Apbhramsa of Hemchandracharya

Author(s): Hemchandracharya, Kantilal Baldevram Vyas, Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 14

The connotation of Apabhramsa has changed from time to time according to the historical, social and cultural circumstances prevailing at that time.
It appears that in the period of Early OIA--the age of Pāņini (6th century B. C.) and his FETH162017 Patañjali (200 B. C.)-Sanskrit -a cultured form of the OIA, was the language of élite (igre), while the common people spoke some form of speech similar to Sanskrit but much simpler, being unfettered by the elaborate grammatical restrictions of the 'śişta' speech. We might call it Early Prakrits. Any deviation from the cultured speech was frowned upon as an Apabhramśa usage--a linguistic lapse-which should be scrupulously avoided.
This orthodox view underwent change as the popular speeches developed from OIA and become current amongst common folk. Thus nāțyācārya Bharata (3rd century A.D. circa) was contrained to lay down that in order to impart local colour to the drama and make it more realistic, characters of a lower social status should use fa7ans, like the Abhiri, which was then current amongst the pastoral tribes like Ābhiras (and Gurjaras), who had settled in Western India.
Gradually, by the 6th and 7th centuries A. D., this language came to be known by the name Apabhramśa, and acquired enough prestige to be considered a distinct literary language, which can be employed in elegant compositions like महाकाव्य s and चरितकाव्य Apabhramśa was then the speech of several politically important tribes like the Gurjaras and Abhiras, who had settled in Western India,
This speech, as we have outlined earlier, though preserving the main features of Prakrit phonology, developed, in course of time, several characteristic features of its own-like shortening the final vowels of vocables, and sometimes even the medial 5 and 371, nasalizing the vowels freely, reducing the spirant L to mere aspiration, preserving sometimes the lateral , and even introducing a spurious one, etc. Its morphological structure also altered consierably-the Prakrit pronominal terminations and their evolutes