Lilavai

SR No.: 002796
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: A N Upadhye
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
Publication Year: 1966
Total Pages: 500
Language: Sanskrit, Hindi, English
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Literature
File Size: 15 MB

Page 105

LĪLĀVAT
It has been customary nowadays to state dogmatically what New Indo-Aryan language has descended from what Middle Indo-Aryan language. Except perhaps in the case of Gujarati, the evidence is meagre elsewhere, and one has to be very cautious in stating, in toto, the parentage of a particular Modern Indian language. The reasons are plain. The Präkrit dialects preserved to us in literature are literary speeches, though connected with the spoken languages of some locality and age. The present-day Modern Indian languages are a continuation or development of the spoken-speech, now and then influenced by literary usages and grammatical stereotyping. So it would be overstating, if not misrepresenting, the situation when it is asserted that Marathi has descended from Sanskrit, Pāli, Māhārāstri or Apabhramsa. These are sweeping generalisations from a few common points, and such statements are far from the scientific needs of the language-study. What really requires to be done is that the facts of Marāț hi language, both in its literary strata and spoken dialects, should be authentically ascertained, and then one should detect their counterparts in the Middle Indo-Aryan, some Prakrits as well as Apabhramsa. The Māhārāstri Prākrit and its allied Apabh. idiom are sure to give us some earlier links of Marāthi. Vocabulary and loan-words are not always a safe criterion in this respect. Prākrit and Apabhramsa have nearly the same vocabulary but as languages they present distinct phases. Apart from striking common words, parallel points should be mainly detected in pronouns, their forms and usage; in the names of relations, parts of the body and essential articles of domestic use; in the roots and verbal formations; etc.
'Because the author of the Lilāvati himself calls the dialect of this poem Mahārāsţra-desi--bhasă one feels tempted to find something common with Marāthi. The confusion between the Nom. and Inst. pronominal forms really anticipates what one finds in Marāthi. There are many Dhätvādeśas used in this text which closely remind those in Marāțhi. To explain a Marāthi verbal form, Konowl was connecting it with Sanskrit na (j)ānāmi, but in this text more than once the base na-yana is used and it is clearly the predecessor of the Marāthi form.” Expression like rāino bhaniūna (Marāthī rājālā sāngūna or lit, mhanana), gharaharm (Mar. gharoghara),
1 Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. VII, Intro. p. 5. 2 Note the words like limkarūva.