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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In Search of the Original Ardhamāgadhi
Magadhi (AMg.). The reasons are historical. Pali the fortunate of the two, got royal patrons like Aśoka and Kaniska, while tracts of AMg. were preserved in their memory by Jain sages who depended on the support of their community which itself had to go through different vicissitudes resulting in their migration towards the West in the Mahārāṣṭrī-speaking area.
K.R. Chandra
Not that the present Pali is the actual Buddha-Vacana (Buddha's speech). Nor is it the language of the first Sangiti at Rajagṛha, convened by Maha Kassapa immediately after the emancipation (nirvāṇa) of Buddha and tried to pool together Buddha's words as remembered by 500 direct disciples of Buddha.
Dr.B. C. Law in his History of Pali Literature traces in Pali the influence of Western Prakrits, especially the Girnar Edict of Aśoka. Whatever be the reason, but Pali could retain some semblance to its older form.
AMg.texts were preserved in their memory by Jain sages. But when devastating famines visited Magadha, their patrons ordinary people themselves became victims of the famine and could hardly support the sages--repositories of certain sections of the Agama. Hiralal Kapadia in his History of the Canonical Literature of the Jains gives us a long list of such sections which are irretrievably lost. Hemacandra, the great polymath, in his Commentary on Yoga Sutras notes: "Finding that the Jina Vacana (Jain Canon) was almost lost (ucchinna-prāya) as a result of the famine the revered Acaryas Nagarjuna and Skandila got (the remnant of it) written down in books".
(जिनवचनं दुष्षमाकालवशादुच्छिन्नप्रायमिति मत्वा भगवद्भिर्नागार्जुनस्कन्दिलाचार्यप्रभृतिभिः पुस्तकेषु न्यस्तम् ।)
Finally Devardhi Gani convened a conference at Valabhi in Kathiawād (Gujarat) in the 6th Cent. A.D. and recorded the available AMg. canon in books. This is generally regarded as the standard AMg. Canon now.
After the fixation of the Canon, the era of scribal errors, emendations and additions (all unauthorised) began.
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