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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
A Sanskritist who reads for the first time a Buddhistic Sanskrit text such as the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka is struck at once by peculiarities of vocabulary and style which differentiate it from normal Sanskrit. If he limits himself to the prose parts, ignoring the verses, he will rarely encounter forms or expressions which are definitely ungrammatical, or at least more ungrammatical than, say, the Sanskrit of the epics, which also violates the strict rules of Pāṇini. Yet every paragraph will contain words and turns of expression which, while formally unobjectionable (if, perhaps, non-Pāṇinean), would never be used by any non-Buddhist writer.
page 502 note 1 See his brilliant and important article of 1912, JA., Ser. 10, vol. 20, pp. 495–512. I hope that Professor Lévi would accept my formulation of the matter as above, which I think differs little in principle from his, though he uses the term “precanonical” rather than “protocanonical”, meaning, I take it, antecedent to the historically known Buddhist canons. Since I think (and I presume the great French savant would agree) that a “canon” in some sense doubtless existed in that language, I prefer “protocanonical”, with Professor de la Vallée-Poussin (Indo-européens et Indo-iraniens, p. 202). The most important bibliographical references on the subject will be found in these two places and in J. Mansion, Esquisse d'une histoire de la langue, sanscrite (1931), pp. 105–9, where will also be found interesting speculations as to the manner of development of the curious “Buddhistic Sanskrit” dialect.
page 504 note 1
This use of āsī or āsi (Skt. āsīt or āsīs) is common Prakrit. In the Saddharmapundarīka we find not only āsīt or equivalent (as well as asti) so used, but also, e.g., abhūt with subject aham or tvam (SP., 22,11 and 64, 11 both prose); and in fact any third person singular verb may be so used (e.g., aham . . . akarod, 258, 7). In such a late text as the 
s Sūtra I note (8, 6) atra tāḥ parṣadaḥ sarvā ekaikasmin hi dṛśyate (3 sg. with pi. subjects). In Pali, atthi (Skt. asti) is used with plural subject (Geiger, Pali, § 141), but that seems to be as far as Pali goes in this direction.
page 505 note 1
Similarly, etad abhūt (or abhavat, or the like) = Pali etad ahosi, “this thought occurred to . . .” (with genitive). An interesting construction, for which I do not know a parallel in Pali, but which is rather frequent in hybrid Sanskrit, is mā (haiva) with the optative in the sense of “isn't there danger that . . . ?” SP., 76, 5 (prose) tat kiṁ manyase śāriputra : mā haiva tasya puruṣasya mṛṣāvādaḥ syād . . .” so what think you, 
? isn't there danger that lying would pertain to that man (i.e. that he would be guilty of lying) ?” A useful “Outline Syntax of Buddhistic Sanskrit” has been published by Sukumar Sen in the Journal of the Department of Letters, University of Calcutta, vol. 17 (1928). It is, however, far from complete; e.g., it fails to record the mā + optative construction just mentioned.
page 506 note 1 The “romanized and revised” edition of SP. by Wogihara and Tsuehida, Tokyo, 1934 ff., of which I have seen the first two parts, corrects some of these errors, but eaves the majority untouched. It by no means supersedes the Kern-Nanjio edition. I cannot refrain from expressing regret, in passing, that the editors saw fit to compose their footnotes in Chino-Japanese, a needless hardship for western users of the book, and peculiarly inconsistent in a work which prints the Sanskrit text in roman transliteration.
page 508 note 1 Both editions emend to vineṣyatĭ, misunderstanding the matter here treated. Very rarely do we find a final short vowel before an initial consonant group in a metrically long syllable. Such cases are not a whit commoner in the MSS. than before single initial consonants. In all of them some special explanation must be sought, or emendation resorted to.
page 510 note 1 The u-forms occur also, very often, in the language of the “Prakrit Dhammapada” of the Dutreuil de Rhins MS., edited first by Senart and later by Barua and Mitra. A systematic linguistic study of this dialect has yet to be made; it has evident affinities with our dialect, and must certainly be taken into careful consideration in future work on this subject. To identify it with our dialect would be premature, to say the least.
page 511 note 1 There are clear cases in the Lalitavistara, e.g. 49, 16 (Lefmann), na. cāsti tṛptiṁ (all MSS.).
page 514 note 1 I reserve for another occasion a fuller discussion of the oblique cases of fem. nouns, merely observing that the usual endings (when not regular Sanskrit) in SP. are, for all oblique eases, āya, īya, ūya. The first of these agrees precisely with Pali, but Prakrit (āe, āa) is not far removed. In other Buddhist works we find āye (ābhāye, instr., Lalitavistara, 122, 20, Lefmann), īye (kṣāntīye, ibid., 162, 3), etc.
page 514 note 2 But note Lalitavistara (Lefmann), 74, 4, bodhisattva brahmakalpasamniblie (nom. sg.; no v.l. recorded). This is the only case thus far noted in LV.
