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80
प्राकृतसर्वस्वम् । Ho certainly knew M, but he did not want to name it as such in his grammar. He treated it under the generic term Prāk’ta only because that covered Ārsa and various other dialectic peculiarities which are unknown to M. So did his followers. But this does not account for the non-existence of M beforehand. Somewhat different was the case with the early writers on poetius. M was so popular for poetic compositions that Pkt besides conveying a generic sense was often identified with M. It was rather considered dignified to name it as Prākṣta than simply M for it is M alone which was declared as the Pkt par excellence by no less a' scholar than Dandin (KD, I. 34 ). Thus this would little help Dr. GHOSH's contention that M was a later phase of S. Moreover scholars have seen unmistakable points of contact of M with Marāthi language.43 Evidently the rise of an eminent poet like Pravarasena (C. 420 A. o.) in Mahārāstra was sure to attract the attention of Dandin and induce him to call the Pkt cultivated in Mahārāştra as the Pkt par excellence. Mk has duly takon note of it in his grammar.
As for the second point of Dr. Ghosa's argument, this much can be said that any variation of Pkt dialect may be explained away by assuming a chronological distance between one and the other, but that is no reason to deny the separate existence of a particular 'dialect at a particular stage.
43. See Grammatik, 12.
44. Lālāva7, ed. by Dr. A. N. UPADHYE, p. 79. This Pkt poem which was written in M in c. 801 A. D), expressly mentions that the language of the poem is marahatthadesibhäsă evidently pointing to M.
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