Art. XIX.—On the Mugdhāvabodhamauktika, and its evidence as to Old Gujarātī

Extract

In the year 1889 the late Mr. H. H. Dhruva published an edition of the Mugdhāvabodhamauktika, which he described as “a Grammar for Beginners of the Gujerati Language”. He cannot have given much study to the work, for a perusal of it will show that it is not a Gujarātī Grammar at all. It is a very elementary Sanskrit Grammar, with the explanations written in an old form of Gujarātī. The date of the work is a.d. 1394, and all that is known of the author is that he was the pupil of Deva-sundara. His name is not given. As a Sanskrit Grammar the Mugdhāvabodhamauktika is of very small value. It deals more with what we should call syntax than with the formation of words. But, as the explanations are written in the vernacular, these incidentally afford information as to what was the condition of the language of Gujarat between the time of Hema-candra (fl. 1150 a.d.) and the time of Narsingh Mehṭā (fl. 1450 a.d.), with whom Gujarātī literature is commonly said to commence. I have therefore examined the text with some minuteness, and lay the results before the Royal Asiatic Society, as providing a valuable connecting link between the Gaurjara Apabhraṁśa of the Prakrit grammarian and modern Gujarātī. The close connection of this Old Gujarātī with the former is remarkable; and, though the materials are very incomplete, we are entitled to say that for the first time we have before us an unbroken chain of development between a Prakrit dialect and a modern Indian vernacular.