Mahavira and his Teaching

Author(s): C C Shah, Rishabhdas Ranka, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Bhagwan Mahavir 2500th Nirvan Mahotsava Samiti

Page 25

18
K. R. NORMAN
believing it to be an instrumental; others thought it was a locative (which was also -eh (m) in the Eastern Prakrit) and replaced it by -esu; others recognised it was a dative and replaced it by a genitive, which functions in place of the dative in some dialects of Middle Indo-Aryan. Exactly the same distribution of case forms is found in Aśoka's 6th Rock Edict (paragraph F) where the Eastern dialects have mahamatehi 'to the ministers'. This form is replaced by mahāmātresu at Girnar in the West, and by mahamatrana at Shahbazgarhi in the North-West.
11. In pada a the reading suddhesaṇā u (< tu) in N is equally metrical. In pada d I suggest reading siya for siya which is found in all the editions, although other readings giving the same scansion could be postulated. In Pali both siya and assa exist as the optative of the verb as-. The latter form would suit here, but I have not seen assa elsewhere in Ardha-Magadhi. Brough has pointed out that the reading seyyo in Dhammapada 390 is probably based upon a form *siyya, developed metri causa from siya (Gandhārī Dharmapada, London, 1962, p. 183), and a comparable form developing to *sejja on the analogy of other optatives in -ejja could be postulated here.
12. In pada d all the editions read javan' atthae, but the metre shows that Santisuri's reading javan'attham is correct. Santisuri's version of this pada is metrical if we read va for vā.
13. For the reading ayariehim in pada c, compare Pāli ācāriya (Critical Pali Dictionary, Volume II, 1, p. 32).
15. The metre shows that the reading uvaṭṭitta in V and N cannot be correct. The commentary in N explains it as uddhṛtya-niḥsṛtya. In pada b the spelling samsāra is intended merely to show that the final syllable is to be scanned as short, and could equally well have been printed as samsarā. Neither transscription is intended to show how the syllable was actually pronounced. In the same pāda the reading bahu in S is equally metrical. The reading anupariyattamti in N is unmetrical. N also includes a reading anupariyatanti in the commentary, but explains satatyatena paryaṭanti,
For Private Personal Use Only