Collected Articles Of LA Schwarzschild On Indo Aryan 1953 1979

Author(s): Royce Wiles
Publisher: Australian National University

Page 49

Nos. 1 & 2]
GLEANINGS FROM THE VASUDEVAHINDI
BHARATIYA VIDYA
[VOL XVIII
normal oyar-avatar- and sometimes even with the semi-learned avayar-avatar p. 134 lines 14ff. uyaraha,kisa vilambaha come down into the water)', says one of two friends 'why are you delaying?' Addhanam parikkamiya pa sahasa jalan avayariyauvan 'when one has been walking some distance one should not suddenly get down into the water, answers the other.
The words in which u-has replaced Sanskrit ave- or apa-before a single consonant do not strictly speaking constitute a linguistic peculiarity of the Vasudevahindi, but their frequency in this text is striking. There are parallels in other Jain Mâhârâştri works; e.g. in Jacobi's Ausgewähite Erzählungen in Maharastri we find tulugga avarugna 'sick'. This word recurs in a passage of very similar content in the Nirayavaliyao, though there are a number of variant readings, olugga and even ulagga, which may be derived from avalagna, uithaapalersta appears in the Nayadhammakahao I. 8. but here too there are some variant readings. Further sporadic examples occur in other Middle Indo-Aryan dialects, thus Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit ulcirati for avakiratt is quoted by Edgerton. There are some indirect survivals (vide infra) of this development in Apabhrarsa, but it does not seem to have been extended, with a few possible exceptions e.g. Nepali wira for oirocavagirate.
It is at once noticeable that apart from the Vasudevahindi this development is very restricted, whereas before double consonants the change of arx- and apa- to - is not uncommon in middle IndoAryan. Some of the many examples are: nuggaha cavagraha 'obstacle' which occurs in the Jain Sauraseni of the Pravacanasara, in Ardhamagadhi and in Jain Maharastri; ukkhand-from avaskand'to ambush', 'to attack which appears in Ardhamagadhi, and utthambh from avastambhto support'.
Less numerous and in a different category are those words in which the prefix ava-(and apa-) was originally followed by a word beginning with a single consonant which was subsequently doubled, while the o- of the prefix became te.g. uklas- from analys- to draw away (Ayarahgasutta II, 3.1.15), uttamsa from avatamsa 'head ornament' (Gaudavaho).
Words in which the o- from ava- and apa- was replaced by 1may therefore be conveniently divided into three types:
(1) qua-, apa-appear as t- and the following single consonant develops regularly.
(2) ava-, apa-appear as 14- before a double consonant.
(3) ava- and apa-appear as t- and there is reduplication of the original single consonant.
The question arises: are these three developments part of the same linguistic process?
Requirements of metre might explain some, but by no means all the examples of 1- for ava-, apa-, and naturally not those in the prose of the Vasudevahindi. The explanation is probably partially phonetie: the great similarity in pronunciation between o and u, particularly when they were both short, facilitated a confusion with the prefix ud- 'up'. This has already been suggested a long time ago by Wackernagel and later by Bloch.8
The prefixes concerned differ markedly in meaning; ava- down and ud- 'up' remained strongly contrasted in some compounds, as for instance in the two Jain technical terms of opposite meaning: osappini aaarpiņi 'descending cycle and suppini utsarpint 'ascending cycle', which recur throughout Ardhamågadhi (e.g. Th&nanga I.1.) and Jaina Mihârâştri. On the other hand the basic meaning of some verbs obscured the differences in sense between the prefixes, and a glance at a dictionary 10 will show how this applies already in Sanskrit to some of the words under discussion:
tro- to cross traverse', 'accomplish' etc. ava + tre- descend to (from)', 'come down to earth', 'become in
carnate', 'get over, 'attain ete. ud + tra- 'come out of", emerge from', 'get over', 'overcome'. stabh-to fix', 'establish' etc. ava + stabh-' to fix', 'support', 'grasp', 'take prisoner. ud + stabh-to fix aloft', 'set up'. kre- 'to draw'. ava + kys- 'to draw away', 'attract'. ud + krs-'to draw out', 'raise'. apa + lers-'to draw away', 'remove', 'put aside'.
The overlapping in meaning between the compound verbs concerned together with the phonetic causes mentioned above brought about a confusion between these prefixes in Middle Indo-Aryan: 0-<ava-replaced - ud- just as u- ud- replaced on ava- in the cases previously quoted. Thus udgdrana gives oggarara in the Carudatta of Bhisa, and ojjala for ujjala from ujjvala appears in Hemacandra, 11
7. J. Wackernavel Awische G a rk Gattingen 1896. 141. 8 J. Bloch, La formation de la lame marthe, Paris 1918 376. 9. E Leumann, Ubersicht aber die A -Literatur. Hamburg 1934. p. 43.b. 10 AA Macdonell's Sanskrit Dictionary 11. For these and other examples of Pala w ahana Vol. I. Calcutta
1934. D. 43.b. For examples that have survived into the modern Innuages Dr. Marathi am t are release cl. J. Bloch, op. cit. p. 94. To this group belong probably also some of the words quoted on pp. 50 and 51 of PB Pandit's important article 'E and O in Gujrati Indian Linguisties Vol. XV. 1955
4. J.J. Mever. Hindu Tales. London 1909, p. 122 note. 5. F. Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar, Yale 1953.3.55 6. RL Turner, Nepali Dictionary, London 1931 s.v.ro. The t here is pro
bably due to more recent phonete developenents.
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