Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

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STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SÜTRA
[Ch. II
the major portion there occurs Mahārāstri; while Dr. Manmohan Ghoshhas tried to show in the introduction to his book
Karpūramañjari' that the so-called Mahārāstri is at its foundation a later form of Saurasenź which was carried to the south where it gathered some words and forms of the local Prākrta and thus it was used in literature there in course of time.
The language of the Bhs shows that it cannot be that Arddha-Magadhi, the language in which Lord Mahāvīra preached his Law to the people, for it bears the characteristics of the Middle Indo-Aryan stages of language. It may be called later Arddha-Māgadhi. It is influenced by the early Middle-Indo. Aryan stage of language (600 B. C.-200 A. D.) in which the intervocal consonants are not lost but assimilated, e. g. appa (1, 2, 21) = al pa, sappa (15, 1, 547)=sarpa and a simplification of the grammatical structure is noticeable. In the language of this canonical work there is found also a tendency to drop the intervocal consonants, e.g. nayare (1, 1, 4)= nagara, etc., which indicate the Middle-Middle (200-600 A. D.) and later Middle-Indo-Aryan (600-1000 A.D.) stages. The grammatical structure of its language is old and simple and its phonetics are much influenced by the Middle-Indo-Aryan stages, particularly the Middle-Middle-IndoAryan stage, for the language has undergone changes with the march of time. The analysis of all these facts leads to the conclusion that the language of the BKS represents the MiddleMiddle-Indo-Aryan stage.
So the contents and language of the BIS lend support to the assignment of its date to the period beginning from the sixth century B. C. to the sixth Century A. D.
FOURTH SECTION Style of the Bhs :
The style of a work is the voice of words uttered by its author, producing an effect on the feelings of the readers
1 Rarpūramañjari-Dr. M. M. Ghosh, p. 48.