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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
The editions of Sanskrit dramas based entirely on manuscripts written in the local vernacular script, called Ārya Euttu, present interesting subjects for linguistic study. The Prakrit of many of these dramas, and especially the dramas wrongly assigned to Bhāsa, has been examined by various scholars, and the general conclusions derived thence have been utilized as one of the arguments in support of the Bhāsa-theory. But careful study of the original texts and the printed edition of them shows that in transforming the original Malayali script into Devanagari print some liberties have been taken by the local editors, including Mm. Dr. T. Ganapati Sastri, the late lamented editor of the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series. The first thing that arrests the attention of the student who examines the manuscripts is the presence of small circles written by the side of the letters, as for instance in: MUHUoTÅ, EoVĀ, etc. The general principle that has guided the editors has been to double the consonant following the small circle, when it stands by the side of the letter, and to treat it as an anusvāra when it stands above the letter. This procedure of giving two different values to the same symbol is, however, very much open to question.
1 This view implies that Kérajan Prakrit turned into anustāra or anunāsika a short vowel before a consonant reduced from a group of two or more consonants, e.g. ẽvaṇ, muhũta'ṇ (of. Pkt. aṇsa, daṇsaṇa, from aśva, darśana: Pischel. Gramm d. Pkt.-Spr. § 74). It may be asked how far this theory, which explains the small circle of the MSS. as a nasal sign, is applicable to spellings like AoA (Skt.ārya), or SUoA (Skt. sūrya). On any hypothesis it is difficult to find a phonetic explanation for spellings of this kind. If the little circle denotes reduplication of the following consonant (as is assumed in the editions of the Trivandrum texts), the a following the circle, not being a consonant, cannot be reduplicated; if the circle stands for a sound something like -yy or -jj (Pischel, § 284) it cannot be followed by a syllable beginning with a–; and if it represents an anusvāra or anunāsika, it is hard to find exact analogies for the change of e.g. ayya and suyya (Skt. ārya, sūrya) to ama or āa and suṃa or sūa. But the last hypothesis, that of Mr. Pisharoti, seems on the whole to present the least difficulties; in Apabhraṃśa the change of -yya- to -vva- (Pischel, § 254) and of -va to -ṽa (id. § 261) is well attested, hence we may assume a process ayya, suyya > avva, suvva > āva, sūva āa, sūa. The Prakrit of the dramas is certainly not Apabhraṃśa; but perhaps the peculiar conventions of stage-pronunciation in Kērala might have produced there the same phonetic phenomenon in this connection as that which occurred in Apabhraṃśa.—L. D. B.
