standards and did not undergo any phonetical or morphological variation in the Valabhi Vācanã when such variations are evidenced in Easter, Western and North-Western versions of the Asokan inscriptions.
Further, the language of the Āgamas, and for that matter of the Prakrits in general, not being standardized, phonetical and morphological changess (or developments) in the language continued with the change of time and place, and it can't be ruled out that the scribes took the liberty of substituting the prevalent forms in their texts.
So, when, in 12th century A.D., Hemacandra viewed the Agamas from a grammatical point of view, he was struck with variations. He called the language Arsa (sacred or archaic) and pronounced that here all the rules had alternatives (sarve vidhayo vikalpyante).
In the title under review Dr. Chandra suggests ways and means to reduce variations in the readings of the Ardhamāgadhi texts, specially the older ones. He postulates that Lord Mahavira and Lord Buddha, being contemporary and their activities centering in the same region, must have preached in a common language which might have been the Māgadhi of that time. So Pāli and Ardhamāgadhi, both coming from the same source, should have similar phonetical and morphological features. Again, the Pāțaliputra Vācanā of the Ardhamāgadhi canons being close to emperor Asoka in point of time and place, the former cannot but have common linguistic features with the eastern edicts of emperor Aśoka extant at Dhauli, Jaugadh and Kālasi. Further, the phonetic changes in MIA reached the stage of total elision of the medial consonants k, g, c, j, t, d gradually. The process started with softerning of the surds to the sonants and the latter remaining unchanged. Similarly, the voiceless and the voiced aspirates kh, gh, th, dh, ph, bh, before being reduced to pure aspiration (h), underwent the stage of the voiceless being voiced and the latter remaining unchanged. This process is confirmed by a comparative view of phonetic changes taking place in Pāli, Asokan inscriptions,