Mahavira Jain Vidyalay Suvarna Mahotsav Granth Part 1

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

Page 674

SOME INTERROGATIVE PARTICLES IN PRĀKRIT : 205
canon. The most striking of these locutions is the use of the slightly emphatic and adversative particle se to introduce a question. This particle has been derived by Pischell from Vedic sed, sa+id. This derivation no longer seems tenable on account of the Pāli evidence, as given for instance by M. Mayrhofer, and from the evidence of Middle Indo-Aryan in general : the distribution of the particle se shows it to be quite clearly a Māgadhi form of the neuter singular of the pronoun sa and equivalent to the form tam <tad of the other Middle Indo-Aryan languages. Alsdorf has shown that the particle se was used in the Dhauli and Jaugada versions of Asoka's edicts in a slightly adversative sense and it appears to have been characteristic of the extreme eastern parts of India. Examples from the canon are for instance : se keņatthenam, Goyamā, manussä tiviha pannattā—'why then, Gautama, are human beings considered to be of three kinds ?' (Bhagavai 1.2); se kenaţthenañ bhante evam vuccai—'why then, Sir, is it said that..?'. Bhagavai I.1). In the first of these examples, perhaps even more than in the second, it is quite clear that se has developed the function of a particle and is no longer simply the neuter form of the pronoun. The introductory se is also frequent in other kinds of interrogative clauses, as in the very usual phrase se kim tam then what is..?', e.g., se kim tam neraiya--what then are the creatures of hell?' (Pannavaņāsuttam I). This kind of construction is found in the earlier as well as the later portions of the canon, and occurs for instance in a really old text like the Süyagadanga (II. 1) : se kiñ anga puna vaya...mucchămo-'why then, are we confused?' The use of the particle se to introduce a question appears to be characteristic of the Ardhamāgadhi and to a lesser extent the Jaina Māhārāstrī of the svetāmbara Jaina canon, and does not seem to have survived in post-canonical literature, though there are a few instances of the use of se in various other constructions in the later texts. This may be partially due to the regional restrictions of the use of se and partially to the fact that it was a weak particle without any very distinctive meaning. It does reappear occasionally in the less stereotyped Māhārāştri texts, as for instance in the Līlāvaīkahā, but only as a meaningless adjunct to any kind of phrase. It has been weakened to si in Māhārāștri, just as the particle je was
1 R. Pischel, Grammatik der Präkritsprachen, Strassburg 1900, p. 299. 2 M. Mayrhofer, Handbuch des Pali, Heidelberg 1951, p. 109. 3 L. Alsdorf, Contributions to the Study of Asoka's Inscriptions'
Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute, Vol. 20, 1960, p. 259.