Mahavira and his Teaching

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

Page 90

VARIANT FORMS OF THR LOCATIVE IN MIDDLE INDO-ARYAN 83
established in the locative case of nouns of the -i and -u declension (aggimmi, bahumme). They gradually spread to nouns of the -a declension at the expense of the original -e ending, particularly in the east, as is evident from the Asokan inscriptions (Bloch 1950: 19). In verse, owing to the contingencies of metre, usage seems to be very free; -smin and -e can occur in Pāli verse, and they occur quite indiscriminately even in the most archaic Jain verses: Ā yāramga-sutta 9.1.1.
sisiramsi addha-padivanne tam vosajja vattham 'when the cold season has half begun he should abandon
his outer garment' here -msi and -e are used side by side.
Although the use of the derivatives of -smin is slightly more limited in Ardhamāgadhī prose., it is nevertheless comparatively wide-spread, e.g. logamsi occurs more frequently than loe in the meaning 'in this world': -e remains mainly in fixed formulae such as antie 'in the vicinity of' (I.1.8.) and in place-names. This is characteristic of the eastern dialects: the other extreme is represented by Saurasenī where only -e occurs.
2. THE USAGE OF MAHĀRĀŞTRI
It is in the central and western dialects that the subtle distinctions between the two types of locative ending are most noticeable. In the early Jain Māhārāstrī of the Vasudevahindi the distribution of me and -smin is practically the same as in Sanskrit, with -smin confined to pronominal adjectives and pronouns, e.g. p. 80.17 eyammi ya desayāle 'and at that time and place', 178.17 tammi ya vamse 'and in this family'. The locative of a noun like majjha 'middle' is invariably majjhe. -mmi is extremely rare in both nouns and adjectives and seems to convey a certain emphasis on the location when it does occur: simantammi samthio sattho 'the caravan was stopped right at the edge