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
I was not surprised when I found six inexplicable variants of the word kṣetrajña () in Mumbai's Mahāvira Jaina Vidyalaya (MJV.) edition of the Acaranga Sūtra in Dr. Chandra's Hindi book: Pracin Ardhamāgadhi ki Khoj mem. As a text critic, one gets used to it. But I was surprised to find that Dr. Chandra collected 75000 forms (cards) from ancient Jaina texts like Acaranga, Sutrakṛtānga, Rsi-bhāṣitāni, Uttaradhyayana, Daśavaikālika and compared them with those in Pali Sutta-nipata and Eastern Edicts of Asoka. With such tremendous labour, Dr. Chandra could ascertain some linguistic characteristics of the Jina Vacana-that too when no Prakrit grammarians including Hemacandra, treated AMg.in their treatises. Dr. Chandra's work was trail-blazing. That was in 1991.
Dr. Chandra persisted in his search for Jina Vacana. In 1994 Dr.Chandra published his monograph, "Restoration of the Original Language of "Ardha-Magadhi Texts." Herein Dr. Chandra presents a critical comparative and scientific phonological and morphological study of variants of some vocables from Acaranga, Part I (MJV.Ed.1977) and their old variants available in palm-leaf and paper MSS. of the same text. It proves the obvious influence of Mahārāṣṭrī on AMg. canon due to environmental circumstances, passage of time and Mahārāṣṭri-oriented scribes who were naturally inclined to use pro-Mahārāṣṭrī forms for corrections (?), emendations, additions, etc..I doubt whether orthodox Jain teachers can (could) even think of "polluting" the Jina Vacana by modernising it for their followers.
With my friend Satya Ranjan Banerjee, I congratulate Dr. Chandra for this brilliant piece of research with meticulous care, though I do not agree with him (Dr.Banerjee) in tracing the affinity of AMg. with old Persian.
The present work under review is an epoch-making piece of research. Herein Dr. Chandra tries to reconstruct the original AMg. canon of Acaranga, Part I, Chapter 1. Dr. Chandra is eminently capable of undertaking this epoch-making somewhat revolutionary work.
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