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Vol. XXIII, No. 2
had spread to Mahārāsțra, and I would agree that the Sauraseni Agamic works are relatively later.
If there are any plans to publish the proceedings of the Seminar I should be very glad to receive a copy.
With best wishes, Yours sincerely,
K.R. Norman 6, Huttles Green, Shepreth
Royston, Herts
Dear Professor Chandra,
Thank you for sending me a copy of your report on the outcome of the Original Language' Seminar.
Of course I remain most interested in the progress of your reappraisal of the testimony of Acaranga MSS for the language of Amg, texts, and hopeful that you can publish more of the information gleaned. Would that someone might be inspired to produce facsimile reproductions of the principal MSS, in emulation of the Sata pitaka Series. That is something that ought to be demanded at every conference, before the MSS disintegate entirely.
Your findings seem to confirm that a return to the method of Jacobi's 1882 edition of Acarānga would be appropriate. In case of variation, he gave in italics the most antique-looking reading that happened to be available (e.g.... natam bhavati... ovavâiye...), even although, on his own showing, such readings can always be put down to an instinct to clarify the meaning. Thus he rightly could take note of effects like 1.2 māya me pita me and 1.6 mataram piya. ram. But I do not believe that it is safe to refer to this (as he did) as a 'retention of-t-: one is presumably less likely to find a -- in a purely Prakrit from like bhayk. With parinnā, and with the same sort of effect in hirannenaṁ suvanneņam elsewhere (ZDMG 1880), bis policy was to archaize with parinna and suyaņpenam.
I take the opportunity to congratulate you on your explanation of locative-ammi, which seems to solve one of the most perplexing
ms of all. It goes well with the texts' failure to distinguish between o- and 4, and with Bühler's suggestion that graphic confusion between n and n was involved ; that would seem to justify Jacobi in his willing ass to onod y., n., and an irrespostiv; of the
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