________________
232
REVIEWS
in other MIA dialects. He also now gives up his earlier view that BHS has close relations with Ardhamāgadhi, the sacred language of the Jains (BSOS 8.501 ff.)
A useful survey of BHS literature, which represents both the Mahāyāna and the Hinayāna schools of Buddhism, is given in the lectures 2-6. Quite appropriately the lecturer devotes some more time to such important works as the Mahāvastu, the Lalitavistara, and the Saddharmapındaríka. Lectures 8-10 present what the lecturer calls 'the normal grammar' of the dialect underlying BHS. For the sake of convenience he omits here the very rare and sporadic forms which he has already dealt with in his big grammar. The lecturer convincingly shows that the study of metre is very essential if we wish to get a correct picture of the phonology (and also of morphology) of BHS especially in respect of the length of vowels and the pronunciation of clusters at the beginning of the words. The metrical evidence clearly shows that at bottom BHS pronunciation was middle Indic, whatever the form in which the words appear in the manuscripts to-day. An instance of how a systematic study can lead to correct interpretations is to be found on p. 86 where the lecturer points out that the tendency observed in BHS to form denominatives like buddhati etc. from the past passive participles shows that the Pāli and the Prakrta laggati cannot come from *lagyati (as was supposed by GEIGER $ 136 (2) and PISCHEL 8 488) but from lagnati. But what the lecturer says about the genesis of the loc. sg. of a stems in -esmin etc. may not be the case. He regards, for instance, a loc. sg. form like lokesmim as a blend-form, a cross between the two loc. forms lokasmir and loke. It might, however, be investigated if the starting point of such locatives was not a frequent use of loke and asmin together which resulted into loke(a) smin.
In lecture 1 as well as on p. 61, the lecturer refers to his theory that it is not possible to speak of one original language of the Buddhist canon. On his own admission "Many of these canonical works no doubt went back to the earliest times, and were carried everywhere in similar forms; but there is, as we saw in our first lecture, no reason to assume linguistic unity even in the texts as they were thus spread by missionaries; there is no reason to assume any single 'original language of Buddhism' (p.61)." However, the attitude of the Buddha towards the use of various languages as vehicles for religious propaganda, to which the lecturer refers in his first lecture, is not against the hypothesis of there being one language of the original canon. It only shows that the Buddha was definitely against this original canon' itself being imposed on his disciples at all places in India; he was, on the other hand, in favour of the use of the regional
Madhu Vidyā/603
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
