Jain Journal 1996 04

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

Page 12

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JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXX, No. 4. April 1996
this particular area the Vedic language had great influence and in Vedic language -dh- is retained in many places where in classical Sanskrit -h- is found, e.g. classical iha > Ved. idha > Ś. idha, Cl. kathayati > Ved.* kadhayati > S. kadhedi, > As kadhati and so on. Though this retention of -dh- in an intervocalic position in Asokan inscriptions situated at different places is not uniform in this particular feature, we can only assume that this Vedic feature which was retained in Sauraseni dialect has a sort of pan-Indian development even in later inscriptional Prakrits. This intervocalic -dh- is also found in many inscriptions other than those situated very near to Mathura. And in the early Sanskrit dramas, particularly in the Mrcchakatika and Bhāsa, this feature is prominent. Obviously, the later the Sanskrit dramas the better the preservation of this feature. This short survey of the retention of -dh- in ancient Surasena land is sufficient to say that the retention of intervocalic -dh- in Sauraseni is one of the dominant features. At a very later stage there was a controversy with regard to the language of a Prakrit drama Karpūramañjari by name. Let me discuss the problem of this drama in this particular case.
The language of the Karpūramañjari is a controversial one. Some say that it is entirely written in Sauraseni, Rājasekhara being a man of Śūrasena, it was quite possible for him that his drama should bear the stamp of the Sauraseni language. The other type of scholars thinks that the prose passages of the Karpūramañjari are written in Sauraseni whereas the verses are in Māhārāstri. The main pioneers of this problem are the two scholars-Manmohan Ghosh and Sten Konow. The edition of Sten Konow's Karpūramañjari was published in 1902 in the Harvard Oriental Series. Though the edition is excellent, full of copious variant readings, his edition bears two types of language, one is Sauraseni and the other one is Māhārāstri. Sten Konow has retained the Māhārāştri features in verses and the Sauraseni features in prose passages, sometimes against the evidence of the manuscripts. Sten Konow has consulted several manuscripts, about 10, of which W manuscript represents the Sauraseni features even in verses. Sten Konow has not accepted them in the main body of the text, e.g. the very first verse of the Karpūramañjari is given in Māhārāştri even though his W manuscript has Sauraseni features as well. e.g. Sten Konow reads bhaddam hou where W manuscript has bhodu and Y manuscript has hodu. Though hodu is a hyper-prakritaisation, the bhodu reading is supported by the Prakrit grammarians. S. Konow has not accepted that, but he has given these variants in the footnotes. This has been done throughout his text. The loss of intervocalic -t- is found in the verses where it should be -d- according to the