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

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REVIEWS AND OPINIONS ON ACARANGA
attested here and there in the manuscripts and those stated by the editors. The majority of differences are based on phonetical facts or rather, no doubt, on orthographical facts which do not let one note with rigorous exactitude. They are often tributaries of habit more or less conservative so good that they do not reflect exactly the state of the language that they transcribe. One must above all count with the conventions followed by certain transcribers (copyists) (cf. The first volume edited by MJV, Introduction, pages 87,111, etc.)
Hence, in itself the spelling can only imperfectly inform on the point of evolution of a language at a given point of time, even less, in the occurrence than the manuscripts are several centuries later than the time of compilation of the canon, furthermore from those where were composed the most ancient treatises. Statements of the morphological facts are more convincing, especially when they are examined in the passage where the metre is a guarantee of the quantity of prose than, often, of the form of origin.
In all, even if one hesitates to blindly follow K.R.Chandra, it remains that his work, by a rare precision would be to contribute to the history of codicology and that he invites to the critical reading of the editions even those most scholarly.
Further more, on a lot of points, the history of languages used by the Jains demands a more detailed investigation, as had been shown, a few years ago, a chapter which examines the language of the Mūlārādhana in the thesis of Karl Oetjens, Śivarya's Mūlārādhanā, Note: For insight on the fast unto death-Literature of the Jains (Hamburg, 1976).
Prof. (Madam) Colette Caillat Original in French, BULLETIN D'E TUDES INDIENNES, PARIS (English Translation by Nalini Balbir) No.15. pp. 417-8, 1997
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