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THE LATE MIDDLE INDO-ARYAN SUFFIX -ĀṆA
Of the numerous possessive postpositions and suffixes current during the Middle and Late Middle Indo-Aryan period, several like kera-, taṇa-, -ära- and -cca- have been noted by Prakrit grammarians'. The suffix -āṇa- has, however, so far remained almost unnoticed by the grammarians. The stem tujjhāṇa(y)a-, 'belonging to you (sing.)' underlying the word tujjhāņau (occurring in a passage of the Prakrit Campu 'Kuvalayamālā', dated A.D. 778-9) has been analysed as containig tujjha, the genitive singular form of the second person pronoun and an element, supposed to be either -na(y)'a- or -āņa (y)a-. The strongly Apabhramsa-coloured passage just referred to has several obscuritics. Until recently a properly edited text of the 'Kuvalayamālā' was not available. Positing a possessive suffixṇa(ya)a- or -ana(y)a- on the basis of such a dubious and isolated occurrence could not but appear presumptuous.
But there is another passage from a tenth century Apabhraṁśa text calling for consideration in this connection, namely, the following passage from Puspadanta's Mahapurānas (dated A.D. 957-65), 88.24.5 khaddhau jchi pisiu morāṇau, tehī ṇa kiyau vayaṇu morāṇau. The first morāṇau of this passage is glossed as mayūra-sambandhin, "pertaining to the peacock' in the 'Mahapurana' MS. styled A (Alsdorf) and as mayūrasya, 'peacock's', in the MS. styled C. The second morāņaù is glossed as mama sambandhi, 'pertaining to me', in A and madiyam, "my', in C. On the basis of these interpretations, Alsdorf has translated the passage as follows: 'Die Pfauenfleich essen handeln nacht nach meinem Wort.' Yet morāṇau in the sense of 'my' seemed to him a strange word and hence in a note on the passage reproduced above he has observed2 = 'Wieso morāṇaya=madiya sein soll, vermag ich nicht zu sagen; cin derartiges Wort ist, soviel ich sehe, ganz unbekennt'. When we compare the forms tujjhāņau and morāṇau (the latter having mora-, 'my' as a constituent). the assumption of a possessive suffix -āṇa(y)a- becomes more plausible. It is further strengthened by the form moraṇa(y)a-, 'peacock's'. In the light of several indubitable ocurrences I stumbled upon here and there in Apabhrmsa
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