A Prakrit Grammar attributed to Samantabhadra

Summary

This article introduces a little‑known Prakrit grammar that is ascribed in its colophon to the Jain philosopher Samantabhadra, author of the Āptamīmāṃsā. The manuscript under discussion, now housed in the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune, was copied on paper in 1883–84 but claims to reproduce an older text. It comprises thirty‑eight folios of Devanāgarī script, with red chalk highlighting the sūtras and colophons. The opening verse proclaims: “Having saluted the primordial Jinas, Samantabhadra will explain the Prakrit speech‑rules,” and each of the grammar’s four sections ends with a similar attribution. The author summarises the physical features of the manuscript, noting that it lacks internal markers distinguishing sūtras from commentary and that the scribe has inserted marginal notes. To assess the authenticity of the attribution, the article compares the grammar with references in Pujyapāda’s Jainendra‑vyākaraṇa, which mentions a Catuṣṭaya (set of four grammars) of Samantabhadra. The author argues that this mention only establishes that Samantabhadra lived before Pujyapāda and does not prove that he wrote a grammar. Analysis of the linguistic material shows that the rules largely paraphrase Pāṇinian Sanskrit grammar and offer few specifically Jain usages. The treatise divides Prakrit into four categories and provides paradigms of nouns and verbs but does not discuss phonetic developments characteristic of medieval Prakrit. The article therefore concludes that the grammar is a later compilation that invokes Samantabhadra’s name to lend authority. It calls for a critical edition that would compare this Pune manuscript with another manuscript reportedly in the Asiatic Society of Calcutta to determine whether they represent the same work.