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Generic Relationships of Prakrit Languages
in the Vedas
Narayan M. Kansara
The term 'Prākrta' has been explained by grammarians like Hemacandra, as one derived from the word 'prkrti' which means Sanskrit!. And, accordingly, he classified Prakrit words into three types, viz., Tad-bhava, Tat-sama and Deść, out of which he has discussed only Tad-bhava ones, leaving out the rest of the two types. And he has shown that Prakrit does not use R', , L, I, AI', 'AU', ‘N’, Ñ, 'S', 'Ş, Visarga, Pluta, consonants without vowel, dual number and Dative plural?. The very fact that he has analysed the Prakrit, in all its varieties, viz., Māhärāștri, Saurasenī, Māgadhi, Ardhamāgadhi, Paisāci, Cālikāpaiśāci and Apabhraṁsa, and concluded the eighth Adhyāya with the last sūtra indicating that the rest is as found in Sanskrit, as a part of his voluminous work called Siddha-haima-sabdanuśāsanam, seems to imply that basically he regards Sanskrit and Prakrit as one and the same speech (śabda), with a variety in their modes of utterances, rather than independent languages. We may call them dialects in modern terms. Modern academic world tends to derive the term 'Prākrta' from the same word 'Prakrti' but takes it to denote people in general or the masses, as distinguished from the elites. This implies that while Sanskrit was the speech of the elite, Prakrits were the languages of the masses. Both these views have an underlying grain of truth, but they are not fully correct and historically valid.
When we refer to the Vedas in this context, we mean the type of the ancient archaic Sanskrit, known to academicians and indologists as Vedic Sanskrit, rather than the contents, of the Vedic Samhităs, Brāhmaṇa texts (which include Aranyakas and Upanisads), as also the Rāmāyana and the Mahābhārata. Vedic Sanskrit is the oldest extant speech of India, and Pāņini has referred to it by the words Chandas, Mantra' and 'Brāhmana', while he has indicated the speech prevalent in his days by the word 'Bhāsā', and both these
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