Update: 2020-10-13 09:35 PM -0400
i06Skt-vs-BHS.htm
by Franklin Edgerton (1885–1963), Sterling Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology, Yale University, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Ltd., Delhi, 1st ed. New Haven, 1953. ISBN: 81 208-0998-x (Vol. 1), ISBN: 81 208-0997. (Set of 2 books).
Digitized by Daw Khin Wutyi from the original book. This TIL edition is edited, with additions from other sources, by U Kyaw Tun (UKT) (M.S., I.P.S.T., USA) and staff of Tun Institute of Learning (TIL) . Not for sale. No copyright. Free for everyone. Prepared for students and staff of TIL Research Station, Yangon, MYANMAR : http://www.tuninst.net , www.romabama.blogspot.com
1. INTRODUCTION
Sanskrit vs
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit
Edgerton notes
Edgerton's footnotes are continuously
numbered without any reference to pages.
However for this TIL edition, I have given
the page numbers as well. Thus fn001-02 means,
it is footnote #02 found on p001, and fn003-07
is footnote #07 found on p003.
(p011c1begin)
1.76. Many scholars, even down to
the present day, refer to BHS simply as
'Sanskrit'. Louis Renou, in his excellent
Grammaire Sanscrite, includes (e.g. on p.350)
references to some, tho relatively very few,
forms of BHS; on p. i he notes that 'on a été
à la frontière du sanscrit en signalant les
faits de langue mixte représentés par le
Mahāvastu et le Lalitavistara'. Of course
all have recognized that, if this language is
'Sanskrit', it is a peculiar usually called
'Sanskrit'. The language of the
Mahābhārata, for instance, contains
Middle-Indicisms; yet few would hesitate to
describe it as fundamentally a kind of
'Sanskrit' (tho it does not follow
Pāṇini very closely).
1.77. The great lexicographer
Boehtlingk included in BR and pw many BHS
words (especially from LV, Kv, Mvy, Vaj, Divy,
and Jm). But in the preface to the last volume
of pw, Boehtlingk refers to such BHS words as
'hardly to be called Sanskrit'. The publication
date of this volume was 1889; that of the first
volume of Senart's Mahāvastu was 1882.
Yet Boehtlingk never mentions Mv, and does not
cite a single word from it. Had he not seen
Senart's publication before finishing his work
on the pw? If he had seen it, and deliberately
ignored it, I should have expected him to
state his reasons for doing so. He could, in
my opinion, have given very good reasons. If
the rest of BHS literature were like Mv, in
presenting prose as well as verses in Middle
Indic or hybrid forms, I can hardly believe
it would ever have been called Sanskrit, or
that its vocabulary would have been included
in Sanskrit dictionaries. One might as well
include Pali and Prakrit words in a Sanskrit
dictionary. I believe it is a fact, and if so
it is significant, that nearly all BHS words
included in BR and pw are taken from the
prose, not the verses, of such works as LV.
The form of this prose is such that it is
easy to mistake it for Sanskrit. In my
opinion, however, it all belongs to a
different linguistic tradition, and should
be excluded from works professing to deal
with Sanskrit.
(p011c1cont)
- UKT: No Edgerton footnote in this file.
End of TIL file