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INTRODUCTION
child, but continued to roll on for ages till the classical Sanskrit sprang out of them. Here also the dialects survived Sanskrit, and Sanskrit partook of only some of the parental virtues and rejected others".12 We can see clearly now that classical Sanskrit (generally known as Sanskrit simply) cannot be the origin of Prakrit languages.
14. Now let us see what led the grammarians and rhetoricians to conceive Prakrit as of Sanskrit origin. We can ascertain this by the mode of approach in this line noticed in the earliest extant Prakrit grammar, i. e. Vararuci's Prākṛta Prakāsa. He wisely avoids to give a derivative meaning of Prakrit in a general way as the later grammarians have done. But in several places he uses the ward Prakrit while noting the source or origin of Prakrit dialects other than Mahārāṣṭrī. The following are the rules referred to:
१. प्रकृतिः शौरसेनी, X. 2. ( of पैशाची )
२. प्रकृतिः शौरसेनी, XI. 2. ( of मागधी ) 3. प्रकृतिः संस्कृतम्, XII. 2. ( of शौरसेनी )
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Again at the end of the 9th chapter which in fact, is the coclusion of the treatment of Mahārāṣṭrī, he gives the rule Seṣaḥ Samskṛtāt (IX. 18), which means that the remaining portion not treated must be learnt from Sanskrit grammar (cf. Bhāmaha's comm. ). Then at the end of the 12th chapter, the last chapter in his treatise, he gives a similar rule with regard to Śauraseni, i. e., Sesam Mahārāṣṭrivat - the remaining portion should be taken to be the same as Mahārāṣṭrī.
(
From the observation of the above rules, it will be clear that Magadhī and Paiśācī have Śauraseni as their
12. Origin of Skt. and Pkt., K. B. Pathak Comm. Vol., p. 327.
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