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language was affected by the Mahārāștri Prakrit after Jainism had spread to Mahārāstra, and I would agree that the Sauraseni Agamic works are relatively later.
If there are any plans to publish the proceedings of the Seminar I should be very glad to receive a copy. With best wishes,
Yours sincerely. K. R. Norman
South Asia Dept., SOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh St., Russell Sq., London.
28/5/97 Thank yor for sending me a copy of your report on the outcome of the "Original language” Seminar.
Of course I remain most interested in the progress of your re-appraisal of the testimony of Ācārārga MSS for the language of Amg. texts, and hopeful that you can publish more of the information gleaned. Would that someone might be inspired to produce facsimile reproductions of the principal MSS, in emulation of the Satapitaka Series. That is something that ought to be demanded at every conference, before the MSS disintegrate entirely.
Your findings seem to confirm that a return to the method of Jacobi's 1882 edition of Ācārārga would be appropriate, in case of variation, he gave in italics the most antique-looking reading that happened to be available (e.g......nātam bhavati... ovavāiye....), even although, on his own showing, such readings can always be put down to an instinct to clarify the meaning. Thus he rightly could take note of effects like 1.2 māyā me pită me and 1.6 mātaram piyaram. But I do not believe that it is safe to refer to this (as he did) as a ‘retention of - t- : one is presumably less likely to find a -t- in a purely Prakrit form like bhāyā. With pariņņā, and with the same sort of effect in hiraņņeņam suvanneņam elsewhere (ZDMG 1880), his policy was to archaize with parinnā and suvaņņeņam.
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