Indian Antiquary Vol 03

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 94

80
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MARCH, 1874.
accession and coronation. Adding this 118 to Inscriptions of Asoka, which show that Pali the 270 B.C. (the year of Asoka's accession) differs from Mågadhî more than it does from we obtain 388, exactly the same date as is the other Prakrits. Màgadhi, the dialect of assigned to the Nirvana of Maha vira. the province of Magadh a, of which Patali.
Professor Kern does not think that the dis- putra was the capital, was employed by Asoka crepancies between the chronological traditions | in various inscriptions found in the east and cenof the different Buddhist schools of the North tre of India. In the northern and north-western at all affect the justice of his conclusion, as ho parts of the country he made use, for the same attaches no credit to those traditions in general purpose, of the dialects there prevailing. The but only to such of them as present the ap- Pali has none of the linguistic peculiarities of pearance of credibility. Nor is the unanimity real Màgadhi, as found in the inscriptions, of the Southern Buddhists any proof of the but, on the contrary, approaches nearest to the correctness of their chronology, as, if it were, Saurasenî of the dramas, although it has forms we should, on the same ground, have to admit belonging to all sorts of dialects, excepting only the Chinese and Japanese date, which differs such as characterize the Magadhî. The Påli, from the Cingalese. But he thinks that in in Dr. Kern's opinion, is shown by its phonetic Ceylon there must originally have been diver- system to be of later date than the language of gent traditions, which were afterwards harmo. any of the Inscriptions, and has a striking renized, as well as this could be managed. We semblance to the corrupt Sanskrit found in the conjecture that the earlier existence of these books of the Northern Buddhists, the principal divergencies may even yet be recognized. elements in both being drawn from an actually According to one tradition, he thinks Asoka's existing language, in the one case the Sanskrit, reign was considered to have begun 100 years, and in the other some one of the Prakrits and according to a second 118 years, after the (excepting Mågadhi). But neither the corrupt Nirvana. Instead of choosing between the two, Sanskrit nor the Pâli were living tongues for the Cingalese writers have adopted both. But those who employed them, but artificial lanthe same Asoka could not have begun to reign guages which were no longer under the wholeboth 100 and 118 years after Buddha's death. some control of the current forms of speech. There must therefore, they concluded, have been This alone explains how both contain so many two Asokas, one who came to the throne 100 absurd and incongruous words and forms, disyears after the Nirvám, and a second who playing mistakes of a kind which only scholars became king 118 years after the first.
could commit, but which never ocour even in I now return to Dr. Kern's remarks on the the most barbarous popular dialect. Some Pali (pp. 12 ff.). It appears, he says, from various examples of these blunders of the Pali gram. sources, that the Buddhists laboured to make marians are then given, such as vímánsd from out their religious doctrine to be older than it mimánsá, appábadhatá instead of apábádhatá, really was. A result of this disposition was that atrajo instead of attajo from atmaja. Prof. Kern they were led to represent their sacred lan- considers that, with the imperfect data which guage, the so-called Pâli, as identical with the we possess, it would be rash to try to decide Magadhi, and as the source of all languages. from what popular dialect, if there were not In the grammar ascribed to Kachchiyana a more than one from which it has been drawn, verse occurs stating that the Pali is the Magadbi the principal eluments of the Pali were derived. spoken by men, &o. at the commencement of the One thing, however, is clear, viz. that Pali is creation. (See, however, my Sanskrit Texts, not Mâ gadhi, and that it is decidedly later than ii. 54, note 991, where it is stated, on the autho- any dialect of the third century before our era. rity of Mr. Childers, that the verse in ques. In tracing the origin of the På li we encounter tion is not found in Kachchayana). This the same difficulties as we meet with in our enclaim put forward on behalf of the Pali, quiries into the original dialect of the Gathas in to be the oldest of all languages, Dr. Kern sets the books of the Northern Buddhists, such as the aside as absurd. (See Sanskrit Texts, ii. 65 Lalit: Vistanı and Saddharme Pundarika. From ff.) He also denies that the Pali is the same as beneath the varnish of Sanskrit with which these the Magadhi. This he says, is proved by the Gáthás are overlaid, the original Prakrit shines