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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
taking into consideration the fact that Mahavira's teachings were, at the beginning, preserved and passed on from tongue to tongue by a line of expert and faithful teachers, 21 who must have avoided the default of hìnakkhara (faulty pronunciation or wrong reproduction), till the time of the first redaction at the council of Patalíputra, a respectable part of his voice or language and a considerable part of its spirit are likely to have come down at least in the early Angas like the Ayara, which work, Pischel points out, has “the most antiquated language of all”. 22 And because of the traditional belief in the Ardhamagadhi Agama as the Aptavacana, it is "best preserved and most copious”. 23 Thus the present canon is in the Ardhamāgadhi language which Hemacandra reasonably called Ārsa; but Mahavira, it can be said, taught in Old Ardhamāgadh7-4, a few glimpses of which have come down to us in the early works like the Ayaramga.
Now let me present a specimen or near-specimen of the great Teacher's voicc found in Ayaramga:
(1) Savve pānā piyāuya, dukkhapdikūlā. Savvesim síviyam piyam (2) Je gunc Sc āvahe, je āvahe Se gune. (3) Jassa natthi purā pacchā, majjhe tassa kao siya? (4) Dhire muhuttamavi no pamayac (5) Kā arai Ke anamde etthavi aggahe care (6) Purisa tumameva tumam mittam, kim bahiyā mittamicchasi ? (7) Jāc Saddhãe nikkamto tamev anupaliyā.
Does not the languages of these sentences appcar simple, natural and little refined? It is because of such qualities, Mahavira's Ardhamagadhi or Prakrit was compared with cloud-water by scholars like Nemisadhu, Ajada and others. And it is because Mahavira, a senior contemporary of Buddha, adopted for the first time in the known mass-instructional history of India, the language of the common masses viz., Ardhamagadhĩ, his teachings could straightway reach the hearts of the listners and win them over to the noble path of life of his ideals.
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