Note on Hemchandras Abhidhanchintamani and Sanskrit Karmavati

Author(s): Nalini Balbir
Publisher: ZZ_Anusandhan

Page 13

फेब्रुआरी २०११
१७९
*vasanta-vāra CDIAL 11441, springtime and *hayanavāra CDIAL 13978, winter as etymons of two Kati words; Skt. tithi-vāra attested for example in Weber No. 261 (manuscript colophon), CDIAL 5811 *tithivāra "a festival”, cf., for instance, Hindi tyohār and Guj. tehevār.
Ski., karmavāți can easily join this group if we assume that it is a wrong or hyper-Sanskritisation. The second element is not Skt. vāti but a Sanskritisation of a Middle-Indian or vernacular form in-vāri. The feminine form -vāri instead of -vāra, also shown in some of the terms mentioned above, can easily be justified because of the implied or explicit association of such terms with the feminine noun tithi. This solution seems more satisfactory than taking -vāți in k. with its face value "enclosure”, as the traditional explanation does, for it would be the only example where vāți has a metaphorical meaning for which no support is found anywhere, not even in modern languages (see CDIAL 11480). On the semantic level, the boundary between vāți "enclosure” and ovāra “the time fixed or appointed for anything”, hence “day” or “time division" can be felt as rather thin, which makes the word at least superficially understandable without too much difficulty. (b) karma- with time divisions
The list of divisions of time in increasing order found in Hemacandra's Abhidhānacintāmaņi is neither the only one of its kind nor the earliest. The convenient synoptic table established by W. Kirfel shows that the designations correspond to those found in the Amarakośa and in the Mārkaņdeyapurāņa. For the smaller units, in particular, Hemacandra uses nimeșa and kāșthā, like the former, and not āvali, ucсhvāsa, stoka, etc., which are typical of Jaina sources.20
20. W. Kirfel. Die Kosmographie der Inder, Bonn-Leipzig, 1920, p. 334 and 337-338. Another convenient table of the divisions of time in the Jaina tradition is found in Jainendra Siddhānta Kośa vol. 2 p. 216 (under