Seven Thousand Articles

Our Dictionary of Gāndhārī has reached 7,000 articles with a total of 35,967 references. Article seven thousand is paḍivivegakasa, from a fragmentary Ekottarikāgama sūtra found at Bamiyan where it is the third in a set of (probably) ten terms, three of which are preserved:

apichakasa satuṭhakaso pra[t]i[vi](*vegakasa) …
‘talk of few wishes, contented talk, talk about seclusion … ’

The Pali parallel to this sūtra (AN IV 357) gives the three as appicchakathā santuṭṭhikathā pavivekakathā, and pravivega‐ would certainly also be the expected term in Gāndhārī (cf. pravivega and pravivitavihari). The editors of the Ekottarikāgama fragment (Jantrasrisalai, Lenz, Lin & Salomon 2016, 34) suggest an otherwise unattested Gāndhārī variation between the prefixes pra‐ and prati‐, similar to the well‐known one between pari‐ and prati‐ (or rather pari‐ [pəɾi] and paḍi‐ [pəɽi]). No less likely, however, seems a phonetic slip from correct pravivega‐ [pɾəʋiʋeːjə] to [pɾəðiʋeːjə], suggesting an alternative reconstruction pra[t]i[ve](*gakasa) that would be consistent with the remains of writing on the fragment. The feasibility of such a phonetic confusion is shown by chaḏi, corresponding to OIA chavi in a Gāndhārī Saṃyuktāgama‐type sūtra.