Gandhari Prakrit Version of Rhinoceros Sutra

Author(s): J C Wright
Publisher: ZZ_Anusandhan

Page 10

unlikely to be original. There is no similar objection to Pa. 30 samchannapatto yatha pārichalto, providing one does not like Niddesa, try to explain it with *pattasamchădita leaf covered'. Here Norman (in The Group of discourses, II, PTS, 1992) opted for samchanna- as <*samsanna ‘fallen' (EC samchinnu-). The coincidence with AV parņaśadá 'leaf-fall? is indeed notable: the forin pannasata in Pali prose shows a necessary defensive retroflexion (via *-sada). Construed also as equivalent to channaputto 'with its leaves hidden from view (referring to a părichatta ‘shady tree' out of season), it would constitute a clever play on the word chad- in combination with vyañjanāni 'manifestations'.
The poet has succeeded in contriving a pun on * sannapatra and chunna/vyakta. This would lead to difficulty, when śad-developed into sad- and sal-), and makes it likely that Pa. 10 is basically a drastic emendation using sumchinna. It is doubtful whether Niddesa and Ga. 19 were right to identify the shady tree of Pa. 30 (pāricharta) with the koviļāra of Pa. 10. This specification was presumably added in order to support the reading samchinna- 'shorn”, for the leaves of Bauhinia species have practical uses (G. Watt, The commercial products of India, London, 1908, 122), and these could lead to denudation.
In Pa. 10, Norman opted for samsina- as < samśirna 'fallen'. The form -sina occurs, however, only in C (emending samhina), in the Niddesa (Thai ed. sina for Søsinna), and in Ga, in the alliteration osad. / osi-. Its reading osadaita may be derived from the attested word apaśātaya- 'despatch' AV, Pali sāte- 'dispel' (again an instance of defensive retroflexion). Since the gloss samsirna ‘fallen' in Skt. 4 shares the semantic artificiality of Niddesa's samchinna 'fallen', it seems probable that it is a back-formation from Prakrit siņa 'fallen (whose existence is possibly confirmed by these Pa. and Ga. readings: cf. CDIAL, 12494, and EWA, II, 607). Association
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