The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.116.2

v2.c16.116.2

The last reading corresponds with the opening words of thè Jain Gāyatri or mystical *mantra*, which runs thus: *namo arihantānam, namo siddhānam, namo āyariyānam, namo uvahyānam, namo loe savva sāhunam.* This reading occurs in most of the Āgamas of the Jains, as also at the beginning of the *Kalpa Sūtra*, where Stevenson renders the word in question by the phrase “to the sages who have risen to be worthy of divine honours”, meaning the *arhats*, and Prinsep accepts the same meaning. In Prākṛt the verb *arha*, ‘to be worthy’, becomes *ariha* (*arihadi* &c., being frequently met with in the Sanskrit-Prākṛt dramas), and by analogy the noun *arhat* may also become *arha*, and commentators on the Jain Māgadhi works always interpret it in that sense. But in Childer’s *Pali Dictionary* the Sanskrit *arhat*, both by itself and in combination, invariably becomes *araha*, changing in the different cases to *arahā*, *araham*, *arahantam*, *arahata*, &c., in all which the compound consonant *rh* is disintegrated by the insertion of a shost *a* between its two phonetic elements. In the case of the Sanskrit *ārya* ‘honourable’, the compound *ry* is, however, disintegrated by the insertion of a short *i* between its two components, and the question therefore arises whether we should accept the word to be an irregular form of the Pali formed on the model of the Prākṛt, or a distinct word formed of *ari*, enemy, and *hantṛ*, destroyer?