Paumchariyam Part 1

Author(s): Vimalsuri, Punyavijay, Harman
Publisher: Prakrit Granth Parishad

Page 46

THE LANGUAGE OF THE PAOMCHARIYA :
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speech which have penetrated into the literary Prakrit). He classifies Apabbramsal forms into three groups. The first consists of forms which also occur in the Ap.-language as a regular feature, like the gerund in-evi, the pronoun kavana or the negativ particle navi. The second comprises linguistic peculiarities, which are analogous to Ap. : . (i) Besides the genuine infinitive in-um and -ium, there occur also for them the absolutives in -ana, and -iūna, which is also the case with Ap. gerunds in -eppi, - eppinu, -evi, evinu (ii) The Loc. Plu. in -esu appears for the Inst. plu. and vice versa. In Ap. both the cases sound alike: Ap narahi, narehi. (iii) The Acc. Sg. of the stems in a, i (i), (u), ends in -an,-it, un accoding to the grammar, but the MSS write often for them a, 7, , irregularly and without agreement among themselves. The reason for interchange is to be sought in this that in the popular speech as in Ap. the referred stems sound alike in the Nom. and the Acc. (iv) Forms of the pronominal base etad in the Fem. : The Nom. sg. often ends in a short 'a' instead of a long one, e.g., esa Puri (35, 01 f. 46), esa hiz 37.62 coa Kaha (38.5) and in the Acc. sg. instead of eyam also ext is used, e. &, esā dehi suyā (98.7). In Ap. in the Nom. and Acc. the same base in the Fem. is eha; possibly the older popular speech bad for it the word 'esa' in the Nom. and Acc. which the poet has accepted in Prakrit. The third group consists of those vulgarisms which seem to be the predecessors of the forms usual in. Ap. Such a form is nojjai (=jfiāyate). This word frequently occurs in the Paumachariya to express an Upama or Utfreksa, and is the forerunner of the Ap. nāvai (which is originated from navrai in Prakrit, and Hemachandra informs us that narvai and najjai can be used for jayate)'
Dr. Ghatage critically examines the Lcc. forms (in-su) in Padmacbariya. He shows how in a few cases the Loc. Pl. form is used for either cases, e.g., (i) for the Acc. of the OIA to denote the object of verbs implying motion towards, (ii) for serving the function of the Abl. and (ii) for the regular Cenitive. and further adds that .All these usages are rare and only show how the Prakrit syntax was losing the precision of the OIA stage'. He shows also how in a large number of cases the form in-suis used as Inst. pl. as Loc. sg, and pl. He explains the anomalies as follows: "The real cause of all such anomalies can only be the habit of the writer due to the current usage of his mother tongue or the longuege of bis daily intercourse. The spoken language of the writer must have a usage in which the three forms of the Inst. Plu., the Loc. sg. and plu. were indiscriminately used and this fact has led the writer to take the same liberty in the literary language also, in which he has chosen to write his epic."
In the introduction to the Bhavisattakabā Jacobi writes that one MS. of the Paumacariya offers A number of orthographic peculiarities which rest upon the phonological features of Ap., namely, the change of the intervocalic m to nasalized v, which the MSS represent os MV or V. The said MS of the Paumachariya often writes jāmva, tāmva for Pkt. Jāra, tāra (Ap. jāna, tāna, jāra, tāta), almcst always savara for samara, and conversely Rāmaņa and Famrana for Rāvana and only once Nemala for Nevala. For Hanuma demanded by the grammar, the MSS of the Paümachariya write Hanumo, Hanuro, Hanuo, which suppose Haņuvo according to the characteristics of Ap.
Mahārājasri Punyavijayaji has noted a few more cages : emra, Tāvalitti (Tāmralipti), nivisa (nimişa), Hariņagavesi (ogama-si), paņāvemi (IX. 99), Vajjasamaņa (= vajraśravaņa - Vajrakarņa, XXXIII. 147) and Parimio (= Parivstah, V. 218, XXXVII. 14).
1. Introduction to the Bhavisattakabā (Translated from the Original German by Dr. Ghosal), pp.
363-65, Vol. IV, No. 4, (June 55), the Journal of the Oriental Institute, Baroda. 2. A Locative Form in Paümachariya, Sārdha Satābdi Commemoration (pp. 57-64).