The Jatakas and Sanskrit Grammarians

·期刊原文
The Jatakas and Sanskrit Grammarians

Professor F. KIELHORN, M.R.A.S. Gottingen.
The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland.
pp.17--21

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p.17

The Jatakas and Sanskrit Grammarians. By
Professor F. KIELHORN, M.R.A.S. Gottingen.

THE charming volumes which we owe to the
distinguished "guild of Jataka translators" have
allured me to peruse the stories of the Buddha's
former births in the original. In the course of this
reading, the Pali text has reminded me of certain
passages and phrases in the Mahabhasya. Occasionally,
too, Panini's own rules have suggested an
interpretation which differs from that of the Pali
commentary. Not being a Pali scholar, I should hardly
venture to submit the following observations of mine
to the Society, were I not encouraged to do so by my
friend Professor Cowell.

I begin with some verses of the Mahabhasya.

According to a Varttika on Pan., i, 3, 25, the
verb upa stha, in the sense of "to worship," takes
the terminations of the Atmanepada. In commenting on
this Varttika, Patanjali, to bring out more clearly
the diffrence between the Parasmaipada and
Atmanepada, quotes the following dialogue:--
Bahunnam apy acittanam eko bhavati cittavan
pasya vanara-sainye 'smin yad arkam upatisthate
Maivam mamsthah sacitto 'yam eso 'pi hi yatha
vayam
etad apy asya kapeyam yad arkam upatistbati

"Among the senseless creatures all, endowed with
sense is one:
Amidst this monkey troop, behold! he's
worshipping (upatisthate) the sun! "
"Don't think he is endowed with sense; he's like
us, that is clear:
To warm himself is apish, so the sun he draweth
near (upatisthati)."
J.B.A.S. 1898.

p.18

These verses apparently presuppose a story like
the one in the Adiccupatthana-Jataka (No. 175), and
the wording of the second line, in my opinion, can
hardly leave it doubtful that the grammarian knew
some such verse as we read in that Jataka (vol. ii,
p. 73, v. 47)--
Sabbesu kira bhutesu santi silasamahita,
passa sakhamigam jammam, adiccam upatitthati.(1)
" There is no tribe of animals but has its
virtuous one:
See how this wretched monkey here stands
worshipping the sun! "(2)

Again, a Varttika on Pan., ii, 3, 36, teaches
that the locative case may be used to denote that to
obtain which an action is performed, provided the
thing sought after is joined with, or is found in,
the object of the action. And Patanjali illustrates
this rule by four examples, grouped together in the
verse--
Carmani dvipinam hanti dantayor hanti kunjaram
kesesu camarim hanti simni puskalako hatah
" The tiger for his skin he slays, the elephant
for his tusk; The camari for her tail is slain, the
musk-deer for its musk." (3)

Now, in the Mahajanaka-Jataka (vol, vi, P. 61 v.
269) we read--
Ajinamhi hannate dipi, nago dantehi hannati,
dhanamhi dhanino hanti aniketam asanthavam,
phali ambo aphalo ca te satttharo ubho mama;

and again, in the Sama-Jataka (ibid., P. 78, v.
300)--
Ajinamhi bannate dipi, nago dantehi hannati,
atha kena nu vannena viddheyam mam amannatha?

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1 In the Ramayana, Bo. Ed., vi, 27, 44, we have
ddityam upatisthati in the sense of "he worships
the sun." In the so-called epic Sanskrit there are
not a few forms and constructions which seem to me
to be Pali rather than Sanskrit.
2 From Mr.Rouse's translation.
3 Haradatta would take the last Pada to mean: " The
post is driven into the ground in order that the
boundary may be known thereby."

p.19

Here, then, the first line of either verse is
identical in meaning with the first line of the verse
of the Mahabhasya, and in ajinamhi hannate dipi we
have the very construction that is taught by
Katyayana--a construction which in Sanskrit, to say
the least, is most unusual. Moreover, as the text
stands,(l) the words dhanamhi dhanino hanti of the
first verse are the exact counterpart of Patanjali's
carmani dripinam hanti, etc. This, surely, cannot be
a mere accidental circumstance: either the authors of
the Jatakas knew the verse of the Mahasya, or--and
this seems to me rather more probable--Katyayana and
Patanjali knew, and based their rule with its
examples on, just such verses as we find the Jatakas.

Turning to the prose, I should like to draw
attention to somewhat peculiar phrase of the
Mahabhasya, which has been misunderstood.

In the first Ahnika, after telling us what the
course ofstudy was in former days, Patanjali proceeds
thus: Tad adyatce na tatha; vedam adhitya tvarita
vaktaro bhavanti vedan no vaidikah sabdah siddha
lokac ca laukika anarthakam vydka-raman iti. The
phrase vaktaro bhavanti in this passage has been
variously translated by " they become teachers, " "
they become speakers (of Sanskrit)," etc. But it
really means people are in the habit of saying,"
"they will (or would) my," or simply "they say," and
the sense of the whole passage is: "This is not so
nowadays. After learning their Veda, being in a hurry
(to marry, etc.), people will say: 'We have got the
Vedic words from the Veda, and the common ones from
common usage; grammar is of no use to us.' " Vaktaro
bhavanti occurs in the same sense in vol. i, p. 250,
and vol. ii, pp. 272 and 417 of the Mahabhasya and we
have sthataro bhavanti, "they are in the habit of
staging." " they will stay," in vol. i, p. 391, lines
6 and 16.

----------------------
1 The learned editor of the Jataka suggests the
alteration of dhanino dhrui ko ko.

p.20

Now,that among Sanskrit writers Kumarila also
should have used vaktaro bhavnti and similar
periphrastic expressions, cannot seem strange,
considering that, deeply versed as he was in the
Mahabhasya, this is not the only phrase which he has
adopted from it. But I was not a little surprised
when I came across the identical vattaro honti in the
Jataka, vol. i, p. 134, 1. 21: Tassa adhavitva
parridhavitva vicarana kale kelimandale kilantassa
evam vattaro honti nippitiken amha pahata ti--" And
when he could run about and tiken was plaing in the
playground, (his playmates) would say, (1) This
fatherless fellow has hit us.' " Here any doubt as to
the meaning of vattaro honti would at once be removed
by the fact that in vol. vi, p. 33, 1. l6, in an
analogous case, the writer, instead of vattaro honti,
uses vadanti, just as in Sanskrit we might substitute
vadanti for vaktaro bhavnti, wherever that phrase
occurs.

I must leave it to Pali scholars to say whether
phrases like vattaro honti are common in Pali.(2)
They seem foreign to ordinary correct Sanskrit, and
the question is whether Patanjali himself has
followed here that common usage, to restriet and
correct which is the object of grammar.

A priori we may well suppose that Pali has
preserved certain idioms, lost in Sanskrit; and Pali
has been proved to yield instances for some of
Panini's rules which have not been verified yet from
Sanskrit texts. On the other hand, an example may
show that the interpretation of the more ancient Pali
texts may sometimes be benefited by the teachings of
Sanskrit grammarians. In the Jataka, vol. v, p. 90,
we have the verse-Ahan ca vanam unchaya madhu mamsam
migabilam yadaharami tam bhakkho, tassa nun' ajja
nadhati.

So far as I can make out, the commentator assigns
to this verse the following meaning: " The honey and
meat, left by

---------------------
1 Mr. Chalmers translates, more frrely. " a cry
would arise."
2 [ Often in the Vinaya, and in such suttas as
Majjhima, i, 469-472.--RH.D.]

p.21

wild animals, which, gleaning in the forest, I
bring, is (my husband's) food; surely now (when he
does not obtain it) his (body) withers (upatappati,
milayati, like a lotus burnt by the sun's rays)."

Now upatapa is indeed one of the meanings
assigned to the root nath or nadh in the Dhatupatha,
but I feel sure that a Sanskrit grammarian, on seeing
the last Pada of this verse, would at once be put in
mind of Panini's rule, ii, 3, 55, asisi nathah(which
teaches the employment of the genitive case in
construction with nath, "to long for"), and that, in
accordance with that rule, he would unhesitatingly
translate the words tassa nun' ajja nadhati by "for
that (food) he surely is now longing."

I have other verses for the interpretation of
which, in my opinion, some assistance may be got from
Panini, though, perhaps, not always in so direct a
manner. But for the present I must content myself
with recording my belief that close study especially
of the metrical portions of the Jatakas will amply
repay the student of Sanskrit and expressing my
regret at being unable myself to enter upon a field
of labour which seems so full of promise.