Bhanvarlal Nahta Abhinandan Granth

SR No.: 012041
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ganesh Lalwani
Publisher: Bhanvarlal Nahta Abhinandan Samaroh Samiti
Publication Year: 1986
Total Pages: 450
Language: Hindi, English
Classification: Smruti_Granth & Articles
File Size: 11 MB

Page 400

dialect of Prakrit. While distributing the Prakrit dialects in a Sanskrit drama, not a single author has shown any lack of knowledge by which the prescriptions of the dramaturgists are generally violated. But at the same time, it should be borne in mind that not a single dramaturgist has ever given any characteristic features of the dialect that they are prescribing for the dramatists. Bharata, of course, has given some general features of Prakrit, but but nothing about dialects So where do the Sanskrit authors get the characteristics from? Did the dramatists know the characteristic features of Prakrit dialects from their own personal experience, or from books current at their times ?
Our knowledge about Prakrit and its dialects is mainly based on the grammarians beginning from Vararuci (4th or 5th Cent. A. D.) down to Markandeya ( 16th or 17th Cent. A. D.)-Vararuci and Hemacandra being the oldest and the best representatives of Prakrit grammarians. Although most of the Prakrit grammarians are later than the Prakrit literature, the features of Prakrit including dialects as prescribed by the grammarians are in major, if not in all cases, preserved in the works of the Prakrit writers and Sanskrit dramatists as we find them printed to-day.
Butto a scholar, it seems, there are works where features of dialects as described by the grammarians are not fully preserved, not even in essential forms. Herein lies the main
difficulty in handling a Prakrit passage in a text. When a scholar opens up a Prakrit book and peruses a few passages, he can easily detect that such book is written mainly in X dialect, but it is also interspersed with other Y and Z forms. As a result what happens is this that we assume a different dialect for the justification of variety of forms. This assumption may be partly true at times, but sometimes it seems too much adherence to the manuscripts forgetting that some forms might be scribal errors or wrong representation of spelling, unless they can be justified historically. Therefore, in editing a Prakrit text, the problems which a linguist faces are mainly
i) dialectal,
ii) orthographic, and iii) selection of readings..
2. Problems in editing a Prakrit text: i) Dialectal
said above, it is a very didetermine the dialect of a While editing some Prakrit texts, even scholars like Jacobi, Pischel were
As we have fficult task to Prakrit passage.
puzzled in determining the question of language of the text.
Hermann Jacobi has assumed a Jain Maharastri dialect of those texts which are non-canonical on the one hand but written by the Jains on the other. In a similar way Richard Pischel has postulated a Jain Sauraseni of those Jain texts which are written in Sauraseni. At the time of Pischel, of course, no Digambara canonical literature was pub[ us