Story of Nation Buddhist India

SR No.: 035274
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: T Fisher Unwin Ltd
Publication Year: 1916
Total Pages: 356
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 88 MB

Page 175

154
BUDDHIST INDIA
based on No. 6, probably in the form in which it was spoken in Avanti.
8. The Asoka dialect, founded on No. 6, especially as spoken at Patna, but much influenced by the aim at approximation to Nos. 7 and 11.
9. The Ārdha-Māgadhi, the dialect of the Jain Angas.
10. The Lena' dialect of the cave inscriptions from the second century B.C. onwards, based on No. 8, but approximating more and more to the next, No. 11, until it merges altogether into it.
II. Standard High Indian, Sanskrit-elaborated, as to form and vocabulary, out of No. 4; but greatly enriched by words first taken from Nos. 5 to 7, and then brought back, as to form, into harmony with No. 4. For long the literary language only of the priestly schools, it was first used in inscriptions and coins from the second century A.D. onwards; and from the fourth and fifth centuries onwards became the literary lingua franca for all India.
12. The vernaculars of the India of the fifth century A.D. and onwards.
13. Prakrit, the literary form of these vernaculars, and especially of Mahārāshtri. These are derived, not from No. 11 (Sanskrit), but from No. 12, the later forms of the sister dialects to No. 6.
The technical terms Sanskrit and Prakrit are used strictly, in India, as shown in Nos. 11 and 13. San. skrit is never used for No. 2 or No. 4. Prakrit is never used for No. 7 or No. 8. Sanskrit was, and is,
? This is the name suggested by Professor Pischel, Grammatik der Prakritsprachen, 1901, p. 5.