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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.orgAcharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
( IIIvi )
complete verses in Prakrit as well as in the Fa-kheu-ni-u and the Mahāvastu Dhammapada. The two verses seem to have been constructed out of one older verse of three lines by thurst. ing one extra line within its first two lines. The added line differs in each case as regards its expressions. But seeing that the verse occurs in one of its additional chapters, we have reason to think that the model presupposed, in this particular case, by the Prakrit text, is rather the Mahāvastu Dhammapada or the text with 700 verses which was commonly used by the people, according to the Chinese translators' statement, in their time. If so, the Prakrit text must be taken to be later in point of date than and a combination of the Fa-kbeu. king original and the Mahāvastu Dhammapada. Now let us examine the second process of multiplication in order to see whether any fresh light could be thrown on the point at issue.
The second process differs from the first by the fact that it has served to multiply the common verses by the substitution of certain set Buddhist expressions as well as by the const. uction of a new group of verses on the model of an older one. Its historical importance mainly coosists in bringing into promi. nence some moral qualities or virtues implied in an older verse or in a group of verses, thereby setting forth a greater and greater analytical faculty and power of manipulation exercised by the later compilers. In illustration of it, we can first examine the famous 'Supraudbu '-group (p. 105-8). We notice that the Pāli group consists of siz verses and the same is the case with the Fa-kheu-king original as can be inferred from Beal's translation of its commentary (Sec. III. "Srāvaka", pp. 64-55).
The Prakrit group, as it now survives, is an exact counterpart of the Pāli, but 17 verses being absent from the existing Kharosthi Ms. immediately after the sixth verse, it is difficult to ascertain the number of verses contained in the whole group. Ilaving regard to the fact that the group in the Udânavarga contains no less than 17 verses, i.e., 11 iu addition to the six
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