Part 9 - A Link between Gāthā Sanskrit and Pure Sanskrit

The Gāthā part of the Vaipulya Sūtra literature written in the mixed Sanskrit what is broadly named the Buddhist Sanskrit literature belonging to the Pre -Mahāyāna and pro-Mahāyāna Buddhist. The Tibetan Kanjur therefore rightly distributes that the Mahāyāna sūtra is separate than the Vaipulya sūtras and others. In this respect Nalinaksha Dutt clarified thoroughly. The nine Dharma Paryaya texts are otherwise named vaipulya sūtra, because vaipulya literary means 'extensive'. Nine Dharma Paryāyas are generally enumerated as follows:

1. Aṣṭasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra
2. Saddharma-puṇdarīka-sūtra
3. Lalitavistara-sūtra
4. Laṇkāvatāra-sūtra / Saddharma-Laṇkāvatāra-sūtra
5. Suvarṇa-prabhāsa-sūtra
6. Kāraṇḍyavyūha-sūtra / Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra
7. Tathāgataguhyka-sūtra / Tathāgataguṇa-jñāna-sūtra
8. Samādhirāja-sūtra
9. Daśabhūmīśvara-sūtra.

At the outset the title may require elucidation The Ārya Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra (AKS) is a Mahāyāna Vaipulya Sūtra text, from which the trend of mixed Sanskrit text is studied, along with some other specimens in the Vaipulya Sūtra. The phrase, mixed Sanskrit may be exemplified in a verse cited from the Lankāvatāra Sūtra is also one of the Mahāyāna Vaipullya Sūtra text in Sanskrit.

Yasyāṃ ca rātryāṃ dhigamo yasyāṃ ca parinibritah //
eatasminnantre nāsti mayā kiṃ citprakāshitaṃ //3//
     Nanjio, p- 144.^[1]

Tr.—“The night at which attainment adhigama was achieved and the night at which the life impulse ceased, nothing no utterance by me (Śākyamuni the Buddha) occurred.”

For dhigamo is approved by Pāṇini as an exceptional instance (Whitney 1962, 399:1087a). Similar cases are found in the Vedas. It may suggest that irregular forms were sanctioned by nipātana-rules, exceptional. Presumably such Prākṛit forms had been invoked in the pre-Pāṇinian dates. Otherwise it was colloquial Sanskrit.

It is evident that the verse is in mixed Sanskrit in which Pāṇinian Sanskrit composition is mixed with non-Pāṇinian usages. A faithful Pāṇinian Sanskrit scholar will remark this verse as a corrupt one. F. Edgerton describes it as a specimen of Hybrid Sanskrit. M. Winternitz has specified it as a mixed Sanskrit along the lines of S. Senert.

The Pure Sanskrit here referes to the Sanskrit language composed correctly according to the rules prescribed by Pāṇini (c. 450 B. C). A specimen from the Lankāvatāra Sūtra:

Kathaṃ hi shudhyate takrh kasmāntakrh prabatrate //
kathaṃ hi dṛshyate bhāntih kasmādbhāntih prabatrate //12//
     Nanjio, p-24.^[2]

Tr.—“What is plausible argument, how does tendency to argue arise? What is error (statement), how does an error occur?”

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Bunyiu Nanjio (ed.), Lankāvatāra Sūtra, Sloke - 7, Kyoto, At the Otani University Press, 1923, p 144.

[2]:

Bunyiu Nanjio (ed.), Lankāvatāra Sūtra, At the Otani University Press, 1923, p - 24.