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I THE PRAKRITS AND ARDHAMĀGADHI
1. The term Prākṣta or Prakrit designates the large number of dialects of the Indo-European family of languages which are closely related to Sanskrit and occupy a place between Sanskrit and the Modern Indian Languages of Northern India. Scholars are not unanimous about the origin of the term Prākṣta and its exact significance. Two broad views on the subject however may be noted, one maintaining that Prakrit means languages derived from an original, older, language, i. e., Sanskrit, and the other maintaining that the term designates original language itself, probably in a crude form, and was later polished into Sanskrit. Whatever be the true and original meaning, we have to study this group of languages, included under a general name of Prakrits, in relation to Sanskrit, as grammarians of these languages-who, it may be noted, have uniformly written their grammars in Sanskrit-have left us no alternative. The Prakrit is the class-name of a group of dialects and includes a number of them such as पाली; पैशाची (with its subdialect arrasastiarai); STATTĪN; Gartitaat; #TATETTIST; itaal; Artet; Arengt; and 3793tat (with its subdialects the JamT, aras etc.). Each of these dialects have or had a vast literature and must have been current in different provinces in India. Each of these dialects has its own peculiar features and as such can be distinguished from every other. The grammarians however give a dominant position to HTETTTET, treat it in their works first, and exhaustively, other dialects being noted only for their deviation from it.
