Tulsi Prajna 2002 04

SR No.: 524611
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Shanta Jain, Jagatram Bhattacharya
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 2002
Total Pages: 122
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Tulsi Prajna, & India
File Size: 6 MB

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pronunciations, Samskrla and Prakrla, and in the earlier stages of Buddhist literature, we often find the same verse pronounced in two different ways. This is the reason why we get works like the Dhammapada both in Sanskrit and in Prakrit. In prose, it is difficult to discern whether it is the pronunciation that differs or the language. But in verse when the metre is the same, it is casily discerned that it is the pronunciation that differs and not the language. A study of the Sanskrit and the Pali Buddhist literature will easily bear out my point.
The amalgamation of the settled and the roving Aryans and the Aryanization of the Indian element, produced, as I have said before, a chaos in the languages and pronunciations. But it also led to the great upheaval of the Indian mind in the 8th and the 7th centuries B.C. - an upheaval which produced Buddhism, Jainism, the Six Heretical Systems, and if I may be permitted to say, the classical Hinduism - the Hinduism of the Puranas and the Smrtis. Everyone wrote in the dialect of his district, of his tribe and of his race. That is the reason why it makes it exceedingly difficult to study the literature of this period. Much of that literature perished in later times owing to the difficulty of understanding the language.
It is after the 6th century B.C. that people began to think of nationalization or imperialization. The small kingdoms, tribal dominions and race governments began to coalesce into one harmonious nationality. The 5, the 4"", the 3rd, and the 2nd are the centuries in which the classical Aryan speech was settled by the exertions of men like Pāṇini, Kātyāyana, Vyādi, Gālava, Sakaļāyana, Patañjali and others. Patañjali distinctly says that he legislates for the Brahminic speech, -- the speech of the Sistas, meaning well-to-do Brahmins of Northern India, well-versed at least in one of the sciences of the time. The language of the Smrtis and the Puranas was examined by them and many forms were absolutely prescribed. They made the specch Samskrta or 'purified' but their influence was limited to the Brahmins. But what did the non-Brahmins do?
They were not idle. In the 4th century B.C. the Jainas made a comprehensive collection of their literature in a language intermediate between Sanskrit and the Prakrit in which their books subsequently came to be written. The comprehensive name of this collection was Purvis. They not only collected written literature but they took great pains to collect oral literature also. Some works were not known to the collectors at Pāļaliputra, being known only lo anchorites in the Himalayas. Men were sent lo the anchorites to get these works dictated to them. But the Purvis are all lost now. But when they were collected at Pataliputra, we can confidently say Joh 311 310 - fasak, 2002 C
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