Jain Journal 1992 04

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

Page 6

260
hence the oldest. Pischel in his Grammatik der Prakrit Sprachen (§§ 516, 517) has given some forms which are the remnants of Vedic Sanskrit imperfect (§ 515), perfect (§ 518) and Pluperfect (§ 519). Otherwise the entire systems of Sanskrit past tenses (imperfect, perfect and aorist) are lost in Prakrit, and are replaced by the past participial forms ta and tavat, of which again the latter form is extremely rare.
JAIN JOURNAL
In judging the older forms of Prakrit what is wanted is to trace whether the forms in any way are connected with the other Sanskrit forms or not. Sometimes the older Vedic forms are preserved in Prakrit without realising that these Prakrit forms have come down to us through some rare Vedic occurrences. For example, the Prakrit words, naim and māim (aṇa ṇāim nañarthe | māiṁ marthe || Hc. II 190-1) are the remnants of Vedic nakim and mākim (RV. VI. 54. 7). In a similar way, we have Vedic mākiḥ- Greek me-ti's (unre's) meaning 'no one', 'none' 'never' and nakiḥ- Gk ti's (T's), Latin quis Av cis also meaning 'no one' 'nothing' which are supposed to be very old even in Vedic. Just as we have kim, so also we have Vedic kiḥ (e.g. ayam yo hotā kiruḥ saḥ, RV. X. 52.3) from which the Prakrit forms kissa and kisa have come down to us, though this form does not occur in classical Sanskrit.
In short, it can be said that this small book shows Dr Chandra's insight into the problem and records here the amount of indefatigable labour and sincerity he has given in finding out the material from the printed texts. This idea is welcome, and I personally feel that this should be a standard book of research for tracing the original Amg. I think that every student of Prakrit must have this book by the side of his study table.
I, therefore, heartily commend Dr Chandra's inspiring and excellent study to the learned readers throughout the world.
-Satya Ranjan Banerjee