Madhuvidya

Author(s): S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 268

242
M. A. MEHENDALE
edicts strictly conform to this treatment, an exception showing the north-western treatment is found only in the separate edict at Dhauli. Sk. pratijña-> patimña. d, Here even į gives the eastern form pațimna. .
4. All the versions at Dhauli and Jaugada generally simplify consonant clusters by assimilation. But clusters with y are sporadically preserved only in d and j and not in D and J. Following are the instances :
khy : mokhya- d, but-mokhiya- j. ny : ? (anya )- j; vy : samcalitavye j; sy : ålasya- j, but alasiya- d.
Preservation of clusters is eminently a north-western characteristic, as is shown by the Shah bāzgashi version. Yet none of the versions at either Shah. or Mānse hrā (with one exception) show any instance of the cluster with 3. As in the case of the softening of intervocal surds, this too may have been due to the eastern influence. However, stray instances of preservation of clusters with y are found in the northern and the western versions of Asoka's edicts.
khy: mokhya. in the Topra and Mirath versions in the north bhy : ibhya- occurs even in the Mānsehrā version where Shah. gives ibha-, vy: vyamjana. and katavya- occur in the Girnår version in the west. sy: isya. occurs in the Topra, Mirath and other versions of Pillar edicts,
It may be observed in passing that the clusters with ry an with quite often in the Niya Prakrit (cf. Burrow, $ 42).
5. In this connection it is very important to look to the four instances of the preservation of clusters with in the Jaugaţa version as read by Hultzsch. As we might expect, these instances, do not occur in the separate edicts, but in the versions of the major edicts. Preservation of such clusters is a characteristic of the north-western (and to a certain extent western ) inscriptions of Asoka. In the east such clusters, as a rule, are assimilated. The four instances, however, appear only in the readings of Hultzsch. They are -savatra J IL 4, prațivedayamtu J VI 2, drasayitu J IV 3, Piyadrasine J I 3. It is difficult to explain the presence of these four forms in J as the major edícts are believed to have been drafted first in the eastern dialect. However, Bühler, Senart, and Woolner read all these four instances without the cluster, and the estampages given by Hultzsch in CII Vol. I (new edition) show that all the four forms noted above are probably to be read without a cluster. Hultzsch reads here clusters with r not because t, p, or d show the usual curves at the top, but simply because these letters show slight scratches at the top or bottom.
6. The final -ā of the various declined forms is regularly shown in the D and J versions. But it is only in the separate edicts that sometimes this final -7 is shown as -a. Though this irregularity in showing the length of the vowel
met
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