TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu
TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu
TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu
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A similar development can be witnessed in the spread of the combination of<br />
pronoun and noun which reminds one of the Greek article. Not prominent in<br />
the RV, phrases like té devḥ spread from the Kuru-Pañcāla centre (MS, KS,<br />
TS) to all areas; they are found in all later Vedic texts. 282 They also survive in<br />
the Epic to some extent, and one can now add the similar Pāli construction so<br />
'ham = Vedic so 'ham, sa tvam, etc., as well as Pāli taṃ tam = Vedic taṃ<br />
tvām. 283<br />
§9.3 Instr. pl. -ebhiḥ: 284<br />
In the RV, the stems in -a have the pronominal ending -ebhiḥ in the instr. pl.<br />
next to the nominal ending -aiḥ. This innovation (cf. O. Pers. -āibiś but Av. -<br />
āiś) spread to all the Prākṛts, while it disappeared in the post-Ṛgvedic texts.<br />
The local Prākṛts, however, have -ehi (Aśoka, Pāli, Pkt.s; see O.v.Hinüber,<br />
Überblick. §189), with the sole exception of some remnants in Pāli, where -ais<br />
> -e (O.v.Hinüber, Überblick, 145 §316). The crux is to determine whether<br />
this form is a Vedic remnant or a Middle Indic innovation, based on the<br />
analogy of other declensions (O.v.Hinüber, Überblick §316).<br />
Comparing the close connection between the various Vedic dialects and the<br />
Prākṛts (see below), it is surprising that the Madhyadeśa form -aiḥ is not<br />
more prominent than its survival in a few limited cases of Pāli. It might seem,<br />
therefore, that MIA -ehi is a new formation.<br />
On the other hand, the Pañcāla innovation of gen. fem. -ai (see below) was<br />
not accepted into Pāli, the representative of early Western Middle Indo-<br />
Aryan. It may be, therefore, that in the case of some nominal endings, the<br />
older state of affairs was preserved by the Pkt.s, i.e., instr. pl. -ebhiḥ (RV<br />
stage) and gen.fem. in -āyāḥ (RV & Mantra stage). If this is true, then the<br />
"first wave of immigration" had already spread this usage to all the areas of<br />
Northern India settled by IA speakers; this usage, then, was already too<br />
established in popular speech to be replaced by Kuru (MS, KS) or<br />
282 Cf. Delbr., Syntax p.214. Note that stories often begin with devā vai..., but that AB has<br />
te devāḥ... 3.22, 3.26., 3.27. Note as well the change from a RV usage devāḥ > devatāḥ; cf.<br />
K.Hoffmann, Aufs., p.213.<br />
283 Cf. C.Caillat, in: Sprache der alt.buddh.Überl., ed. H.Bechert; O.v. Hinüber, rev. of<br />
SÄBÜ in IF 88, 107 sqq.; - for the Mbhār., cf. Holzmann, Gramm. aus dem Mahābhārata,<br />
and K. Meenakshi, Epic Syntax, Delhi 1983. Note the frequent cases in PS and ŚS of taṃ<br />
tvā "[To] you, as such (and such) a person ...," usually misunderstood in the ed. of PSOr.<br />
284 O.v. Hinüber, Überblick, p. 145 § 316<br />
104