Jain Journal 1997 04

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

Page 38

BOOK REVIEW
135
this point, and from that point of view, he has been successfull in presenting the text faithfully. Linguistically also this text will help the scholars to find out different readings of the printed texts. I can vouchsafe sincerely that this text will furnish us lots of material for the future generation to work on.
It is true, indeed, that there might be some scholars who may not like all his arguments as applied to the text. Some of the readings he has selected for the main body of the text can be altered with the readings of the text given by him in the footnotes. The reading of the very beginning of the text may be altered as per reading of the other texts and some may feel that some of the readings may not represent the original language of the text. For example Candra's reading sutam me āusante(?)ņam can be altered as sutam me āusam tenam In this sort of reading the difficulty is with the euphonic combinations santena. This sort of sandhis is not yery happy in Prakrit. Moreover, tenam is a very common word used in most of the Ardhamāgadhi canonical texts and this is not to be separated by any way, particularly when it is an adjective to the next word Bhagavatā evam akkhatam. In some of the commentaries of the Agama text where the words tenam kälenam, tenam samayenam are found, some commentators tried to separate te and nam and so also käle and nam and take some sort of explanations which did not go on a par with the original intended meaning of the text. However, as far as the general notions are concerned, certain remarkable features of this edition can be mentioned.
One of the noticeable things in his edition is the absence of yaśruti in Amg., even though consciously or unconsciously in some places, perhaps, ya-śruti is printed, e.g. at page 118 $ 35 the reading jātimaranamoyanae which, to my mind, seems to be a sort of ya-śruti with the loss of the intervocalic consonant. The reason for this reading is that one of the editions has given this reading moyanāe without any variation. From his edition it appears that the author thinks that yaśruti is not one of the vital features of Amg., as most of the scholars thìnk, but is a later development in later Prakrits. Of course, in accepting the reading moyanäe the author has given his explanation for the retention of ya- (see page 12 & 12), yet this simple restoration shows that the author has partly accepted ya-śruti, at least, in those places where he has no other alternative readings available in any edition.
It should be borne in mind that ya-śruti has a long history in Indian languages. Panini (400 B.C) has recorded this phenomenon for the Sanskrit language (comp. Pā, viii. 3.18). This was also found, of course,