Jain Journal 1996 04

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

Page 22

120
JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXX, No. 4. April 1996
and also by the preponderance of Prakrit verses quoted in the Dhavalā. But about the time of Virsena the tables had turned against Prakrit, and Sanskrit had got the upperhand as revealed by the present portion of Dhavalā as well as its contemporary literature."
"The Prakrit of the sutras, the Gāthās as well as of the commentary, is Sauraseni influenced by the older Ardhamāgadhi on the one hand, and the Mahārāṣṭri on the other; and this is exactly the nature of the language called Jain Sauraseni by Dr Pischel and subsequent writers. It is, however, only a very small fraction of the whole text that has now been edited critically so far as was possible with the available material."
6 Manuscript vs Prakrit grammarians
It is at this point a controversy is raised with regard to the problem of manuscript vs Prakrit grammarians. From the time the Europeans started editing Prakrit texts, this question got its prominence. As far as I know T. Bloch in his Vararuci und Hemacandra (Gütersloh, 1893), was the first scholar who raised this question while discussing some of the readings of the sutras of Vararuci and Hemacandra. In his opinion the reading of the manuscript should be given priority despite the fact that it goes sometimes against the grammarians. He further says that there has always been a historicity in the different manuscripts of the same book which might reflect earlier usage of a particular reading preserved fairly in a chronological order. Naturally he has given priority to certain readings of Vararuci which he thinks are older specimens of the language than Hemacandra. Pischel, on the other hand, is of different opinion. In his book Grammatik der Prakrit Sprachen (Stuttgart, 1900, § 42) he has attached much more value to the grammarians than the manuscripts. He has not ignored the readings of manuscripts, but what he says is that the manuscripts should be corrected, if necessary, in accordance with the rules of Prakrit grammar. The glaring instance of his theory is the Pkt passages of Kalidasa's Sakuntala which he has corrected in accordance with the rules of Hemacandra. This is greatly seen in the 6th act of the Śakuntala particularly in the Magadhi passages of the fisherman. As the manuscripts of that passage is corrupt and not inconformity with the rules of Prakrit grammar, he has corrected them in accordance with the rules of Hemacandra's Prakrit grammar. In short, Pischel has not totally ignored the manuscripts, but his emphasis is on the correctness of the text. At a much later time E.B. Clark in his article Magadhi and Ardhamāgadhi published in the JAOS, 44, 1924, pp. 81-121, has reiterated this problem. But he could not find out any