Gandhari Prakrit Version of Rhinoceros Sutra

Author(s): J C Wright
Publisher: ZZ_Anusandhan

Page 13

intention of the Niddesa is unclear, but it does not construe salila-as an implausible locative. The problem is reminiscent of mātang'araññe va "as in an elephant-forest' in Dhp 329. For this, Norman, The word of the doctrine, PTS, 1997, 141, prefers the commentators' nominative mātango ... nāgo, although his explanation 'mātanga is a particular sort of elephant' contradicts his 'någa is a special sort of elephant' at Dhp 320. He reverses both Ps, where mātanga is taken to be the generic term and the word-order is corrected to någo va, and Dhp-a, where the issue is complicated with a popular etymology ("... mātango ti laddhanāmo... ayam hatthināgo') and the problem of word-order is evaded. (In Dhp 322., however, according to Dbp-a 'mahānāgā ti ... mahahatthino', nāga is generic.) Hypermetric mātang'araññe looks like a misguided emendation of *gaj'araññe, that seeks to improve upon the tautological reading *gaj[0] ... nāgo.
Ga. 20b seems to have felt obliged to replace the fish of Pa. 28b with a * bālo šaumto 'youngbird', whose triştubh-ending scansion would mimic, and hence support, that of Pa. 28a samyojanāni (for which Skt. grhivyamjanāni and Ga. gihibamdhansā]ņi, as in Pa. 10a and 30a, would then be prosodic emendations, less appropriate to the rhinoceros metaphor). Salomon postulates instead an improbable phrase jālam ... balam'strongnet' (p.149), but the metre of Ga. 20b (isallam yassā] bhitv[ä] balam sau[m]to) would still be corrupt (even if the compounding error, yaşa for Pali va, is disregarded); and the word-order would be awkward. The passage Ja V 268, 15*, to which he refers for the adjective, is presumably to be read as sāmā ca soņā sabalā ca gijjhā (with sabala as another inauspicious colour), as apparently conjectured instead of ca balā in Bd and as translated by H. T. Francis (sabalā ‘with tavens too'). A spelling like balam for nominative bālo cannot be ruled out (p.95).
The 12-verse Sanskrit text has been understood to at