[Buddha-l] Sanskrit puzzle

[Jayarava]

Hi Richard

Not sure if you caught Stephen's reply but he thought it was adhvan + ika, without the vṛddhi. I think it works. Thanks for your help though :-)

I've been wondering lately why we would expect dhāraṇi's to conform to Pāṇini when most of them were probably composed in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, or possibly even Prakrit. When I was reading up on Aśoka and Magadhi for instance I saw that Magadhi had a nominative singular in -e for nouns in -a. "Gate" from the Heart Sūtra mantra (which according to Nattier was drawn from elsewhere in the canon when the 'sūtra' was constructed in China) might simply be a nominative! A nom sg. in -e was also a possibility in BHS. Buddhist texts did preserve archaic features at times, especially with regard to mantras. The Arapacana alphabet for instance was preserved for centuries after Gandhāri was no longer spoken in India.

Best Wishes
Jayarava