Jain Journal 1992 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 15

160
JAIN JOURNAL
us discuss the problem as experienced by some eminent scholars in editing their respective texts.
Albrecht Weber while editing the Bhagavati (1865)?, a Jaina canonical work, has come across the problem of y'a-śruti occurring in the fragmentary Ms. of the Bhagavati, and after much deliberation he considers it to be one of the exclusive characteristics of Jaina Prakrit, and by that he, perhaps, meant Ardhamāgadhi. But even in the Ardhamāgadhi texts the use of y'a-śruti is not uniform. Hermann Jacobi in editing the Kalpasūtra (1879, 8 and the Ācārānga-sūtra (1883)' has noticed it. In his opinion in the use of y'a-śruti Jaina Mss. follow no uniform practice. In the Mss. of the Kal pasūtra and of the Acārānga used by him, he has noticed erratic practice in Mss matter. But at the end he concludes by saying, "From an etymological point of view, it is more self consistent that y'a-śruti should be written after all vowels, because it is the remnants of lost consonant."10 Practically speaking, Jacobi has echoed the views of Kramadiśvara who indirectly prescribes y'a-śruti after all vowels whenever the intervocalic stops are elided. Incidentally it can be mentioned here that L. Alsdorf, while editing the Kumārapāla-pratibodha, 11 thinks that y'a-śruti is a characteristic feature of Jaina Mss. alone. In fact, it was Richard Pischel who was not always uniform with regard to the problem of y'a-śruti in several of his treatises. In his edition of Sakuntalā (1879) Pischel has not used any y'a-śruti in the Prakrit passages, even in those places where, according to Hemacandja (I. 180), y'a-śruti is expected. He has not corrected the Mss, as he has done in the case of Dešināmamālā by following the dictum of Hemacandra, e.g., pamaño instead of pamay'ão for pramadāḥ. In the description of the Mss. consulted by him, he has not even noticed any controversy regarding y'a-śruti. With regard to Prakrit passages he has said, "I have given special attention to the Prakrit passages, and I trust this edition will contribute to a better knowledge of scenic Prakrit than it has been possible to acquire."'18 His edition shows that Pischel is not keen to change the intervocative a into y'a, if it is not corroborated by any Mss., whereas in the case of Deśināmamālā
7 Ueber ein Fragment der Bhagavati, aus dem Abhandhungen der Koengl Akademie
der Wissenschaft zu Berlin, 1865, p. 397f. 8 The Kalpasutra, Leipzig, 1879, pp. 20-21. 9 The Acaranga Sutra, London, 1883, p. xv. 10 Kalpasutra, p. 21. Cf. Ghosh, Karpuramanjari, p. 42. 11 Der Kumarapala-pratibodha, Hamburg, 1929, p. 52, $ 2. 12 Kalidasa's Sakuntala, 2nd edn. HOS, Cambridge, Mass. 1922. 13 p.xi of the 2nd ed of Pischel's Sakuntala.