Morphological Evidence For Dialectal Variety In Jaina Maharastri

Author(s): Nalini Balbir
Publisher: Nalini Balbir

Page 15

JAINA MĀHĀRĀSTRĪ
517
genitives rāiņā, rannā, ranno, piunā, piuņo 82, and vice-versa 83. Hence, probably, the suspicions of modern scholars. In his critical edition of the Kokkāsa-story (included in the Āv commentaries), Alsdorf introduced the usual răină instead of keeping rāyāe, which both Leumann and the Indian editors had read 84. In another case, it seems to me that Jacobi was wrong to leave aside the reading rāyāe, provided by a good manuscript, and prefer rāie "in the night” which makes no good sense in the particular passage 85.
But how are we to explain these forms which are, to my knowledge, not listed by any Prakrit grammarian or any modern study? One could think of the dative in cãe, which may have spread to masculine and neuter stems in -a starting from the feminine 86. I would be inclined to put forward a possible analogy with feminine -ā stems, for from a synchronic viewpoint there is no difference between mālā, an ordinary -ā stem, māyā “mother "which in Prakrit belongs to the same category 87, and rāyā, if we consider the nominative forms. “The reaction of the feminine on the masculine" 88 is not unknown : in Pali, for instance, usumă, usmā “heat” < Sk. úşman (masc.) can be inflected as a feminine -ā stem, as the oblique in -āya shows 89, or as a neuter. In the present case, however, we would have to admit that a purely formal analogy has prevailed over the basic masculine-feminine gender distinction in words referring to animate beings, and this may explain why these forms quickly disappeared. mālā māyā piyā rāyā mālāe māyāe 90
82. Pi § 391 and 399.
83. For instance : rāyāe varagă pesiyā ĀVC II 58, 4; rannā ĀvH 558b, 7; pirāe suram AVC II 206, 8; piunā AvH 718a, 3; rāyāe sūtā bhaniyā AVC II 279, 7; rannā ĀvH 814b. 9; rāyāe H 694b, 4; rannà AvC; rāyāe samīvam gao AvH 418b, 3; ranno C 547, 4; pijāe kūram anami AVC II 57, 12; piuno AvH 558,6, 1, etc.
84. AvC 540, 6' = ĀvH 409a, 8 = AVM 512b, 2; L. ALSDORF, Zwei neue Belege cur "indischen Herkunft" von 1001 Nacht, ZDMG 14 (1935), p. 302 with fn. 2 = Kleine Schriften, p. 545. Alsdorf's edition is based on the manuscript which was prepared by Leumann when he thought of continuing his Āvasyaka- Erzählungen.
85. H. JACOBI, Ueber die Entstehung der Cvetambara und Digambara Sekten, ZDMG 38 (1884), p. 2 = Kleine Schriften. Wiesbaden, 1970, vol. II, p. 816 : so ( = Sivabhūi)... rāyānam uvagao "..." rannā bhaniyam "..." tāva rāie (v.l. rāyāe) annayā bhanio. The fact that the preceding sentence has rannā could explain Jacobi's choice. The same situation is repeatedly seen in Av. commentaries; it could account for the fact that the abnormal rāyāe was eliminated.
86. Pi $ 364. 87. Pi $ 389: "Die Feminina der Verwandtschaftswörter werden auch als -ā- Stämme flectirt".
88. J. BLOCH, Indo-Aryan, p. 140. 89. CPD II 13 s.v. AMg umhā has both fem. and masc. genders.
90. This form of the instrumental is precisely available in the JM of the Av. Erzählungen : see Pi § 392.