History and Development of Prakrit Literature J.C. JAIN ANS MANOHAR 2004First published 2004 All rights reserved. No part reproduced or transmit without prior permission of form or by any means, J. Jain and the publisher ISBN 81-7304.537.2 Typeset by AAJ Software Publishing Co. Pvt. Lad New Delhi 110005, Printed at Lordson Publishers Pvt Lad Delhi 110007 “adh ae tiers qeria ada? O Govinda! the creation which is really ‘yours is being dedicated to you!Evolution of the Prakrit Languages Language isa method of commt tes Calvert Watkins. He says, gideas. ‘Language isa soci it. Espec isa towards culture. Though by no means a perfect mirror, the le: fa language remains the single most effective way of approaching 1 the contents rnnium nc in a region among the different us to suppose that they are the conti language, called Indo-Europe: ‘There areseveral thousand languiagesaround the wor! ng from place to place, orical and16 HISTORYAND DEVELOPMENT OF PRARRIT LITERATURE, of these terms permit certai -an speaking people before where they Homeric Greek—i forefathers of EVOLUTION OF THE PRAKRIT LANGUAGES 7 Aryan speech, spontaneous trans raits, became trans he scholarly effort to preserve is correct pronunciation. dialect. The basic dialect of the veda was or not & Itspirantized internal voiced aspi sm to A; and turned intervocal d, dh its preference for rthe Rgvedic is asstumed that in the Indo-Irania in performing the sacrifice often accent, Instead of putting a len pronouncing the word arayoh after it, they used the words aya helaya, Thuis deprived of speech they wereva -yeoul not get the benefit ofthe sacrifice for vic 4 Bralhmana should not mispronounce the word as did the Miecchas. ‘Tue Onscan oF Praxerr bhasa people. The word literally mea literary or ceremonial language terary critics to denote a jose common origin is attributed to Sanskrit. O1 81172) derive the wor a HA This view is contradicted by Na18 _-HISTORVAND DEVELOPMENT OF PRAKRIT LITERATURE | theeleventh century, Commenting or he explains the word Prakrit as follows: their grammar.” ‘Vakpatiraja (« av 750), dealing with Prakrit asa pro hhasstated in his Gaudavaho(93):"Allspeechesmenge and spring out of it just asall waves merge into the ocean and spring EVOLUTION OF THE PRAKRIT LANGUAGES ‘was standardized by grammarians and the great P tury Bo) gave ita final and stereotyped form, that Sanskrit was not the basis of the Prakrit special instruction. According to him, to acertain popular spoken dialect, wl grounds was raised to the status ofa literary medium. He writes, "But the difficulty is tha it inskrit as is generall scholars and Hoffer, Lassen, Bhandarkar and Jacobi (accor and Prakrit are essentially a later form of Sans! Linguistic 24 ci Grierson classifies Pra} the Vedic language and the cl descendant, are to be derived. The classical S Presenting a comparative study of Vedicand Sans} as ag a, ae ata, herpes, we, fe, TT, An Introduction to Comparative ipada, genders, person: . ces are used in the Vedic20. HISTORVAND DEVELOPMENT OF PRAKRIT LITERATURE Ianguages without observing hard and fastrul Sanskrit, Such divergent forms were possible by the Aryans of the Vedic period as itwas not bound by the rules of (i) Retention of Prakrit forn early Classical Sanskr fikata; kim kyta=ki landra=danda; sithira; ksudra=kgulla; grath=ghat" and so on. This es that the Vedic priests pronouncing these regarded them as possible forms of the same language th between one and the other. for exampl -hant, arghanarha; dhadh=dah and so on."* scarcity of visarga an’ singular of stems {iv)_ Retention of suffix “bhis i (¥)_ The omission of final con: The ‘The loss of dual number. In the Rgueda the al ‘ted use. In Avestan itisrareand in Old Persian practically spoken dialects werelostas ‘And the later literary Prakrits descended from the early spoken nskrit grammar. These words were iskritdramawhowere expected to haveafair knowledge ngage and grammar. The classificati id desiwordsare base’ ox view of the origin EVOLUTION OF THE PRAKRIT LANGUAGES a uages of three period New Indo-Aryan. The Old Indo-Aryar (fromthesi consists ofall the Prakrit languages as defined by grammmarians the widest sense of the term Prakrit. This period is represented by Pali and Prakrit comprising all dialects of theage beginning with the time when certain phonetic produced a language different from the OIA. This is an importan period of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European whichisclosely associated with the Old Indo-Aryan and Classical Sanskri hhand, and with Indort greater distance, on th those Prakrits described by{TORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF PRAKRIT LITERATURE | 22 ove towards standardizing -edeclension, ¢ continued to exist for atime ‘comprised Prakrit passages in the ce Hala’s Sattasai and Gund mars. These Praki Ardhamagadhi loped cer in Onigin and Development of ) are literaryand 1024 HISTORVAND DEVELOPMENT OF PRAKRIT LITERATURE These rules were based on texts access grammarians. For :. scattered century wc to the he works of Pral Languages and their Contributi of grammatical indication of 1g of probable EVOLUTION OF THE PRARRIT LAN Besides Hemacand nportant works of this school are last Sata of the last chapter o its abserice in Bhamaha’s commentary, Ms Prakytalakyana mentions Maharastrt as theApabht Pray Avantiand Magadlh calling ita form of Mi EVOLUTION OF THE PRARRIT LANGUAGES. a7 ily Markandeya, (Prakrtasaroasoa (2,42) always prefers a (Siddhahema, 8.1.228-30) prescribesnguage of Jhisan important iF grammatical forms present indicative endsin ) The fi EVOLUTION OF THE PRAKRIT LANGUAGES 29 r grammarians have given. Here simply stated that seven dialects in addition to seven more were used inthedramas. Like thefirstnine chaptersof Vararuci’s Pratrtaprakasa 1ee Paidasof Hemacandra’s Siddhahema, Chapter 17 of summary of wl I belonging to30 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF PRAKRIT LITERATURE wg of equanimity should not be yminative singular ged to Land s $4,288), norany has quotedaverse in hiscommentaryon the Dasa (p. acred ca led these dialectsarec consideral le 1¢ two in certain respects. Accor82 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF PRAKRIT LITERATURE circumstances, Hemacandracannotbe considered an authority with regard to the grammatical rules of the existing text which was finally is not the fault of of Ardhamagadhi been already pointed out explaining the meaning we of Vararuci Aral Ardhamagadhi in the Natyasastra Bharata in his Nalyasastra bas mentioned Magadhi, Avanti, Saurase: kA and Daksinsitya as Itissaid tharArdhamagad| rincesand leaders of bankers’ gui bespoken by buritisto be 0 Bhasa, Indra speaks this dialect.” Keith al of Ardhamagadhi ceased to be employed s wits place. In ityadarpana (17.50) Markandeya, as seen, rejects Ardhy independent dialect b Magadhi, Maharastr, Sa ind others. While dealing: characteristics of Magadhi a, the dialect of Ardhamagadht is consi asiri and Magadht" and not an -dup with . Magadhi and was therefore amixed Ithasbeen also knownasArdha-prakrit, Ary or Pracina-Prakrit. to thesubjecematter,thegran portion of canonical literature, comprising € Uaridhyayana, the portions of vasyakaan ntroduction to the Acéraiga has given a short Pischel too has noticed some olel forms of Ardhamagadhit Grammatih (Art 6).ORYAND DEVELOPMENT OF PRAKRIT LITERATURE ference between Ardhamagadhi of the of the Digambara EVOLUTION OF THE PRAKRIT LANGUAGES, 35 amas, Sauraseni occupies a pr to the author, this dialect of the dranas sl dialect spoken in the region of Sarasena. Ti place. According Sauraseni was normally the prose Prakrit, though it appears to have been occasionally used in verse ‘employed in ia dialects employed are ians. Scholars are of the opi s Prakrits on the stage arose at a time when Sanskrit could mostly be Pracya and Avant, a Variety of Saurasentpda of his Prafyia deals wi spectively. Comparative study of the dialects spoken by differ acteristics. Avantija is ascribed to dh players. Most of the characteristic features found in the Prahria M: RA savegiia ly with those providHISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF PRAKRIT LITERATURE,40 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF PRAKRIT LITERATURE EVOLUTION OF THE PRAKRIT LANGUAGES are worked out by Het ft grammars and are made and forms of speech, whereas is mentioned, of an insignificant variety. Seven differ varieties of this di which agrees wiEVOLUTION OF THE PRAKRITLANGUAGES. 43. )RVAND DEVELOPMENT OF PRAKRIT LITERATURE livided Prakrit into Bhas nny varieties of the anywhere except a44 HISTORYAND DEVELOPMENT OF PRAKRIT LITERATURE ye development ‘tha some! of ska sometimes as ska and sometimes as ska. We ai lagadl under the influence of to change eof the nomi- cts to revo wor ener ener te) there is a difference of opi writ EVOLUTION OF THE PRAKRIT LANGUAGES. 45 live in the women’s apart keepersofliquor shops, watchersandistsedin i hero and also by the Sakiras. Accor it was spoken by the Pisicas and the tow 1ed to the mor Ja, Magadhi has been ascribed to the f NOTES The ition, edited by William Morris,A History of Sanshrit Literatur, London, 1998, p. 26, DG. Girear, Grammar of the Praknt Language. The Desinamamata of Hemacandra, p- xxix 10 dexiwords and the dhatuddesas, see Chapter 8,48 HISTORVAND DEVELOPMENT OF PRAKRIV LITERATURE EVOLUTION OF THE PRAKRIT LANGUAGES 49 31, recent samt, se ig Seto acc 82, amnowraeta Fe, Peo nr Tee aM Pre Viyha A Ovi Com. 84, supported this view. ‘wag Roce a ore mere: Eat a TEN, Annual Report, Archaeological Survey of India, 1903-4, pp. 128K, ater S.K. Chatterji, Origin and Development of Bengali Language, Introduction, p58. The Vasudeoa, Appendix VIM,