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Vol. XXI, 1997
BRIEF NOTICES
179
The author of our present book, Dr. K. C. Chandra, has taken a clue from both these scholars and many more too, and endeavoured to tread a new path of a synthetic viewpoint of describing the language objectively and tried to examine how far the rules of the traditional grammars apply to Prakrits in general and Ardhamāgadhi in particular. Taking his clues from old word-forms preserved in the palm-leaf manuscripts the readings whereof are recorded in some of the critical editions of Curnis and Agamas of Jainism, and also from the fact that Mahāvīra who preached in Ardhamāgadhi was almost a contemporary Buddha from chronological point of view, and not far removed in distance in point of geographical region of the sojourn for preaching, and from his logical inference that Pāli, the mother tongue could not be far removed from Mahāvīra's original mother tongue, Ardhamāgadhī, Dr. Chandra has embarked upon the task of discovering genuine original features of the text portions of edited Agamic works. His comparative study of traditional grammars is ultimately targeted at finding the original features of the language in which Mahāvīra originally or actually preached. It is to this end that he has discussed his subject in fifteen chapters and beginning with Bharatamuni and the genesis of the Prakrit tongue in general, and then deliberating on the changes of initial and medial consonents, vowels, he has tried to discover two forms of the Ardhamāgadhi, one ancient and other of medieval ages, and has proposed or suggested lines on which the so-far-critically-edited Jaina Āgamic texts are now required to be reedited. Although his views on the yoni' of Prakrit are hardly convincing, his discovery has far reaching implications, which are likely to be instrumental in raising new controversies inspite of their basically sound academic foundation. Dr. Chandra deserves our sympathy for embarking on a highly sensitive project, and also our encomiums for the academic courage he has exhibited in propounding his new discovery. N.M.K.
