Prakrit Digital Text Project (PDTP)

This is an attempt to collect as much Prakrit literature as possible, using consistent and well-documented reference schemes and a uniform system of transliteration.

Project structure

All of the text data will be stored as TEI (P5) XML files. They are in the tei directory. (See below for current coverage and desiderata.) The point of using TEI is to be to (a) locate specific passages in the texts (using XPath), and (b) generate a number of secondary formats (e.g., plain text, HTML) if desired. Stylesheets for generating these secondary formats will be provided. Each file contains a <teiHeader> element that describes the source(s) on which the digital text is based.

Transliteration

Prakrit is written with different orthographies in Dēvanāgarī, and it is also transliterated in different ways. This corpus uses the ISO 15919 system for transliteration, which means ṁ is used for anusvāra rather than ṃ (for e and o see below). These texts preserve the orthography of their source editions in the following ways, which are diagnostic of specific scribal or orthographic traditions:

• the quality of vowels is respected (e.g., benti or binti)
• the use or non-use of yaśrutiḥ is respected (e.g., kayaṁ or kaaṁ)
• the use of dental or retroflex nasals is respected (e.g., dinnaṁ or diṇṇaṁ)
• the use of question marks, exclamation points, hyphens, and quotation marks is respected.

In other respects the texts have been normalized:

• Generally parasavarṇa (class nasals) are used in preference to anusvāra (e.g., intō rather than iṁtō)
• Line-end punctuation in verses has been removed (mostly).
• Numeration at the end of verses has been removed (the numbers are present as attributes in the XML element).
• Sentences are punctuated with periods instead of daṇḍas.

The quantity of the vowels e and o in Prakrit presents difficulties. They are short before double consonants, and generally long elsewhere, but they can often be short in certain morphological environments (e.g., the feminine oblique singular -āe, the feminine direct plural -āo). The distinction is never made in manuscripts, although sometimes scribes will write i or u when a short e or o is meant. In order to preserve metrically-relevant distinctions, we write ē and ō generally, and e and o when they appear in a closed syllable (this has not yet been systematically applied), or when they need to be metrically short. We follow the printed editions in making these distinctions.

Non-moraic nasalization of a vowel is marked with a tilde (e.g. एहिँ > ēhĩ).

Texts and reference systems

The abbreviations mostly follow those of the Comprehensive and Critical Dictionary of the Prakrit Languages with Special Reference to Jain Literature.

Current texts

• GaüḍVa.x: Gaüḍvahaṁ of Vākpatirāja, verse (//lg[@n='x'])

• GāSa.x: Gāthāsaptaśatī of Hāla, verse (//lg[@n='x'])

• JōiKa: Jyōtiṣkaraṇḍaka of Pālitta, verse (//lg[@n='x'])

• DeNāMā.x.y: Dēśināmamālā of Hēmacandra, chapter.verse (//div[@type='adhyāya'][@n='x']/div[@type='gāthā'][@n='y']/quote[@type='base-text']/lg)

• Dhutt.x.y: Dhūrtākhyāna of Haribhadra, chapter.verse (//div[@type='chapter'][@n='x']/lg[@n='y'])

• Līlā.x: Līlāvaī of Kautūhala, verse (//lg[@n='x'])

• PāiLaNā.x: Pāiyalacchīnāmamālā of Dhanapāla, verse (//lg[@n='x'])

• PaumaCaVi.x.y: Paümacariyaṁ of Vimala Sūri, chapter.verse (//div[@type='chapter'][@n='x']/lg[@n='y'])

• PrāPi.x.y: Prākr̥tapiṅgalam, chapter.verse (//div[@type='chapter'][@n='x']/lg[@n='y'])

• SamarāKa.x.y: Samarādityakathā of Haribhadra, page.line (//pb[@n='x'], //lb[@n='y'])

  • Note that I used the Ahmedabad edition of 1982, so the references in CCDPL (based on Jacobi's edition) will not compute.

• Sētu.x.y: Sētubandha of Pravarasēna, chapter.verse (//div[@type='canto'][@n='x']//lg[@type='stanza'][@n='y'])

• SurSuCa.x.y: Surasundarīcariya of Dhanēśvara, chapter.verse (//div[@type='paricchēda'][@n='x']/lg[@n='y'])

• VajLag.x: Vajjālagga of Jayavallabha, verse (//lg[@n='x'])

  • Alternatively the reference could take the form x.y, where x is the vajjā and y is the verse (//div[@n='x']/lg[@n='y'])

• Vara.x.y.: Prākr̥taprakāśa of Vararuci, chapter.sūtra (//div[@type='chapter][@n='x']/ab[@n='y'])

• Śvētāmbara Jaina Āgamas (based on the files of Muni Deepratnasagar):

  • (01) Āyār: Āyāraṅgaṁ: numbering based on format
    • Āyār.x (section numbering): section (//div[@type='section'][@n='x'])
    • Āyār.1.x.y.z (first śrutaskandha): suyakkhanda.ajjhayaṇa.*uddēsa.section (//div[@type='suyakkhanda'][@n='1']/div[@type='ajjhayaṇa'][@n='x']/div[@type='uddēsa'][@n='y']/div@[type='section'][@n='z'])
    • Āyār.2.x.y.z (second śrutaskandha): suyakkhanda.cūlā.ajjhayaṇa.section (//div[@type='śrutaskandha'][@n='2']/div[@type='cūlā'][@n='x']/div[@type='ajjhayaṇa'][@n='y']/div[@type='section'][@n='z'])
  • (02) Sūy: Sūyagaḍaṅgaṁ: numbering based on format
    • Sūy.x (section numbering): section (//div[@type='section'][@n='x'])
    • Sūy.w.x.y.z suyakkhandō.ajjhayaṇaṁ.*uddēsō.section (//div[@type='suyakkhandō'][@n='w']/div[@type='ajjhayaṇaṁ'][@n='x']/div[@type='uddēsō'][@n='y']/div@[type='section'][@n='z'])
  • (03) Ṭhāṇa: Ṭhāṇaṅgaṁ: numbering based on format
    • Ṭhāṇa.x (section numbering): section (//div[@type='section'][@n='x'])
    • Ṭhāṇa.x.y.z ṭhāṇaṁ.*uddēsō.section (//div[@type='ṭhāṇaṁ'][@n='x']/div[@type='uddēsō'][@n='y']/div@[type='section'][@n='z'])
  • (06) Nāyā: Nāyādhammakahāō: numbering based on format
    • Nāyā.x (section numbering): section (//div[@type='section'][@n='x'])
    • Nāyā.1.x.y (first śrutaskandha): śrutaskanda.adhyayana.section (//div[@type='śrutaskandha'][@n='1']/div[@type='adhyayana'][@n='x']/div@[type='section][@n='y'])
    • Nāyā.2.x.y.z (second śrutaskandha): śrutaskanda.varga.adhyayana.section (//div[@type='śrutaskandha'][@n='2']/div[@type='varga'][@n='x']/div[@type='adhyayana'][@n='y']/div[@type='section][@n='z'])
  • (34) Nis: Nisīhasuttaṁ: numbering based on format
    • Nis.x: section (//div[@type='section'][@n='x'])
    • Nis.x.y: chapter.section (//div[@type='uddēsō'][@n='x']/div[@type='section'][@n='y'])
  • (35) Br̥hKapp: Br̥hatkalpa: numbering based on format
    • Br̥hKapp.x: section (//div[@type='section'][@n='x'])
    • Br̥hKapp.x.y: chapter.section (//div[@type='uddēsō'][@n='x']/div[@type='section'][@n='y'])
  • (41) PiṇḍNi: Piṇḍaniryukti: verse (//div[@type='section'][@n='x'])
  • (42) Dasave: Daśavaikālikasūtram:
    • Dasave.x: section (//div[@type='section'][@n='x'])
    • Dasave.x.y: lesson.section (//div[@type='ajjhayaṇaṁ'][@n='x']/div[@type='section'][@n='y'])
  • Dasave.x.y.z: lesson.chapter.section (//div[@type='ajjhayaṇaṁ'][@n='x']/div[@type='uddēsō'][@n='y']/div[@type='section'][@n='z'])
  • (43) Utt.x.y: Uttarādhyayana, chapter.section (//div[@type='ajjhayaṇaṁ'][@n='x']/div[@type='section'][@n='y'])
  • (44) Nandī.x: Nandīsūtra, section (//div[@type='section'][@n='x'])
  • (45) AṇuŌg.x: Anuyōgadvārasūtra, section (//div[@type='section'][@n='x'])

Coming soon

• Chapp.x: Chappaṇṇayagāhāō, verse
• GāRaKo.x: Gāhārayaṇakōsa of Jinēśvarasūri, verse
• SubhāGāSaṁ.x: Subhāsiyagāhāsaṁgaha, verse
• SubhāPajjSaṁ.x: Subhāsiyapajjasaṁgaha, verse
• Tārā.x: Tārāgaṇa of Bappabhaṭṭi, verse

Desiderata

• Taraṅga: Pālitta’s Taraṅgalōlā (Taraṅgavatī) [ed. H. C. Bhayani 1979]
• VasuHi: Saṅghadāsa’s Vasudēvahiṇḍī
• KuvaMā: Uddyōtana’s Kuvalayamālā

Encoding details

Languages

It is important to be able to distinguish Sanskrit from Prakrit texts. The postprocessing scripts will assume that all text is labeled with a language, in the following manner:

• If an element has an @xml:lang attribute, use that.
• Otherwise, get its language from the nearest ancestor with an @xml:lang attribute.

The @xml:lang attribute should use the ISO-639-2 codes:

• pra-Latn = Prakrit in the Latin script
• san-Latn = Sanskrit in the Latin script
• hin-Latn = Hindi in the Latin script
• eng = English

Contributors and funding

Andrew Ollett (University of Chicago)

Funding for the digitization of these texts comes from the following grants:

• NEH HG-5004113 (SARIT: Enriching Digital Texts Collections in Indology)
• The Milton Fund, Harvard University

License

All of the TEI files include a license. In most, if not all, cases, the text is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Please give credit where credit is due if you end up using this data for your own projects.