Mahavira Jain Vidyalay Suvarna Mahotsav Granth Part 1

Author(s): Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya Mumbai
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay

Page 522

'A SAINT LIKE THAT' AND 'A SAVIOUR': 61
We have seen that the old correspondence tayin Pali tädi (n) = Sanskrit tady (6) has also left its traces in the Ardhamägadhi passages, which we consulted with regard to tai. Already here we were allowed to witness a tendency to change the meaning of tai understanding it in the sense of trayī "Saviour". It is interesting to observe that the semantic development of tai-tayi (n) 9 moved in the same direction in both the Jaina and the Bauddha circles towards trayi, due the to conditions which have been explained in this paper. The meaning of "Guardian or Saviour" was finally accepted by both the communities, because it also suited the general tendency towards divinization of the sacred terminology at a later period.
With regard to the semantic development of tai-tayi towards trāyi, the principle laid down by Paul Thieme has to be kept in mind: "For one thing, a new meaning is not substituted in the way a new sound is, by a single act, so that the substitute appears in all contexts equally: "a new meaning" is really only our abstract formula for the fact that a word is used in certain contexts in which it was not used before and does not appear in others in which it did. New and old usage patterns may exist side by side for a long time.50"
To sum up our subject the following may be observed: In both the Communities of the Jaina and the Bauddha the sacred term tai on one side, tādi and tayi on the other exist to which the meaning 'a saint like that can be assigned. In this sense tai can already be traced in the earlier layers of the Ardhamāgadhi Jaina Svetāmbara Siddhanta. In later times at about the 7th or 8th century A. D. the meaning of this term changed into Saviour, Protector' as an epithet of the Tathāgata as well as of Mahavira and other Tirthankara. This became an established convention among both the Jaina and the Bauddha. The change of the meaning of tai into this particular
49 The reason for the fact, that the Jaina Commentators never set täi = tādṛk will be, that it was simply impossible for a later interpreter to see tādṛk in tai, after intervowel d had been dropped. Prakrit täi can only represent tapi or tyagi or trayi or tayi, but not tādṛk. Skt. tādré is represented by Prakrit tärisa or rarer by tädisa only, vide. Sheth's PSM. R. Pischel, Grammatik der Prakrit-Sprachen, Strassburg 1900, 99 quotes täiņam trayinām too.
50 Paul Thieme, The Comparative Method for Reconstruction in Linguistics, in Language in Culture and Society' by Dell Hymes, Harper & Row, Publishers, New York, Evanston and London, p. 591 (right column).