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REMARKS ON THE TEXTS
go to stamp the language of our hymn as true to type. So does the word alajayā (st. 20), if taken as a loanword from Arabic-Persian, equivalent to Modern Gujarati alijahāṁ, meaning "august”, and being here an attribute of the Jina.?
Tadbhava-like, hybrid formations, such as padiyau, cadiyau , sāhaga, moaga, jagi, jaga-jantu, vaņa-rāji, kammāni, sainsiddhae, upayāra, jāgaramaņā, haratāra, along with genuine Prakrit forms such as mentioned above, as well as Sanskritisms, like mama, karavāni (for karavāni, First Person sg. Imp.), dehi, gami, obviously represent attempts of the poet to express himself in archaic style, in order to enhance the dignity and solemnness of his eulogy. Nominal and verbal forms in -o and -e (for -i and -u) may also fall under this category of phenomena, though, on the other hand, they may also be recent development, representing cases of "contracted svara-yugma", so typical of Middle and Modern Gujarati.
The language of the interlinear commentary ("?abbā”) is far more developed, and can be defined as Modern Gujarati of rather an early type, to judge from formations like eņi parim, dihādau (Modern Gujarati dahādo), mū and mūhanai (Modern Gujarati mane), atibhāgu (modern atibhāṁngyo), lāgaü (modern lāgyo), lādhi (modern lādhi), hum gāyasur (modern hun gāīs), hui joyusu (modern hur joīé).
Out of the 21 stanzas of the present hymn, the first 20 are in a metre of twenty mātrās in each of its
(1) Kesavarāma, p. 232.
(2) The commentator takes the word as an equivalent of Prakrit alajja, "shameless", and connects it as an apposation with maj
apposation with majha, "me" (Dat. sg.), which however does not seem satisfactory, (3) Keśavarima, p. 265 and 278, Divatia II, p. 69 ff.
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Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
