Agam 01 Ang 01 Acharanga Sutra

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

Page 335

परिशिष्ट
301 An Appreciation The Jain Canonical Texts, specially the oldest among them, namely the Ācārānga I, the Satrakrtānga I, Rşibhāṣitāni, etc. were composed in Ardhamāgadhi, however, they were subjected to more and more influences of the later Mahārāștri during the long course of their transmission, both oral and written.
Dr. K.R. Chandra demonstrates now, through an examination of the variants recorded in older palm-leaf and younger paper Mss. of ten words and proves that the genuine Ardhamāgadhi forms can still be detected amongst the variants.
Dr. K. R. Chandra is to be congratulated for his successful attempts in this field and we wish him many more demonsrations in future. His study should be further resulted in linguistically re-editing of the oldest Ardhamăgadhi canonical texts. Ahmedabad
-Pt. D. D. Malvania 26-1-1994
I have perused the prepublication copy of Dr. K.R.Chandra's Restoration of the Original Language of Ardhamăgadhi Texts' which deals with the various readings of the Acārānga-sútra, part-I as edited by different scholars with different manuscripts found in their respective footnotes. This is a true piece of research work and Dr. Chandra is to be congratulated for this treatise which shows his brilliant scholarship and meticulous care. In making a general estimate of Dr. Chandra's achievement as an editor, one feels the difficulty of avoiding superlatives; and I believe, the superlatives are amply justified in this particular case. What is most important is the fact that he has thoroughly ransacked the different readings of the text and has tried his best to find out the original readings of the Ardhamāgadhi texts. To find out the oldest readings of the canonical texts of the Svetāmbara is a Herculean task and requires a penetrating scientific outlook with a good background of linguistic insight. One is very much puzzled when one secs various readings like jahā vs jadhā, or ahā vs adhā so also tahā vs tadhā, but not ahā vs adhā for Sanskrit tathā. It needs a historical or psychologi