Mahavira and his Teaching

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

Page 86

VARIANT FORMS OF THE LOCATIVE IN MIDDLE INDO-ARYAN 79
northwestern
western
elsewhere
-smin
But in the literary Middle Indo-Aryan dialects the situation was more complex, and there was even some differentiation in the development of -smin according to whether it occurred in the nominal declension system on the one hand, or in combination with monosyllabic pronominal stems on the other. The situation can be summarised as follows:
Magadhi
Sauraseni Jain Sauraseni
Pāli
Ardha-Magadhī
Māhārāṣṭrī,
Jain Māhārāṣṭrī
Apabhramsa
Nominal Declension
-ahim
(-e)
-mmi, -mhi (rare)
-smi
-mhi
-si
Pronouns ja-, ta-, ka
11.
-ssim
-ssim
-mmi, -mhi
-mhi, -smim (Sanskrit borrowing)
-msi, -mmi, -mmi
-mmi, -mmi
-him, (-em)
C. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENDING -smin
1. The Sauraseni and Magadhi locatives of the type tassim, tassim, like the Aśokan -si reflect 'regular' phonetic changes with the assimilations of -m- to the preceding sibilant (Pischel: § 65, Sen: 69). The corresponding Magadhī nominal ending-āhim shows the further development of -sm- to -ss->-->-h-. This has been explained by 'the phonetic weakness of terminational elements in Indo-Aryan' (Turner 1927: 230). But the status of terminational element is not in itself connected with phonetic weakness: after all -smin is a terminational element in the
locative pronominal form ta-smin. It is mainly a matter of accentuation. In tasmin the consonant cluster -sm-occurred at the beginning of the second syllable where it was in the immediate vicinity of the stress accent (Pischel 46), hence the
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but note the pronoun assim