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Besides these are orthographic problems in Jaina texts. The use of ya-śruti, dental and cerebral n, the sporadic cases of vioceless changing into voiced, and so on. These problems will remain as long as the principles of editing Prakrit texts are not followed.
3. Manuscripts vs Grammarians : :
Having discussed some difficulties ard anomalies of Prakrit texts, what remains now is a great task for the scholars to determine the principles we follow in editing a Prakrit text. The basic problem is whether the grammarians or the manuscripts are to be followed. It is not easy to answer the question, particularly when most of the scholars think that any kind of linguistic phenomenon is possible in Prakrit. Perhaps under the tacit influence of this so-called ideas, some of the Prakrit forms have been incorporated in some editions which sometimes baffle and betray some of the basic notions of Prakrit language including dialects as enunciated by Prakrit grammarians. It is true that Prakrit grammarians are not very old, and most of the authors belong at a time when the language was almost stereotyped like Sanskrit. As a result the Prakrit features as embalmed and treasured up by the grammarians vary from author to author, except a few general forms which are common to all. The texts of Prakrit manuscripts are not always uniformly common; the variations are such that it is difficult to follow any particular reading from the Mss. The copyists are not always learned, more so, they may not have any knowledge or a very limited knowledge of the language and hence every possibility of making mistakes. The phonetics of the language is not always regular. Sometimes the copyists add something to the Mss. to improve upon the text. It is, therefore, not an easy task to edit a Prakrit text, as is normally the case with Sanskrit or with Pali.
4. Emendation :
It is my personal feeling that some sorts of emendations are necessary to edit a Prakrit text --if the Mss, of a particular text do not help us much-recording, of course, the variants at the foot-note. (Cf, my edition of Kramādiśvara's Prakrit Grammar, $ 26. pp. 19-22).
5. Conclusion :
The above are some of the specimens taken at random to show the linguistic problems of Prakrit and Prakrit textual criticism. It is
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