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ON THE GATHA 56 OF THE NALINIKĀJĀTAKA
M. A. Mehendale
While demonstrating verbal similarities between the Gathas of the Nalinikäjäātaka (526) and the stanzas in the narrative of Rsyaśṛnga1 in the Mahabharata, Lüders2 compares Gāthā 56 of the Jātaka with the stanzas 1-4 of the Adhyāya 113 of the "Aranyakaparvan". The concerned Gathā runs as-bhūtāni etāni caranti tāta virūparūpena manussaloke / na täni sevetha naro sapañño āsajjanaṁ tassati brahmacārī // The last of corresponding Mbh, stanzas (3.113.4) starts with the line-asajjanenācaritani putra..... The meaning of the first three lines of the Gatha is clear:
"These are evil beings, my child, who, assuming different forms, wander among men. A man of intelligence should not associate with them."
The fourth line of the Gatha offers difficulty. Lüders has drawn attention to the verbal similarity between asajjanam of the Gatha and asajjanena of the Mbh. stanza. He rightly observes3 that in the Pali word āsajjanam we do not have asajja, but asajjana. The next word tassati, according to him, is also possibly corrupt since there is a variant nassati. Now, the last line of the Mbh. stanza 3.113.3 reads pāpācārās tāpasas tān na paśyet. Hence Lüders opines that one would be tempted to read passati in place of tassati. The whole line, as emended by Lüders, then reads as nāsajjanam passati brahmacārī "one who observes chastity does not see (associate with) a person of bad conduct."
In this regard, however, one would differ from Lüders. In the first instance, on the basis of tan na (pasyet) of the Mbh. stanza, he is required to add na at the beginning of the Păli line and read näsajjanam in place of asajjanam. Next, he is also required to look upon tassati as a corrupt form of the original passati3.
All this can be avoided and one can yet get good meaning out of the line asajjanam tassati brahmacări. Lüders' has pointed out that some words in Pali having an am ending are not acc. sg. but abl. sg.". In his opinion -am was the regular abl.sg. ending in the eastern dialect of the original Buddhist canon. When this original canon in the eastern dialect was translated into western Pali, some of the features of the dialect of the original canon crept into the Pāli translation'. To the examples of abl. sg. in -am (like dukkatam for dukkatā Dhammapada 314, etc.) collected by Lüders from Pali one may now add asajjanaṁ. Treating this form as abl. sg. the line can be rendered as : "one who observes chastity recoils from a person of bad conduct."
Jain Education International
Annotations :
1. This is how Lüders spells the word throughout in his article, and not as Rsyaśṛnga which is found in the critical edition of the Mahabharata.
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