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Language and Style
cli
the others. A few illustrations will suffice to prove his adherence to the Classical Sanskrit morphology and syntax. Thus, on P. 100, Asanga giving an account of how the mind of a yogin is purified, states:
एभ्यः कथं चंक्रमणचित्तं परिशोधयति । कतिभ्यश्च परिशोधयति । स्त्यानमिद्धात्स्त्यानमिद्धाहारकाच्चावरणात् परिशोधयति । आलोकनिमित्तमनेन साधु च सुष्ठु च, सुगृहीतं भवति । सुमनसि कृतं, सुजुष्टं, सुप्रतिविद्धं । स आलोकसहगतेन, सुप्रभास सहगतेन चित्तेन छन्नै वा, अभ्यवकाशे वा चंक्रमे चंक्रममाणः अन्यतमान्यतमेन प्रसदनीयेनालम्बनेन चित्तं संदर्शयति । समुत्तेजयति । संप्रहर्षयति । यदुत बुद्धानुस्मृत्या वा, धर्मसंघशीलत्यागदेवतानुस्मृत्या वा । काये वा पुनरनेन स्त्यानमिद्धादीनवप्रतिसंयुक्ता धर्माः श्रुता भवन्त्युद्गृहीता धृताः ।
In this passage, it is evident that though the author conforms to the morphology and syntactical construction of Classical Sanskrit, the influence of the Buddhist Sanskrit style of elucidation and description of the topic under discussion is obvious. Asanga, following the Buddhist canonical style of describing topics and elucidating them, does not avoid repetition of words, clauses and even the whole sentences. Naturally, he resorts to the analytic descriptive style of the Buddhist canons and gives various synonyms for the sake of clarity. For example, in elucidation of the nature of 'gotra', he enumerates bija, dhātu and prakṛti as synonyms which more clearly illustrate the concept. The style in the present work is lucid, analytic and at the same time descriptive, rather than obstruse and synthetic. Economy of words does not seem to characterize the style of Asanga. He rather chooses to indulge in detailed description through which he almost presents something like a graphic picture of the topic or the concept under discussion.
Curiously enough, this style of our author is not noticed in other works where he either comments on the original utterances or gives an entirely new shape to the ideas or subjects. For example, in the treatment of the subject found in the Asm. and the MSAB, the style of the
