About Project
English translation of Pāia-Sadda-Mahaṇṇavo
The Pāia-Sadda-Mahaṇṇavo, originally a Prakrit-Hindi Dictionary compiled by Hargovind Das T. Sheth, has words in Prakrit, their Sanskrit equivalents and their Hindi meanings, as well as extracts in Prakrit from original sources. Additionally, this translation project undertakes the English translation of Hindi words with Roman transliteration of Prakrit words, their Sanskrit equivalents, as well as the Prakrit extracts.
The Pāia-sadda-mahaṇṇavo has a collection of about 75,000 words from 170 selected works of Prakrit with its Sanskrit equivalents. Its strength lies in the furnishing of all declensions and conjugations occurred in the selected texts for this dictionary. Interestingly, it facilitates direct access to rich traditions as well as culture of common people through numerous relevant quotations from original texts.
The Pāia-sadda-mahaṇṇavo is the most popular Prakrit-Hindi dictionary that has been extensively utilized by researchers and scholars for over nine decades. In recent years, due to the well-organized effort of the International School for Jain Studies (ISJS) and other institution, the scholars from all over the world are attracted towards Jain studies which greatly made felt the lack of a comprehensive Prakrit-English dictionary.
To fill this wide gap, ISJS undertook this ambitious project. The University of Chicago generously allowed ISJS to make use of the content that they had already digitized under the Digital Dictionaries of South Asia.
Some other editions of this dictionary are also available. To ensure a reliable foundation for translation, it was decided to prepare a consolidated edition of the dictionary. For this purpose, the digital edition by the University of Chicago was adopted as the base. Additionally, the first edition from Calcutta (1928) and the recent edition by Motilal Banarsidass (2022) were consulted. During the process, a few hundred words were incorporated from these editions, following the established alphabetical scheme.
While working on the project, it was felt necessary to re-organize the abbreviation patterns to ensure consistency. Because while mostly, the names of works were abbreviated, in some other instances, abbreviations of the names of authors were given. These inconsistencies were addressed, and the abbreviations were revised to follow a uniformity in the pattern. The team embraced the painstaking task with remarkable patience retrieving the additional words with continuous determination.
This project of bringing Pāia-sadda-mahaṇṇavo in this present form could take place due to keen interest of the trustees and ISJS founders. The Vardhman Charitable Foundation, USA is much appreciated for their financial support.
