Being one of the oldest manuscripts in Buddhist Hybrid
Sanskrit, the Subagi manuscript of the Udanavarga (Fonds
Pelliot, Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris) has unique characteristics,
which show its extreme importance in clarifying how and
why the Buddhist Canon began to be sanskritized in the first
centuries of the Christian era.
Elsewhere I have demonstrated that the phonetical and
morphological irregularities revealed in the sanskrit of this
manuscript are closely related to peculiarities of North-western
Middle Indic, namely the Gandhari. This, together with other
circumstances, makes it possible to assume that sanskritization
of this text was made from an original Gandhari tradition.
Detailed analysis in this paper on the use of optative endings
not only confirms that hypothesis, but throws new light on certain
so far unknown aspects of the transmission of Buddhist texts and
the conditions of their sanskritization, particularly for the
Sarvastivadins in Central Asia.