Shadavashyaka Banav Bodh Vrutti

Author(s): Prabodh Bechardas Pandit
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Page 48

ORTHOGRAPHY
$ is written for kh. Here also B does not confuse it. It carefully writes kh. In fact, it is so careful that it writes kh even when it is not attested historically, e. g. mukhaka for mūşaka (this word is found in B folios 143 recto). Also note a peculiar confusion of reading at $ 526 mukhya, where P reads manusya. But this does not mean that B writes kh for s, instances are available where it also writes s; e. g. sarişau, meruśişari, şamda. But, generally B does not interchange them to a great extent. Bh follows generally the same practice. L and P write ş for kh to a much greater extent. The following are some instances where B and Bh have kh while L and P have s: pāşai, desai, deşi, lānşai, pasatiyām, pāşāna, dişāli, olasiya, raşe, olaşi, murşu, harşiya. It may be noted here that Dave's statement that "roughly Sk loanwords are written with kh and OG words are written as ş” (GL p. 2), does not hold good in our text.
3.7. Thus far scribal habits But there is another factor in the structure of the text. Jain narrative literature in general, and our text in particular, derive their inspiration from the popular Pk tale. The author has Pk narrative before him, as found in Avassaya literature, and he writes them in bhāsa for the comprehension of the ordinary householders who do not understand Pk. Thus, Pk words and idioms find their way into our OG text. It may not be out of place to mention here that as Sk in the Hindu families, Pk in the Jain families is a live even to-day. An imperative sg. with -ha ending, words like puttu, mittu, for putru, mitru, (sometimes unable to decide orthographically ) are evidently Pk influences. What is more interesting is, that our author has forgotten at some places whether he is writing Pk or bhāsā, and thus in S 142-49 Pk and bhāşā combine in a peculiar mixture. It is difficult to say when Pk ends and OG begins, and this unique piece of prose explains how much popular Pk had influenced early Gujarati prose style.
3.8. Consideration of Orthography in Critical Apparatus.
The text as a whole is preserved faithfully in these mss. Our earliest ms. is only one year later than the composition of the text, the other mss. are not much later. They all generally agree except on the point of spelling or in some cases of dialectal variation. It is unlikely that scribes would copy minor differences in spelling from their adarsa, they would rather follow their own habits, as we saw in the nasal signs or the dir. sg. of a-stems, especially in the bhāsā texts where spelling was not considered so seriously as in the classical texts such as Sk or Pk It was, therefore, futile to speculate about the exact spelling of the archetype 'i. e. Codex Taruņaprabha, and I have not attempted it. What I have attempted is to present the text which appears to be nearest to the archetype, with its roughness of spelling. I have not tried to normalise the text with a uniform system of spelling as, I think, this would have given a wrong picture of the orthography of the text.
To note each variation of spelling would have burdened the text with unnecessary details, so I have followed the following scheme :• (a) For the paragraphs 38, 73, 85, 86, 94, 108-113, 142-149, 365 and 386, complete
collations of all mss. are given in all details in order to give an idea of the
orthography. Thereafter :(6) L is completely omitted because it is a direct copy of Bh (3-12). (C) B is followed with respect to nasal signs, deviations from which are not
recorded. (d) Occasional spelling mistakes e. g. final i/i, u/ū of the mss. other than B are not
recorded. (e) B is followed with respect to s/kh and v/b variations, deviations from which
are not recorded. (f) As P consistently writes -tau for -itau and thakā, thakau, for thikā, thikau, its
deviations on these readings are not recorded.
It will be evident from a glance at the text that this scheme has effectively lightened the text without depriving it of critical material.