Desinammala

Author(s): Hemchandracharya, R Pischel
Publisher: Department Public Instruction Bombay

Page 9

Desināmamālī,
Friday, the fifth day of the bright fortnight of Phālguna (February March). This Ms, is related to BF of the first edition. The Ms. was written by one Panditaratnanidhanagani, pupil of Jinacandra Sūri.
Z. - A Ms. of the text and commentary. No. 438 of 1882-83, foll, 60, Incomplete. It stops with T353 in VIII. 12. The right hand ends of leaves from fol. 40 have been gnawed by rats but no letters have been lost. It is a fairly well-written Ms. and agrees in general with the Ms. markad G in the first edition. The Ms. is not dated, as the final leaves are probably lost, but it does not appear to be more than two hundred years old. Marginal corrections are found here and there. In this Ms., too, there is confusion between the same letters which have been mentioned in the Introduction to the first edition (p. 28).
The text of the Deśināmamülā may be considered to have been settled with considerable purity. I have, therefore, allowed the text to remain as it stood in the first edition. In a few places, however, a eupbonic y has been substituted for 37 to make the text consistent throughout, although personally, I hold a quite different view of the matter. Hemacandra in his grammar (I. 180 ) calls it a and allows it after also. Mārkandeya in his grammar (II. 2) requires it after all vowels and remarks that it is a rule of TETETETT. It is, therefore, clear that the rules regarding the substitution of y for 3t refer to pronunciation and not to writing. There are certain rules, though a few, which refer to the pronunciation of letters. Such, for instance, are Präkrtaprakāśa, XI. 5 and Prākrtasarvasva, IX. 27. The rule relating to aid is one of this kind. From the rules of Hemacandra and Mārkandeya, as well as from the practice of Jaina Mss. it will be seen that y is heard not only after 3 or 311 but also after other vowels and Mārkandeya says that is similarly to be pronounced as ft. The proper way, therefore, is to write st in all cases and leave the reader to pronounce it according to his practice. A similar practice occurs with regard to the vowels 5 and 31). It is admitted on all hands that the Prakrits possess these vowels in the short and long forms. They are to be pronounced short when followed by a conjunct consonant. Both the long and short vowels are represented by the same character and the short vowels are only heard in pronunciation. In the same way, the vowel remaining after the elision of the consonants is always to be written as 37 but it has to be pronounced as 3 when preceded by 37 or short or long. In the text of the Deśīnāmamālā, Prof. Pischel has taken the trouble of correcting every 3r into T, when it is preceded by 37 or 371. I have allowed them to stand as they are rather than take the trouble of rechanging every such y into 37, and changed a few others which have been left by oversight in the first edition, although, as I have explained above it is not necessary to do so. I have done so for the sake of uniformity.
In a few other instances, I found that, on etymological considerations, the reading adopted in the text was not the correct one and that one of the readings noted in the critical notes was to be preferred. Thus, for exam