Saddharma Pundarika

Author(s): H Kern
Publisher: Oxford

Page 14

xii
SADDHARMA-PUNDARIKA.
khalv ayam, Mahâbrahman, maya dharmo 'bhisambuddhah sukshmo nipunah. What follows, a pi ka me, Brahman, ime gâthe abhikshnam pratibhâsatahi, is but a slight, not very felicitous modification of what we read in the Mahåvagga l. c.: api'ssu bhagavantam imâ anakkhariyå gåthâyo patibhamsu pubbe assutapubbà.
Evidently from the same source are the verses in Trishtubh uttered by the god Brahma, Mahâvagga I, 5, 7, and those found in Lalita-vistara, p. 517, 3 seq. The former text has:
påturahosi Magadhesu pubbe dhammo asuddho samalehi kintito, apapur' etam amatassa dvaram
sunantu dhammam vimalenânubuddhama. The other runs thus :
vâdo babhůva samalair vikintito dharmo hy asuddho Magadheshu purvam ; amritam mune tad vivrinîshva dvaram
srinvanti 4 dharma vipulamo vimalena buddham. On comparing the two texts we may infer that the Påli version is purer, that vådo babhûva is a corruption of pådù babhůva or something like it, answering to a Sanskrit prâdur babhava, but we cannot deny that the stanzas have the same origin.
In Mahavagga I, 5, 12, the Lord addresses the god Brahma with the following Trishtubh:
apărutâ tesam amatassa dvårå ye sotavanto, pamuñkantu saddham.
" Obviously an unhappy attempt to Sanskritise a Pali or Prakrit pati. bhamsu; it ought to have been pratyabhâsish tâm.
· The text is corrupt; we have either to read vimalânubuddham, a Tatpurusha compound expressing the same as what the text exhibits, or vimalena buddham.
SHi is meaningless, and only a clumsy device to satisfy the exigency of Sanskrit phonetical rules, which are not applicable to Prakrit.
• Read srin vantu.
* Read dharmam vimalena. Vipula probably owes its origin to a dittography.
6 I do not understand this pamuikantu, i.e. let them cast off, loose or emit. Perhaps we have to read payužgantu, let them practise.
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