Indian Antiquary Vol 47

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 48

44
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ FEBRUARY, 1918
not known then; and no wonder, because the conditions for that sound were not present ; viz., 572- as results of accent on . Consequently Dr. Tessitori's theory that sta-574 must pass through TT-before forming the wide -ff, will not fit in with all these principles noted above. A small indication will bear this out : Sanskrit becomes in Prakrit in cases like the causal forms of verbs : qara-NITE, cara- c, - TT and the like. (Vide Si. Hema. VIII-iii-149.) This must obviously be the result of a passing into 57€. Similarly the change of TT, etc., to 17, etc., and of and we to indicate the change of a to sa first. This will show the nature of the union between and stand and , and and 3, even when derived from 4-5. It will be seen, thus, that sy and and and are the generators of the narrow 7 and it, while si and 47 those of the wide and off. For it cannot be seriously contemplated that the narrow - thus formed turned all at once into the wide ones, or that +7 and +3 could generate both the sounds, narrow as well as wide.
I have already referred to Dr. Tessitori's gracefully frank admission that, when he wrote his "Notes", the wide sound of e ando (as is) was never present before his mind, and he states there that 7 and 3 became é (T) and A (i) narrow. May it be that, now when he has discovered that both Gujarati and Mâravadi have the wide èrò ( - ), the first impression still clings, of course partially, in so far as he regards the wide sound as resulting direct from 75-573 without an intermediate step? *
One word more. It will be remembered that the wide sound of 5-ff was quite unknown to Prakrit or 0. W. Rajasthâni; and that it came into Gujarati and Mârava ci alone during the early history of their growth, probably about the early part of the seventeenth century of the Christian era. This period coincides with the time when the Moghul Empire had just been consolidated by Akbar, and Akbar's great efforts had brought Arabic and Persian literature into close contact with Indian literature. May I therefore venture a suggestion that this wide sound, which is peculiarly similar to, or at least extremely near, the wide sound of Arabic and Persian words of the types of art and , was matured under the indirect influence of these foreign languages ? It is certainly not unlikely that the sound in -79 should have recognized a close likeness in the foreign word or that in staat should have found a similar correspondence in that of , and that thus a silent current of phonal influence generated and established itself. I am aware that Hindi -the language of a province where the Moghul influence was wider and more powerful has the sound not identically wide with Gujarati and Mârava i. This can be very well accounted for by the comparatively sturdy character of the people speaking Hindi who tried to steer clear of this foreign influence, and only partially succeeded, for, after all, the similarity between the new indigenous sound and the foreign sound was really very close.
Finally, it is possible that the question may be asked-“If the wide -ff are the results of se-19 how could the formation contain and sit which comprise 7+ and W+7, without the presence of and in the precedent stage?” The answer is this : As just observed, the wide s-sti are really new and, in a way, foreign sounds; they comprise
(a) the foreign element,
and (b) the nature of and it; of these (a) is predominant and (b) subordinate, and this latter is contributed by the rand remaining, as it were, in the form of a latent influence in the u and . This need
33 I must here admit that, when I wrote my Note in the Indian Antiquary to which Dr. Tensitori han alluded, I had mistaken the circumflex over e and o(4-6) for the grave ( ) when reading Dr. Tessitori's Note The former marks the narrow sound and the latter the wide one.