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Amrita
further states that works like Setubandha are written in Prākrit and are divided into Aśvāsakas34. That Hemacandra deals with Māhārāstrī in VIII, 1-3 and also regards that language to be the same as the one used in works like Gäthäsaptaśati, Gaudavadha. Setubandha and Visamabānalilā follows from his questions from these works35.
Bhoja appears to draw for his remarks on Prākrit 36 both on Rudrata and Rājasekhara which renders his own views obscure. He regards the verses in the dramas to be written in Saurasenī7 and yet his remarks leave no doubt that he also regards Māhārāstrī and Sauraseni as distinct. With these facts before one it is evident that Dr. Chakravarti misses the real meaning of the word Prākrit when he calls the six-fold division of Rudrața to be logically defective 37
LINGUISTIC NATURE OF MĀHĀRĀȘTRĪ
The nature of this Prākritis fairly illustrative of nearly all the tendencies working in the whole of the Prākrit field. It is, as all others are, based upon the vocabulary of Sanskrit in the main and shows only a few words which cannot be traced to a Sanskritic origin for which reason they are designated as Deśī. The number of such words is however very smalll and it: is also possible that many of them which are found in the usually accepted list of these words are nothing but obscure Sanskrit words or words used in a figurative sense38 or lastly words greatly transformed so as to become different beyond ready recognition. Therefore except for a small number of these words the whole of the vocabulary of this Prākrit can be traced to a Sanskritic origin.
In the early works of this language the vocabulary is marked by the introduction of many Deśī words. In the Sattasai we find them in abundance which is not the case with later works like Setubandha and Gaudavadha. The cause for this difference appears to be that the former work is much more popular in character and is therefore found to preserve the language in a form nearer to the vernacular of the people than the language of the later works of the well known Sanskrit scholars. This change is further due to the growing influence of Sanskrit which was working over the Prākrit literature throughout its development, on account of its greater vogue. This fact invariably led the Prākrit writers to give preference to a Sanskritic vocabulary over genuine Prākrit one as being intelligible to a wider circle of readers and which they supposed would give their works a greater durability and which proved true to a considerable extent. Another characteristic of the vocabulary