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Māhārāștrī Language and Literature
The Māhārāștrī Prākrit
Māhārāstrī is one of the important Prākrits receiving a full treatment at the hands of both the Prākrit grammarians and Sanskrit rhetoricians. It is moreover the only language of the Dramatic group in which extensive literature is to be found. Dandin?, an author of the seventh century, says that Māhārāstri Prākrit is regarded as the language par excellence and Setubandha and other great works are written in that Prākrit. All the Prākrit grammarians from Vararuci onwards treat in their works Māhārāstrī as the chief Prākrit language and in case of other Prākrits give rules about those features only in which they differ markedly from Māhārāstrī. The value and importance attached to this Prākrit can be clearly seen from the fact that from comparatively early times the name Prākrit usually meant this language out of the whole group of Prākrits, a usage to which nearly all the writers subscribe? In the usual six-fold division of languages to be used in literature Prākrit occurs immediately after Sanskrit and stands there for Māhārāstri which is made evident by the specific mention of the names of other Prākrits that follow in the list. Both Vararuci and Hemacandra when they want to refer to Māhārāstrī write sesam māhārāstrīvat and seșam prākstavat", expressions which mean that all other features which are not dealt with there are to be the same as those in Māhārāstrī.
Reasons for this prominence are not far to seek. The grammarians of the Prākrit languages were in need of some system to be followed which would save them a good deal of their labour. They found in Māhārāstrī the only language in which nearly all the forms were to be met with and thus afforded them a very convenient starting point for the study of the whole of the Prākrit group. It supplied a very good standard of comparison for othe languages. Hemacandra finds it convenient even in case of such a language as Ardha-Māgadhi which is, to all intents, quite different from Māhārāstrī?.