Notes on Some Prakrit Words

Author(s): H C Bhayani
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NOTES ON SOME PRAKRIT WORDS
H. C. Bhayani
(1) Aduāliya The Partridge In / And The Cart
In Agastyasimha's Curni on the Daśaveāliyasuttal (c. late 6th Cent. A. D.), while treating various types and sub-types of the udáharanas, the following story is given as an illustration of the Vyamsaka (“trickster, trickery') subtype of Hetul:
एकेण गामेल्लएण कटु-सगडेण णगरं जंतेणं अंतरे तित्तिरी मता लद्धा । तं सगडे पक्खिवित्ता णगरे पविसंतो गर-धुत्तेण पुच्छितो - कहं सगड-तित्तिरी लब्भति ? | तेण भणितं - तप्पणादुयालिताए । धुत्तेण सक्खिणो आहणिऊणं सगडं स-तित्तिरीयं णीयं । गामेल्लओ स-चितो अच्छति । अण्णेण विडेण पुच्छिता - किं चितेसि? तेण सव्वं कहितं । विडो भणति - जाहि पदेसिणि वेढेत्ता भण 'विसिटुं पिता तप्पामाडुगालियं देहि' 1 दिण्णाए 'अंगुली दुक्खति' ति महिलाए आदुतालावेहि । तं महिलं स-सक्खियं हत्थे घेत्तुं भण - तप्पणाडुतालिता सगडतित्तिरिए कीता! तेण जहोवएसं कतं । धुत्तेण सण्होरं जेमावेत्ता सगड-भरो विसज्जितो, णियत्तिया भज्जा ॥
Translation :
A villager while going to the city with his cart loaded with pieces of wood saw a dead partridge on the way. He picked it up and put it in the cart. As he entered the city, a city-rogue asked him : "For how much can I get the cart-partridge ?" The other replied, “In exchange of commingled barley-groats." The rogue called witnesses and took away the cart with the partridge. The villager sat worrying. Another clever and cunning fellow asked him : "What is your worry ?" The other man told him all that happened. The cunning fellow said : "You approach that rogue with your index finger wrapped up and tell him, 'Give me the commingled barley - groats we agreed upon.' When he gives it, tell to the chief lady of his house that "my finger aches" and get it soaked by her (in cold water ?). Then getting hold of that lady in the presence of witnesses tell the rogue : "I have bought the barley-groats (tappaña) and the soaker (adutalitā) in lieu of the cart-partridge." The villager acted in accordance with the instructions. The rogue with humble submission dined him, returned the cart, discharged him, and called back his wife.
Notes : tappaņāduyālitā, tappanādugäliyā,
adutālāv-, tappanādutālitā.
If the inorganically inserted -12- and -g- are removed and -du- in the first form is taken to be a mistake for -du-in other forms, we would have tappaņāduāliā and āduālāv..

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H. C. Bhayani
In the first occurrence tappaṇāḍuāliā means 'barley-groats (Pk. tappaṇa = Sk. saktu) which are commingled' (āduäliä: past passive participle used as a modifier) (with probably ghee). Hemacandra has given äḍuäli in the sense of mixing', 'mixture', (miśratva, misribhava, Desināmamālā, 1. 69 ). Gujarāti āḍvalvu means to mingle a powdery substance (e. g. grain-floor) with a liquid and coagulate.' In the third occurrence in the cited passage tappaṇāḍuällä means, barley-groats (tappana) and the person who has soaked them' (āḍuāliã feminine agent noun)3. In the second occurrence it is to be taken as ambiguous having double entendre. The rogue played a verbal trick on the villager by using the expression sagada-tittiri which can mean 'the partridge that is in the cart and the cart and the partridge'. He is paid back in the same coins through a matching verbal trick: tappaṇāḍuäliä can mean 'barleygroats mingled' and 'barley-groas and the mingler'. The 'aching' finger is treated by immersing it in the cold water".
26
sanhoram This is glossed in the Notes as salajjar 'being ashamed, shamefully'. It seems to be a corrupt reading for sa-nihoram. In Modern Hindi nihorna means 'to entreat', nihora entreaty. It occurs in Apabhramsa in an illustrative citation given in the Svayambhucchandas, VIII 10-1055.
Nirgrantha
Another version of this story occurs in Samghadasa's Vasudevahindi (c. mid 6th century A.D.) where it is given as a tale narrated by Kamalasenā to her husband Dhammilla to illustrate the roguish and cheating character of the urban people. Its later part is completed by Dhammilla.
In that version the cartman brings with him in the cart a cage with a partridge in it... The roguish sons of a seller of medicinal herbs (gamdhiya-putta) tricked the cartman to sell to them the sagada-tittiri (differently interpreted by the buyer and the seller). for one kärsapana. Thereafter, following the instruction of a benign nobleman the cheated cartman approached the rogue and offered them his ox in lieu of tappaṇāduyaliyä, but on condition that, that is given to him at the hands of their mother, nicely dressed and adorned. When the mother came to give the barley-groats, the cartman caught hold of her and went away. The dispute was ultimately settled in favour of the cartman, who was liberally compensated.
Now, the editor and translators of the Vasudevahindi have failed to grasp the meaning and significance of the Prakrit expression tappaṇāduyaliyam in the text of this story. The editors have emended it as tappaṇadupaliya i. e. the two pālīs (a measure) of the barley-groats, and the translators also have depended upon this emendation. But in the emended expression there is no scope for the double entendre which is pivotal for the point of the story as shown above in the case of the Daśakalika-curṇi version.
As a tale-type, this story is based on the principle of 'tit for tat' or clever retaliation.

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Notes on some prakrit words
Deception by some verbal trick or equivacation is the motif in one class of these tales?
Incidentally, we may note two other occurrences of aduyāl - from Prakrit literature. In the Avašyaka cūrņi (c. A. D. 600-650) (P. 447) (Haribhadra's Vrtti, P 342 a, Malayagiri's Vrtti, P. 452) occurs adduyaliya (v. I. adduyaliya - adduyāliya)'.
तत्थ पत्थो सरिसवाणं छूढो । ताणि सव्वाणि अड्यालियाणि ।
'A measure of sarsapas was thrown in it. All these were mixed up by stirring.' Later aduyäliya -occurs in a somewhat different sense. In Sīlänka's Caüpanna-mahāpuriscariya (A. D. 869) it is used in the sense of stirring and heaving felt in the stomach due to undigested food : 375feri ( v. 1.37geft) więtojant (p. 319, 1.11). Rajasthāni adāro preserves this meaninglo. Monier Williams has given adval (advalayati) 'to mix, mingle' on the basis of advalana 'mixing. mingling which occurs in the Kātyāyanaśrauta-sūtra and its commentary. Tval is recorded in the Pāṇiniya-Dhátupatha (20,5) as also tal-(20, 4), both in the sense of vaiclavya 'to be disturbed.' Monier Williams considers these gval, tal, and dval as variants of the same root. Whitney observes that, as advalana is used by only one scholiast, it is no proper root (The Roots, Verb - forms,
-59). Turner also thinks tal, tval and (adval to be allied (CDIAL under 5450). However the Pk. and NIA. evidence (from Gujarati and Rājasthāni) clearly show that tal (or ţval) and dval have separate identities and semantic range.
This case further bears out the view that, with regard to those roots of the Dhatupāthas which remain unattested from the available Sanskrit literature, Middle Indo-Aryan and New Indo-Aryan sources can provide evidence to establish their authenticity. It would be rash to dismiss them as artificial creations of the grammarians.
(2) On the words gommata, gumaţi, gumaţă
Late A. N. Upadhye had convincingly established" that the word gomata in Old Marathi and gomtā in Modern Marathi (and gomto in Konkani) means 'fair,' 'handsome,' 'attractive,' 'good,' etc., and in Old Kannada gommata similarly signified 'pleasing,' 'excellent. He has cited passages containing this word from serveral Marathi literary texts of the 13th century and documents of the 17th century and from the Kannada inscriptions of the 12th century. He has also rightly concluded that the word is of Dravidian origin and was an early loan-word in Marathi (through Kannada).
His other important conclusions that gommata 'fair-skinned,'beautiful was a household name, a pet name, a personal name of Cāmundarāya, the minister and general of the Ganga monarchs, who got carved, out of the rock, the famous image of Bahubali at Śravanabelgoda in A. D. 981; that statue came to be called Gommateśvara after the minister's name; and that through reinterpretation Gommata was made later synonymous

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Nirgrantha
with Bahubali. Thus all earlier speculations and misundertandings have been set at rest.
The present brief note aims at supplementing Upadhye's study of the word gommața by pointing out three occurrences of the word gumaţi, one as a Prakrit word and another as a Sanskrit word, not noticed by Upadhye or, to my knowledge, by any other scholar. The first occurrence is noted from a text passage datable in the first half of the 11th century A. D. and hence the earliest brought to light so far.
In Bhoja's Sarasvatīkanthābharana, to illustrate the Sanikīrna type of the Figure of Sound called Jāti, a verse is cited which has a mixture of Sanskrit, Mahārāstrī Prakrit, and Apabhramśa (II. v. 10) languages. Its first line begins with the following words:
akata-gumati-candra-jyotsna
The Maharastri ord akața is paraphrased by the commentator Ratneśvara as āścaryam 12 and gumați as manojñā. Thus the moonlight is described as wonderfully beautiful. It should be noted that one constituent of the meaning of gumati here (applied to the moonlight) is 'white'. Compare the Marathi phrase gora-gomtā in which, as suggested by Upadhye, we have collocation of two synonyinous words to express intensity of whiteness.
The second occurrence of gumati I happened to notice was in a verse cited in the Prabandhacintamani (A. D. 1305) of Merutunga in one of its manuscripts (Pb Siglum) dated the 17th Century A. D. The verse occurs within a legendary anecedote connected with the Paramāra king Bhoja and a poor man. The latter addresses to the King a self.. composed Sanskrit verse which contains 11 ți-sounds. Its third line contains the following words: priya na gumati : 'I have not got a fair woman as my wife'.
The third occurrence is somewhat doubtful. In Someśvara's Mānasollāsa (A. D. 1131), the illustrative verse given for the musical prabandha called Caturangaka, which is characterized by a mixture of several languages, is found in a highly corrupt forin. I have attempted to restore it". The first line of the verse is in Sanskrit, the second in the Mahārāstri Prakrit, the third in some regional dialect (Early Madlıyadesiya ?) and the fourth in Māgadhi. The third line has been restored by me as under:
jo govi-jaņi gāije bahu-pare rūpim tinho gomatā
The Mss. read nihăm-tinho and gomaya respectively for the last two words. If my emendation of gomaya as gomatā is plausible, we have here an early 12th century occurrence of gomatā in the sense of manojña. It cannot of course mean here gaura, because Krsna' is śyāmala, dark.

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Notes on some prakrit words
Thus gomata, quite probably a Kannada loan word in early Marathi, is attested from more number of texts, of the 11th, 12th, and 14th century.
(3) Pk. halahala/old and bambhani
In a recently published paper on the 15th chapter (Teyanisagga, Gosalaya-saya), which gives an account of Gosala Mamkhaliputta, the leader of the Ajivikas, Roth has made the following observation on the significance of Halahala, the personal name of the potter woman, in whose shop Gosala with his follower was accommodated :
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"From this it appears that the name Halähala was given to the potter-woman, who accommodated Gosäla, in order to characterize her as a poisonous snake." (p. 448, note 13).
Roth's observation is based on the meaning 'snake' recorded in PW and on halahaladhara' a small, black, venomous kind of snake'. It may be noted that MW also records haláhala 'a kind of snake' from Indian lexicographers. It has, however, also recorded halahala and halähala' a kind of lizard' and halahala' a kind of small mouse'. Besides, it has given halini a kind of lizard'. All these derive from lexicographical sources.
It seems that there is strong evidence for supporting a kind of lizard' as the original meaning for haláhala, halahala, etc.
Roth has noted (p. 419) that, Hemacandra's Desinämamālā records under 8.75 halāhalā with two meanings: mālāra (= SK. môläkara, malika 'garland-maker') and bambhani (= bambhanika according to Hemacandra's commentary on the passage). Roth has misunderstood bambhani / bambhanika. We may note in this connection that the Deśināmamālā records under 8.63 halahala also with the single sense of bambhani and further it has given bambhani (with its variant bambhani) also under 6.90 in the sense of halahala. Corresponding to PK. bambhani, the SK. form is brahmani. Dhanapala, using possibly the same source as Hemacandra, records (714) halāhalā as synonymous with bambhania.
Now, Hemacandra's Abhidhanacintamani records, as noted by Bechardas Doshi (p. 316, note 2. p. 429, not 1), under v. 1298 halähala with its synonyms halini, añjanikā, and anjanādhikä in the sense of a type of lizard' and under 1299 brähmani in the sense of a fat lizard having red tail (rakta-pucchika)'. So here Hemacandra has given halahala and brāhmaṇī as Sanskrit words, but as words with somewhat different meanings. MW. has recorded brāhmaṇī from the Rāmāyaṇa in the same sense. The word is preserved in Hindi bäbhani, bämhani a type of lizard', and in Gujarati bodi bāmṇī in the same sense.

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H. C. Bhayani
Nirgrantha
Halāhala occurs in Hāla's Gāhākośa (1, 62) where the commentator Bhuvanapāla observes that halāhalā is the same as grhagodhikā, which is popularly called brāhmani.
The Deši-Sabdakośa has recorded from the Jaina Agama literature haliya, halliya, 'lizard', 'brāhmaṇi'; hallāhalla 'a kind of insect'; halaka'a kind of insect' and halāhala 'a kind of insect. We can conclude that the potter-woman's name Halāhalā signified 'a red-tailed big lizard.' Such personal names have been traditionally common down to the present day in the lower castes!4. Postscript Dr. Roth has kindly sent to me a copy of H. Lueders's paper 'Von indischen Tieren' (included in his Kleine Schriften, ed. 0. Von Hinuber, 1973, pp. 24-80) and has also drawn my attention to some Hindi textual data. I feel, however, that the Prakrit lexical evidence is much more relevant and it heavily weighs in favour of a nonpoisonous type of lizard as the meaning of halāhala (called in Gujarāti 'Sap-ni-māsi,' aunt of serpent).
Notes And References:
1. Dasakāliya-sutta, Ed. Punyavijaya Muni, PTS series No. 17, Ahmedabad 1973, p. 28.
2. The Text of the Dasakāliya sutte has numerous forms with the inorganic -t (the so-called
t-sruti). Comparable to the reading adutáli- is okkayallitāo. (For okkayalliyão. For the discussion of insertion of -- in Prakrit forms, see Vasudevahindi-Madhyama-Khanda, Ed.-- H. C. Bhayani, R. M. Shah, LDS No. 99, Ahmedabad 1987, "Introduction', pp. 38.
3. In the Sanskrit glosses given in the footnotes of the Daśakālika, the Prakrit expression is
rendered as tarpaņa-cālikā (p. 28, n. 9).
4. The Sanskrit gloss in the Notes on ādutālāvehi is sitīkaranartham ācālaya (p. 28, n. 8).
कण्ण परिपाडि, जणु जाणइ तोरा । चत्तउ जो सवइ, तसु कवणु णिहोरा ॥
"O karna, people know your habitual practice. What entreaty can be made to him, who abuses that which is abandoned ?' This seems to be a citation from some Apabhramsa poem on the Mahabharata theme.
Eds. Chaturvijaya Muni and Punyavijaya Muni, Gujarat Sahitya Akademi Reprint, Ahmedabad 1989, pp. Vasudevahindi Gujarati Translation by B. J. Sandesara(1988 reprint), pp. 85-86. The Vasudevahindi English Translation, J. C. Jain, Ahmedabad 1977, pp. 618620.

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7. H. C. Bhayani, Lokakathā-nā Mūla ane Kula, (Gujarātī), Ahmedabad 1990, pp. 154-161. 8. Avaśyaka-cūrņi()- Vrtti of Haribhadra, 1, p.228; also in the Āvaśyaka 1-1 vrtti of Malayagiri. 9. The Sk. verb álod is used in the same sense in a similar context :
स्थगिकाया: समाकृष्य सक्तूनालोड्य वरिणा । एकोऽपि भोक्तुमारेभे टक्को रङ्क इव दुतम् ।।
(Hemacandra's Yogaśāstra, 2. 156) 10. See. H. C. Bhayani, “ Rajasthani adāravu, Gujarati açdālvu," Maruśri, 6, 2-3,
Jan. June, 1977, p. 65. 11. Gommata : Origin and Etymological Study of the Word. Reprinted in the Jinamanjaree, 8,
3, New York 1993, pp. 15-32. 12. With akata we can compare Apabhramśa kata, kata-re etc. occurring in the same meaning.
In both the words akata and gumați, t. has exceptionally remained unvoiced.
13."The Prakrit and Desabhasa Passages from Someśvara's Mänasollasa", K. K.Handiqui Felicitation
Volume, 1983, pp. 174 175 (=Indological Studies, 1993, p. 306).
14. In story no. 37 of Rajasekhara süri's Vinodakatha Samgralia, we meet a gambler named
Halāhala (1.34. b). The work is dated c. middle of the 14th century A. D.
References : Abhidhānacintāmaņi of Hemacandra, ed. Vijayakastursuri, Ahmedabad 1957. Dešināmamāla, ed. Pischel and Ramanujaswami, Bombay 1938. Desi Sabda kośa, Ed. Muni Dulaharaj, Ladnun 1988. Desi sadba Sangraha, edited and translated by Bechardas Doshi, Ahmedabad 1974. "Golsāla Mankhaliputta's Birth in a cow-stall Including Notes on a Parallel in the Gospel of Luke 2" by Gustav Roth in Jain Studies In Honour of Jozef Deleu, Tokyo 1993, pp. 413-455. Hala's Gahākosa with the Sanskrit commentary of Bhuvanapăla, ed. M. V. Patwardhan, Part - 1, Ahmedabad 1980. Paialacchināmamālā of Dhanapala, ed. Bechardas Doshi, Bombay 1960. Pāiasaddamahānnavo. Hargovinddas T. Sheth. Sec. ed, Varanasi 1963. Vinodakasha Sangraha by Rajasekharasūri, ed. Vijayavira suri, Bombay 1918. Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Monier Williams, reprint, Delhi 1963. Viyahapannatti-suttam, Part-2. Jain Agama Series, Bombay 1978.

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ON THE RISE OF APABHRAŇŚA AS A LITERARY LANGUAGE
H. C. Bhayani
1.
General Observations
Literary language means a language used also or mostly for literary purposes, presupposing the existence and cultivation of literature in that language. The idea and domain of literature and literary art, as we understand in modern times under the impact of the West, were considerably different in the Indian Tradition. Even in the latter, their implication, application, and formulation have altered inevitably in a spatio-temporal context that embraces three thousand years of continuous production of literary discourse and vast regions with partly shared, partly specific, cultural traditions.
In the Indian situation historically viewed, our currently understood oppositions between literary and non-literary, literality and orality, creative literature and non-creative literature cannot always hold, at least not to the same degree.
History as conceived by us after the Western impact as a record of events and things changing over sequential chronological periods was, with a few exceptions, something unknown to the Indian Tradition. So, when we talk of literary history in Indian context, we are setting up an alien frame for ordering, organizing, and understanding, for our purpose, the changes in the character and form of the texts produced at different periods of time.
To deal with Indian literary traditions means to deal with vastly multilingual developments, broadly shared by, but narrowly peculiar to various regions in keeping with, of course, more or less pervasive cultural developments.
Who, for whom, and with whose support produced literature are very obviously the interconnected vital matters for our consideration. The patronage came from the rulers, from the élite groups, or the religious institutions and establishments. All the three great traditions - Vedic-Hindu, Buddhist and Jainist - played a key-role. Popular literature of course flourished in a different milieu. But establishing significant and mutually invigorating linkages between the 'Class' and 'Mass' literatures periodically was a distinguishing feature of the literary history. Besides, the hierarchical structure of Indian society, its authoritarianism and distribution of literacy were factors determining the nature, character, type, and structure of the

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literary texts produced.
Modes of transmission and the preservation also of texts produced over centuries present us with a set of problems. Besides the oral and written modes of preservation and a set of complex relations of give and take between them, we are faced with the fact that a vast amount of literature is permanently lost to us and a considerable bulk remains locked up in unpublished manuscripts and unrecorded oral traditions. This situation also creates serious handicaps in trying to figure out literary history.
The ideological and philosophical overview of the community plays a decisive role in the production of literature and the type of literature produced. The changes which the former had undergone was also a basic deciding factor for the rise of 'new' literatures at various periods.
With regard to the Indian Tradition, our modern notions of uniqueness of the author of a text, of integrity of a text, and of originality mostly fail to work. Reinterpreting, revising, retelling, recreating, or rather transcreating has been the mode of preserving the traditional, modifying or enriching it, and keeping it 'living and thus making it meaningful under the changed socio-cultural conditions and cater to the new needs of the community were the normal and accepted practice.
A corrolary of the point 7 is that the categorizations or dichotomies we got as the modern Western heritage, into fact and fiction, real and mythical, objective truth and subjective belief, have to be basically modified when we consider the Indian Tradition. In many an area the view and approach are not the positivistic 'either-or' but the holistic 'both-and.' The contrast in practice is not exclusive but graded with poles differentiated. Several of these points of course overlap and are interdependent. The case of Apabhramśa language Earlier Traditions : The precedent situation.
I will consider the recognition of Apabhramśa as a literary language and the beginning and cultivation of Apabhramsa literature, assuming that it was typical of similar other developments in the Indian Tradition. Periodwise, Apabhramnsa literature was subsequent to Sanskrit and Prakrit literatures and preceded literatures in Modern Indian Languages of North India, i. e. New Indo-Aryan languages. The earliest statement on record relating to Apabhramśa as a recognised language of literature is by Bhāmaha, a late sixth century theorist of literature. From the references we find in Bhāmaha

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and Dandin, another literary theorist who followed the former after a century or less, we gather that the Apabhramśa was one of the four languages of literature, another three being Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Paiśācī. There are indications that the Apabhramśa literature began to be produced from about the sixth century when there already were three other literary languages and literatures with a history extending over several centuries and with a large number of works in several literary genres which can be subsumed under the general types of poetry, fiction, and drama.
We know that, by the sixth century before Christ, the Early Indo-Aryan or 'pre-Sanskrit' as used by the common people in the region of Magadha in East India had so much changed that Vardhamana Mahāvīra and Gautama Buddha, who were among the most prominent religious teachers of that period, had preached their message in the colloquial "Māgadhi' and not in the language current in the prestigious Vedic-Bralımanic circles. The dialect situation of a few centuries thereafter is reflected broadly in the inscriptions of emperor Asoka (3rd century B. C.) which show the distinctive features for the dialects of the eastern, western, and northern regions.
But what is noteworthy about this literary situation is the important fact that, of the then current three languages of literature, Sanskrit had been confined since over a thousand years to a limited class of élites, who employed it for learned discourse and for composing high literature. There existed a large volume of texts in Sanskrit - Śāstras (religio-philosophical and scientific treatises) and Kavyas (creative writings) also in the several literary genres: Mahākāvya (the ornate epic), Kathä (the fiction), Natya * (the drama), etc.
Sanskrit drama used a mixture of prose and verse and its performance was an organic structure of verbal text, dance and music combined. Over and above the Sanskrit language, it used for the speech of 'inferior' characters several regional colloquial dialects (Sauraseni, Mahārāstri, Māgadhi, etc.) in a highly stylized form so as to represent the sex and class differentiation of the language used in the society of those times. The preserved fragments of Aśvaghosa's dramas (second century after Christ) and Bharata's encyclopaedia of dramaturgy and dramatic performance (original portions datable to c. the third century of Christ) give us a picture of the situation.
Before the beginning of the Christian era, Gahā, Dhavala (short lyrics), etc., and Kahā (romantic fiction) began to develop as consciously composed literary genres in the language of the Mahārāstra region in the West (i.e. Mahārāstrī Prakrit), and by the fourth century, an ornare Mahākāvya (the

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Harivijaya) was composed in that language. Another elaborate Mahakāvya (the Setubandha) also appeared a century later.
It should, however, be noted in this connection that, because of its religious and cultural prestige, its refinement and creative vigour, the Sanskrit language, literary style and expression, and literary models exerted quite a dominating influence. Literary Mahārāstri was in that regard rather a colloquialized and stylized form of Sanskrit, which was confined to its region to start with but shortly earned recognition in all other regional literary circles.
This is not to gainsay the fact that the contents of the Mahārāştri lyrics largely and typically related to the life and ways of the rural society, but this poetry was produced and appreciated mostly in royal courts and élite circles. Essentially, in that regard, it was not different from the Sanskrit poetry; but there was a significant point of difference: Mahārāstri poetry and verse-fiction had developed its own metrical forms different from those of Sanskrit. Moreover, the performance aspect, too, played a decisive role. It should also be stressed that Prakrit had predominantly vocalic word-forms with only homo-organic consonant clusters. This made it more suitable for song and music.
Regarding the Paiśāci language and literature, we are almost totally in the dark. An enormous work in the Paiśācī language, containing stories, tales, legends and narratives teeming with romantic episodes and daring adventures, with humans, subliumans, and suprahumans having a free intercourse and with remarkable complexity of forin – the Vaddakahá - was written about the second century after Christ. But the original has been irrecoverably lost. What we now have are its several considerably late recasts, renderings or retellings, with additions, expansions, and omissions, in Sanskrit and in Mahārastri Prakrit. No other work is available in the Paiśāci language. Only the name of one other Paiśāci text is mentioned by a writer of the ninth century. This means that Pajśācī had virtually ceased to be the language of literature shortly after the second century.
We are also ignorant about the region where Paiśāci was in colloquial use and how it came to be used for coinposing literary works. The Indian Tradition presents us with myths and legends about these matters. Gunādhya, the author of the lost Vaddakahā, is reported to have been a learned Sanskrit scholar, well-versed also in Mahārāstrī Prakrit. He was a court-poet of the Sātavāhana king (himself a famed Prakrit poet and patron of poets), ruling at Pratişthána in Mahārästra. The legend has it that he came to be placed

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H. C. Bhayani
Nirgrantha
in such a situation that he had to forego the use of Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the spoken idiom of his time. Hence he had to compose his marathon storywork (which in fact, had originated from God Siva and he was just a carrier) in Paiśācī, spoken by some tribals or primitives (actually Piśācas, goblins') haunting the forest regions of the Vindhya mountain range. Medieval Indian and Modern scholars disagree considerably about the original region and characteristics of the Paiśāci language. It was in all probability a stylized form of Prakrit with its phonology partially recast after the dialect of some aboriginal tribe.
Beginnings of Apabhraíśa language and literature
Dandin, a seventh century literary theorist, has characterized literary Apabhramśa as based on the dialects of the communities called Abhira and others (which probably included the Gurjaras). Taking into account the cultivation and continuities during the later times, it is reasonable to assume that it was the Western region including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Sindh, and Mālava where Apabhramśa language and literature had their beginnings. Later, they spread to other regions towards the south and east. To start with, the Apabhramsa was but a colloquialized form of literary Prakrit. Like Prakrit, literary Apabhramśa, too, became considerably stylized and strongly influenced by Sanskrit, which provided the prestigious paradigms for style and expression. But its metrical reportoire was its own; so also it had developed some characteristic literary genres (the Rasabandha and the Sandhibandha, besides several song-types).
A noteworthy feature of the literary Apabhramśa was that it was, to a degree, free to absorb colloquial elements. The explanation lies in the fact of its rise and recognition as a literary medium. The highly stylized Prakrits, continuing with vigour side by side with the dominant Sanskrit, got in course of time considerably removed from the popular regional dialects. Apabhramśa arose to fill the communication gap. Phonologically, Apabhramsa was but a developed variety of Prakrit. But its inorphology, a part of its lexicon, and above all its idiomatic features made it more allied to the later New Indo-Aryan languages.
In that way, Apabhramśa was transitional. It preserved its 'classical character in limited Jaina circles up to about the 15th-16th century. On the other hand it became more and more colloquialized and diversified, eventually ending up as various New Indo-Aryan literary languages, many of which inherited its metres, patterns, and literary forms.

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Vol. 1-1995
On the rise of....
It now remains to delineate the socio-cultural and geographical milieu within which the Apabhramsa literature flourished for several centuries after its rise (and continued to be produced for an equally long period after the rise of New Indo-Aryan literatures about 1000 years after Christ, although it had then lost its vitality and vibrancy, and had become increasingly rigidified.)

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In a general way, the Apabhramśa literature can be said to repeat in many respects what happened in the case of Sanskrit and Prakrit literatures, which had continued to be produced in bulk alongside the Apabhramsa literature. Unfortunately, the period of the first three centuries in the history of Apabhramśa literature is almost a blank for us, as all early texts are lost. We have a score of names of early poets and a few citations and allusions. But there is enough evidence that Apabhramsa had continued the earlier tradition of composing voluminous epics having the Mahabharata as well as the Rāmāyaṇa narratives and the Kṛṣṇacarita (the Puranic life account of Kṛṣṇa) as their themes. Besides these there were a number of lyrical types basically oriented towards performance. Apabhramsa had been adopted by all the three main traditions - the Vedic-Brahmanic, the Jainistic, and the Buddhist. But, on account of the better institutional structure of preservation, most of the preserved works in Apabhiramsa are Jainistic. The modern Westernized perception would call it religious poetry. But the Indian Tradition categorized the 'fictional literary works according to the four ends of all human endeavour, namely Dharma, Artha, Kama and Mokşa, and hence the Dharmakatha (religious fiction), irrespective of its religious theme and didactic purpose, had the same status as the Arthakatha (pertaining to the worldly life and dealings) and Kamakatha (having the love-life as its theme).
All the preserved Apabhramsa texts are verse-texts and there is little evidence to believe that there were also Apabhramsa works in prose. The Apabhiramsa texts were recited, sung, or performed before the audience or spectators, who, even though mostly illiterate, were quite familiar with and responsive to orally presented literature.
The audience consisted of the religious, faithful, or the interested groups at large. The patronage was provided by the high-ups in the ruling class or by rich merchants and heads of guilds who maintained religious institutions and establishments. Literary Apabhramsa was more or less homogeneous, but in the later period, and because of preservation through oral transmission, the original language of earlier texts and parts of the textual contents were subject to modifications in keeping with the changing colloquial idioms and changing cultural conditions. This was of course an essential and indispensable condition for the text to remain in the living tradition and to have

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H. C. Bhayani Nirgrantha contemporary relevance. The account presented here is obviously sketchy and open to the charges of having several gaps and loose ends. In view, however, of the complexity of the subject, the issues involved, and scantily preserved evidence, this was in part inevitable. Limitations of time and space, too, cannot be disregarded. (For the present purpose, I have omitted the bibliographical references. But the requisite preliminary information can be had from H. C. Bhayani, Apabhra nisa Language and Literature, B. L. Institute of Indology. Distributors, Motilal Banarsidass. Delhi 1989.)