Magadhisms in the Pali canon

Eisel Mazard has recently presented an example of an allegedly original
Magadhism in the Pali canon and indicated why it is dubious. One might add
isipatana, and there are many others. Take, for instance, the well
established doctrine that the vocative bhikkhave is a Magadhism in contrast
to the vocative bhikkhavo. Now bhikkhave never occurs in sentence initial
position and in verse. Examples are legion. bhikkhavo, on the other hand,
never occurs except in sentence initial position and in verse. Examples are
limited, less than 150.  Thus the conclusion that the occurrences are
linguistically motivated and do not reflect an allegedly original canonical
stratum in Magadhi is unavoidable. I have written a paper about the problem,
which was noticed by the great Pali grammarians Aggavam.sa, who addressed
the issue in his Saddaniiti. The paper will in due course of time appear in
JAOS.

Regards,
Ole Holten Pind




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