Collected Articles Of LA Schwarzschild On Indo Aryan 1953 1979

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

Page 79

SPORADIC CHANGES OF VOWELS IN MIDDLE INDO-ARYAN
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influence of Middle Indo-Aryan. It is possible that kutühala < kohala "pleasure", "curiosity shows the same type of differentiation, as suggested by Pischel, and that kutühala was changed to *kauhala, whence kohala. The occurrence of the variant form kouhalla in Hemacandra's grammar and of kouhala in the Jain canon might suggest that in some areas perhaps the differentiation did not go so far in this word, and the u of the initial syllable was only lowered to o, and not lowered further and unrounded to a. It is however more likely that the word kutuhala > kohala does not represent a straight-forward example of differentiation, but shows the influence of the derivative abstract noun kautühala > kouhala 'curiosity": this is almost certainly the case in the Sauraseni and Jain Sauraseni form koduhala. The usual Prakrit and Apabhramsa word somala "tender' has been explained by Pischel as being parallel in development to kohala: sukumara > suumara, suumala saûmära > somäla, except that in this case the intermediate form samara is actually attested in Mähäräṣṭrī (Setubandha). Professor Alsdorf has suggested a different etymology for the word somála, namely saumya+ala. Even if one is persuaded by the presence of the intermediate form satimdra that the old derivation from sukumara 'tender' is probably correct, it is very likely that the word sukumara > somala was at least associated by the speakers with saumya > soma 'good', 'gentle and this may account for the prevalence of the form somala rather than saumāra.
Although the usual process of differentiation of u-u is thus to a there are some other cases where it seems that the second of the two vowels has been differentiated to a. The noun duküla 'a kind of cloth' appears in Middle Indo-Aryan as duula (Hala), dugulla (Ardhamagadhi and Jain. Mähäräştri) and dualla (Hemacandra). This last form is almost certainly due to the substitution of the suffix -alla for the final ula, -ulla; the influence of the two other words of similar meaning ambara > ambala (Pali) 'cloth', 'garment and kambala 'blanket', 'woollen garment was probably not instrumental in this substitution, as these two words do not show a double / in their final. Jugupsă> dugumcha, du(g)amcha "disdain' is also an example of the complete remodelling of a word rather than simple differentiation; the initial syllable was obviously influenced by the pejorative prefix dur->du-. There is thus little doubt that the usual differentiation of u-u was to all. There is a further and barely recognisable example of such a differentiation in sarisa 'a good man' which occurs in Jain Mähäräştri and Mähäräştri. This is probably not always to be de
Harivansapurana von Puspadanta, ed. Ludwig Alsdorf (Hamburg, 1936), Glossary s.v. sómála.
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L. A. SCHWARZSCHILD
rived from satpurusa, but sometimes corresponds to supurusa, which appears also as suurisa and surisa (Hc. 1.8).
The two vowels all occurring in hiatus formed a most distinctive group: they were as far apart in pronunciation as possible, and because of this distinctiveness the grouping seems to have been favoured in Middle Indo-Aryan. The same applies to the vowels at in hiatus, though perhaps to a slightly lesser degree owing to the probable frontal articulation of the short a in Middle Indo-Aryan. These two groups, af and all thus became very prominent in Prakrit and Apabhramsa. They were pronounced in many tatsama words from Sanskrit which had originally contained the diphthongs ai and aw that had disappeared from the language by Middle Indo-Aryan. all was quite particularly frequent, and only in some cases the variant semi-tatsama form with o was allowed by the grammarians; af was slightly less common and the variants containing e were used more freely. The groups all and at were also introduced in some cases by differentiation, not only in the examples of u-u> af listed above, but also in a few words where there has been further differentiation from eu and ei, by the lowering of e to a in contrast with the following higher vowels. This might account for the unusual form auna, from euna, eguna < ekona lacking one' which is found in numerical compounds in the Jain canon,
as for instance in aunattīsa 'twenty-nine' (Nayadhammakahão). The meaning of the word aina renders the derivation from aguna, suggested by Pischel, quite impossible. By a change very similar to that of ekona > eina to aúna, Prakrit chailla (Gujarati chel) has replaced chei(D)la from Sanskrit chekila "clever'.
A most striking instance of the way in which the distinctive group of vowels all was favoured in Middle Indo-Aryan is shown by the cases in which the u was due to the vocalisation of labial consonants. After vowels other than a such vocalisations do not seem to have occurred until very late in Apabhramsa and in the modern Indo-Aryan languages; thus sapatni 'rival wife' became savatti and sautti in Jain Mähäräştri (Supasaṇāhacaria), pravahana 'ship' became pauhana, navati 'ninety' became naui. When following on vowels other than a, the labial consonants do not undergo such a development until considerably later, if at all, and we for instance always find devara 'husband's younger brother', and sevaya
For the pronunciation of short a in Sanskrit see W. S. Allen, Sandhi (The Hague, 1962), p. 30, and P. Thieme, Panini and the Veda (Allahabad, 1935), pp. 89 ff. and 118. 15 R. Pischel, op. cit., p. 58.
Cf. R. L. Turner, A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages, Fasc. II (London, 1963), s.v. ekona. The Old Hindi forms agunis etc. might be explicable by a contamination between alina and eguna.
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