Apbhramsa of Hemchandracharya

Author(s): Hemchandracharya, Kantilal Baldevram Vyas, Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 86

( 57 ) "unused' or 'remote') bank of a ditch; either a (drowning) man clutches at them and comes out, or they (i. e. 'weeds) themselves (are uprooted and) sink with him.”
:: This is evidently an phift as JPUTHTYTTotal points out in his Dodhakavrtti : 3777sf : # # ## hafa #fantent वसति । प्रकारद्वयं किम् । म्रियते वा शत्रून् जयति वेति भावार्थः ।
• This verse has intrigued several scholars. Pischel. first interpreted it as: “The third cutting of the grass has not yet taken place; therefore it still stands at the border of the ditch. A man after he has had a bad time, sometimes rises up again, and sometimes, himself perishes.”!
Later he improved upon this translation, rendering: the first carana as :
"For the grass there is no third possibility; there. fore, it stands at the border of the ditch."
Alsdorf, questions the correctness of Pischel's reading Home for fa. He rejects Pischel's interpretation outright as grammatically unreliable. He would prefer to read अह सह सई in the second carana as अह सहसइ which would mean: “either a man passes the grasses only touch. ing them or (steps upon them and ) thousands will perish."
Alsdorf in his 'Apabhramsa-Studien’ explains the entire vs. as below:
"The grass likes to grow near the well, it is in the danger of being trodden upon by those who fetch water;. but it has no other choice, because only near the well it finds the prosperous humidity. Therefore, either the.
1. Richard Pischel, Hemacandra's Grammatik der Prākrit-sprachen, • Vol. I, (Halle, 1877 ) p. 154; Vol. II ( 1880 ) pp. 182-3. 2. R. Pischel, Materialien Zur Kenntnis des Apabhramsa, (Berlin,
1902), 7. 3. L Alsdorf, Bemerkungen Zu Pischol's Materialien Zur Kennt
nis des Apabhramsa," ( Festschrift Moriz Winternitz) (Leipzig, 1933), 33.
.