________________
R. K. Khadabadi
at the conclution that Culika Paisāci might have been a variety of NorthWestern Prakrit spoken by Sogdians. The facts that Sogdians were zealous traders would explain the spreading of Paisāci over a wider area”. This indicates that there might have been some Paisāci speaking itinerant tribes or colonists here and there in South India too. But it does not mean that all the provinces of South India had Paisācı as their main language from which the later languages, like Kannada ctc., could spring up. There is, however, a possibility of some mutual borrowings of a lexical type, along with which a few phonetic peculiarities might have also come down to us.
At this juncture a few names, current even in the present day Karnatak that have one or two Paisāci features come to my mind : Racappa (j> e), Rācamalla (j>c); Rācapāyaka(j> c) 27 That such change could be spontaneous on the tongue of some Kannada community, cannot be denicu. But the peculiar name Kiññanna ($n> õn) does contain a Paisāci feature if not a Pali or Māgedhi one, 2 8 27 Change of a voiced consonant into a voiceless one. 28 (i) In which too is found this feature of the palatal nasal conjunct. (ii) Dr. Sukumar Sen holds the vicw that the Paisaci of the Prakrit grammarians
"was probably the carly Middle Indo-Aryan literary language which after being cultivated by the Southern Schools of Buddhism, later received the name Pali in
Ceylon". : Journal of the Oriental Institute, Vol XI. 3, pp. 207-208 (iii) There was little scope for Magadhi to influence the Kannada Language.
