In Search of the Original Ardhamagadhi English Translation

Author(s): K R Chandra, N M Kansara, Nagin J Shah, Ramniklal M Shah
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 117

REVIEWS AND OPINIONS ON ACARANGA
One of the noticeable things in his edition is the absence of ya-śruti in Amg., even though consciously or unconsciously in some places, perhaps, ya-śruti is printed, e.g. at page 118 : 35 the reading jätimaranamoyanae which, to my mind seems to be a sort of ya-śruti with the loss of the intervocalic consonant. The reason for this reading is that one of the editions has given this reading moyaņāe without any variation. From his edition it appears that the author thinks that ya-śruti is not one of the vital features of Amg., as most of the scholars think, but is a later development in later Prakrits. Of course in accepting the reading moyaņāe the author has given his explanation for the retention of ya-(see page 12:12), yet this simple restoration shows that the author has partly accepted ya-śruti at least in those places where he has no other alternative readings available in any edition.
It should be borne in mind that ya-śruti has a long history in Indian languages. Pānini (400 B.C) has recorded this phenomenon for the Sanskrit language (comp.Pā.viii.3.18). This was also found, of course, very rarely in Pali probably as a remnant of Sanskrit (Geiger. Pali Literature and Language , 60). In Prakrit, of course, it is abundantly found because some of the intervocalic consonants constantly drop out as a result the remaining vowels after 'a'or 'ä'have a slightly (ya) like śruti which is linguistically also very very correct. D. C. Sircar has mentioned an ya-śruti in the Būrhikhan Brahmi Inscription in Bilaspur District, M. P. He says "The epigraphy may be palaeographically assigned to a date about the close of the first century B.C."....."The language of the Inscription is Prakrit. Interesting from the epigraphical point of view is the ya-śruti in the names Payāvati for Prajāpati and Bhāradāyī for Bhāradvājī. But there is no case in which a surd has been modified into a sonant." (Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society, Culture and Heritage Number, Bangalore, 1956, pp.221-24). And in almost all the manuscripts of the Amg. texts this type of ya-sruti is found. So, I do not know how
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