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प्राकृतसर्वस्वम् ।
no early evidence of its use. The very fact that Brhatkatha written in this dialect was uncared for and could not be kept in tact is another reason to show its precarious condition in the nation's literature.
122
X Concluding Remarks of Mārkaṇḍeya on the Classification of Prakrit.
59.
In the concluding lines, i. e., in XX. 15, 16, Mk remarks that he has thus described sixteen types of languages and that if one desires, he would quote the view of others regarding the division of languages. Some authorities opine, he adds, that the language is of eighteen kinds when combined with Sanskrit and Samkīrņa (mixed). Some again divide language into fourteen types by including Bāhliki and Pañcālī11 in this division. In that case, according to them, the language together with Sanskrit and Samkirṇa become sixteenfold. Let us see what all this means. As I have pointed out earlier, Mk could have easily rejected Pañcāla as a separate type of Paiśāci on the same ground as he rejected Bähliki, for both Bahlīki and Pañcāla differ from the main variety of their respective dialects only on the point of r changing to l or vice versa. and this according to Mk should not be taken as a distinctive characteristic in as much as even Sanskrit recognises the oneness between the two letters. But he has not done it. Now he says that according to one view Sanskrit and Samkírṇa, i. e., mixture of languages in literary compositions ( as we have seen in examples cited by Rt in Paiśāci section) as two other varieties in addition to the main classification of Prakrit, the division comes to eighteen in number. This probably
121. Here Pañcali probably refers to Pañcall Paiśācī.
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