Grammar of the Jain phrase

[Madhav Deshpande]

Dear Colleagues,

     Someone recently asked me the meaning of the Jain phrase "micchāmi dukkaḍam".  On most of the web sources, the explanation is given like this: micchā mi dukkaḍam (Skt. mithyā me duṣkr̥tam) meaning "May my evil deed be ineffective".  I am wondering whether micchāmi in this phrase is originally "mā+icchāmi" and the phrase meaning: "May I not wish evil."  In several textual contexts, micchāmi occurs with other first person singular verbs like khāmemi: मिच्छामि दुक्कडम् खामेमि सव्व जीवे, सव्वे जीवा खमंतु मे।  I will appreciate any light that our Prakrit scholars can shed on this.  With best wishes,

Madhav Deshpande

[Nityanand Misra]

Dear Prof. Deshpande

The Abhidhānarājendra lists the entries micchādukkaḍa and micchādukkaḍappaoga. The corresponding Sanskrit terms in the work are mithyāduṣkṛta and mithyāduṣkṛtaprayoga, respectively. There is a long discussion on the term micchādukkaḍa in Prakrit and Sanskrit, as seen in the attached images. The Prakrit expressions micchā dukkaḍaṃ ti and micchā dukkaḍaṃ dei and the Sanskrit statements like tasyaiva mithyāduṣkṛtaṃ bhavati in the Abhidhānarājendra would confirm the mithyā me duṣkṛtam explanation in my opinion.

Thanks, Nityananda

[Madhav Deshpande]

Dear Nityanandaji,

     Thanks for looking into the Abhidhānarājendra.  Yes, this work supports the interpretation "mithyā me duṣkr̥tam" for the Prakrit "micchāmi dukkaḍam."  This is also seen elsewhere.  The grammatical problem with this interpretation is that the genitive singular form in Prakrit is "me" and not "mi," as one can see from the textual context: मिच्छामि दुक्कडम् खामेमि सव्व जीवे, सव्वे जीवा खमंतु मे।  Here, the dative/genitive form "me" is actually used in the phrase सव्वे जीवा खमंतु मे.  That makes it linguistically difficult to treat "micchāmi" as "micchā + mi".  This is precisely the dilemma.

Madhav Deshpande

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[Achyut Karve]

Dear Madhav Deshpandeji,

Your interpretation is correct.  The conversion of a Sanskrit word to prakrit involves a change in internal effort as in धर्म becoming धम्म.  The same has happened in ma icchami being phonated as micchami.

Reasons for sandhi not taking place between aa of maa and i of icchami in Sanskrit you know better.

With regards,
Achyut Karve.

[S. L. Abhyankar]

"मिच्छामि दुक्कडम् खामेमि सव्व जीवे, सव्वे जीवा खमंतु मे" इत्यस्य संस्कृत-रूपं कथम् ? 

मम विश्लेषणं निम्नमिव 

• मिच्छामि दुक्कडम्  = > इच्छामि  दुःखदम् => यत्किमपि दुःखदं कृतम्, तस्य क्षमापनमिच्छामि !
• खामेमि सव्व जीवे => क्षामेमि सर्वजीवे => सर्वेभ्यः जीवेभ्यः क्षमायाचनं करोमि (अथवा) सर्वेभ्यः जीवेभ्यः क्षान्तिमिच्छामि 
• सव्वे जीवा खमंतु मे => सर्वे जीवाः क्षमन्तु मे => क्षम्-धातुस्तु आत्मनेपदी ? प्रायः प्राकृते परस्मैपदी मान्यः !
  

अस्ति प्रसिद्धा प्रार्थना => न त्वहं कामये राज्यं न स्वर्गं नापुनर्भवम् । कामये दुःखतप्तानां प्राणिनामार्तिनाशनम् !!

[Hnbhat B.R.]

On Sunday, August 27, 2017, S. L. Abhyankar <sl.abh...@gmail.com> wrote:

"मिच्छामि दुक्कडम् खामेमि सव्व जीवे, सव्वे जीवा खमंतु मे" इत्यस्य संस्कृत-रूपं कथम् ? 

मम विश्लेषणं निम्नमिव 

• मिच्छामि दुक्कडम्  = > इच्छामि  दुःखदम् => यत्किमपि दुःखदं कृतम्, तस्य क्षमापनमिच्छामि !

• दुःखदं इति कथम्? प्राकृते दुक्खदं इति भवति! दुष्कृतं दुक्कदं भवति! 
• इच्छामि इति कथं मिच्छामि इति जातम्?

 

 

• खामेमि सव्व जीवे => क्षामेमि सर्वजीवे => सर्वेभ्यः जीवेभ्यः क्षमायाचनं करोमि (अथवा) सर्वेभ्यः जीवेभ्यः क्षान्तिमिच्छामि 

• कथं क्षमायाचनं करोमि अथव क्षान्तिमिच्छामि इति प्राकृते खामेमि इति भवेत्! प्राकृते खामेमि = क्षमापयामि इति स्यात्! 
• सर्वजीवेभ्यः इति चतुर्थी कथं सव्वजीवे इति प्राकृते भवति?

 सव्वे जीवा खमंतु मे => सर्वे जीवाः क्षमन्तु मे => क्षम्-धातुस्तु आत्मनेपदी ? प्रायः प्राकृते परस्मैपदी मान्यः ! 

केन सूत्रेण उक्तम्? 

अस्ति प्रसिद्धा प्रार्थना => न त्वहं कामये राज्यं न स्वर्गं नापुनर्भवम् । कामये दुःखतप्तानां प्राणिनामार्तिनाशनम् !!???

[Nityanand Misra]

On Saturday, 26 August 2017 22:22:37 UTC+5:30, Madhav Deshpande wrote:

Dear Nityanandaji,

     Thanks for looking into the Abhidhānarājendra.  Yes, this work supports the interpretation "mithyā me duṣkr̥tam" for the Prakrit "micchāmi dukkaḍam."  This is also seen elsewhere.  The grammatical problem with this interpretation is that the genitive singular form in Prakrit is "me" and not "mi," as one can see from the textual context: मिच्छामि दुक्कडम् खामेमि सव्व जीवे, सव्वे जीवा खमंतु मे।  Here, the dative/genitive form "me" is actually used in the phrase सव्वे जीवा खमंतु मे.  That makes it linguistically difficult to treat "micchāmi" as "micchā + mi".  This is precisely the dilemma.

Madhav Deshpande

Dear Prof. Deshpande

Indeed, the dilemma exists. Another thing to ponder over is if mā+icchāmi will result in mecchāmi instead of micchāmi. Is it possible that mecchāmi can become micchāmi and me can similarly become mi at some some places? The Abhidhānarājendra lists words like miṃḍha (Sanskrit medhra) where the e → i transformation takes place.

I also checked the Abhidhānarājendra on mi. The work says mi is an avyaya and is also the ādeśa of asmad + am. In other words, mi is same as mām [accussative singular]. This is a conjecture, but is it possible that the sentence is micchā mi dukkaḍam = mithyā māṃ duṣkṛtam = māṃ [prāptaṃ] duṣkṛtaṃ mithyā [bhavatu]? That would imply a sense of forgiving (as opposed to asking for forgiveness in mithyā me duṣkṛtam).

Thanks, Nityananda 

[Madhav Deshpande]

Dear Nityanandaji,

     Thanks for continuing to think over this dilemma.  In Ardhamāgadhī, mā+icchāmi would naturally become micchāmi, rather than mecchāmi.  In his Introduction to Ardhamagadhi (p. 80), Professor A. M. Ghatage says that "e" and "o" are reduced to "i" and "u" if they are followed by a consonant cluster.  He offers the following examples:

Skt. gaja+indra > ArdhM. gaya+inda > gainda (गइन्द)

Skt. eka+indriya > ArdhM. egindiya

Skt. ratna+ujjvala > ArdhM. rayaṇujjala

Skt. nīla+utpala > ArdhM. nīluppala

Shortening of long vowels, including "e" and "o", is widespread before consonant clusters in most Prakrits and Pali.  In Pali, I remember the examples like Skt. mahendra > Pali. Mahinda, Skt. alpeccha > Pali appiccha, etc.   So, mā+icchāmi > micchāmi does not seem to be problematic.  What is rather surprising is why such an explanation did not occur to Jain commentators, and why they offered the analysis: micchā + mi.  

Madhav Deshpande

[Hnbhat B.R.]

The examples cited are compounds.

[Ashok Aklujkar]

I have been hesitating to post the following to the BVP forum over the last few days because I did not have the time to ascertain if the sound change I am presupposing (ṣy —> cch) is possible in Pkt (nor do I have the time at present):

Over the years, I have instinctively and unreflectingly taken micchāmi as related to Skt mṛṣyāmii and the first part of the conventional Jain utterance as intended to convey  “I forgive (your/every one’s) bad/painful deed/act (toward me)”. 

Root mṛṣ does occur in Skt in the sense of ’tolerate, put up with, forgive’. Grammars list it as occurring in the first (bhv-ādi) and tenth (cur-ādi) classes. Whether the precise form mṛṣyāmi/marṣiṣyāmi is attested in Skt does not concern me much, since not every usable form is actually preserved in the surviving literature of any language.

It is perhaps instructive that the commonly used Pkt dictionaries do not cite the instances of the clause under discussion, namely of मिच्छामि दुक्कडम्, when they give the meanings of micchā-dukkaḍa,etc.

I have asked a friend who knows much more about Pkt literature and Jain community than I to find out what the earliest occurrence of मिच्छामि दुक्कडम् is, how the traditional commentators have glossed it (if they indeed have), and what the elders in the Jain community generally take the clause to mean. If I learn anything that goes against my understanding based on the  ‘mṛṣyāmi —> micchāmi’ link, I will let this forum know. 

a.a. ,

[Madhav Deshpande]

Dear Ashok,

     Your suggestion that micchāmi could be a Pkt version of mr̥ṣyāmi does suggest a possibility.  However, I have not found the use of the Pkt verb micchati in this sense in any Pkt dictionary so far.  Ratnachandra-Ardhamāgadhī-Quadrilingual-Dictionary-OR-Maharashtri And Deshya Prakrit Dictionary-Vol-4, gives only nominal forms micchā = mithyā, independently and in compounds.  The same is true for Abhidhānarājendra (Vol 6).  These sources do not list a verbal usage of micchati = mr̥ṣyati.  I had also thought of this possibility, but after checking these lexicographical sources, I abandoned that option.

     Shri H. N. Bhat pointed out that the examples I had cited were all compounds.  But the same phenomenon of shortening vowels before a consonant cluster occur in the sandhi of uncompounded sequences: tattha+aṭṭhamie > tatthaṭṭhamie (Ghatage, Introduction to Ardhamagadhi, p. 77).

Madhav

[Hnbhat B.R.]

 मिच्छ is apabhramsha root for इष् इच्छायाम्. But not for मृष तितिक्षायाम्, in Prakrit, though possibility is  there. पाइअ-सद्द-महण्णवो gives te root as apabhramsha. 

[Madhav Deshpande]

Dear Shri Bhat,

     Namo namaḥ,

     I checked the पाइअ-सद्द-महण्णवो, and, yes, it lists "मिच्छ is apabhramsha root for इष् इच्छायाम्."  The citation given there is an Apabhraṃśa citation, while micchāmi dukkaḍam occurs in much earlier Jain Prakrit sources.  Obviously, if micchāmi dukkaḍam were to be equivalent to icchāmi dukkaḍam, we will have a much bigger problem of interpretation.  

Madhav Deshpande

[Nityanand Misra]

namo vaḥ

A long time back, there was this informative discussion on the etymology of the Jain phrase micchāmi dukkaḍam. Prof. Ashok Aklujkar, Prof. Madhav Deshpande (no longer a member), Prof. B R H N Bhat (no longer in his mortal coil) and I had discussed various possibilities of the phrase's origin.

Recently, while going through the work Nirukta Kośa (1984, Ladnun, Rajasthan: Jain Vishva Bharati), a work on Niruktis of many Jaina terms and phrases by Ācārya Tulasī (1914–1997) and Yuvācārya (later Ācārya) Mahāprajña (1920–2010), I found that the two Jaina scholars have also explained micchā mi dukkaḍam as mithyā me duṣkṛtam, which is the common explanation found on online sources as Prof. Deshpande had pointed out. 

Here is the link to the page in the Nirukta Kośa by Ācārya Tulasī and Yuvācārya Mahāprajña: https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.320577/page/n259/mode/1up?view=theater

Thanks, Nityānanda