Bhagavana Mahavira and his Relevance in Modern Times

Author(s): Narendra Bhanavat, Prem Suman Jain, V P Bhatt
Publisher: Akhil Bharat Varshiya Sadhumargi Jain Sangh

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Mahāvīra and Prākrit Dialect
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literature of which only a fraction has come down to us. The loss of this literature to us is so great that I cannot proceed further without referring to a famous popular work, the Bșhatkathā of Guņādhya. This Gunādhya probably lived in the period prior to the Christian era and composed a huge work in the Paiśāci Prākrit containing a large number of stories. He wielded great influence not only over the whole of India, but even outside India in Siam upto Indonesia. The name of this poet Gunādhya and his work Bphatkathā disappeared from India so completely that by sixth century A. D., with Danidn, it remained in name only:
भूतभाषामयीं प्राहुः अद्भुतार्था बृहत्कथाम् Luckily for us, there were two works in Sanskrit, Budhasvāmin's Ślokasamgraha and Somadeva's Bịhatkathāsaritsāgara from which we know at least the contents of the original Bșhatkathā. I need not point out that the 12th Book of the Jaina canon is similarly lost by the early centuries of the Christian era.
Coming to the Middle ages, we find that a new form of popular dialects, the fore-runner of Modern Indian languages, had come into being. This dialect is called “janma bhāṣā' which is another name for deśa-bhāṣā or māts-bhāṣā, The Kashmirian poet Bihlana (1085 A. D.) while describing the languages used in his State, says:
यत्र स्त्रीणामपि किमपरं जन्मभाषावदेव ।
प्रत्यावासं विलसति वचः संस्कृतं प्राकृतं च ।। In Kashmir, even women in every home, make use of Sanskrit and Prākrit, like their own native language. Indeed it is a veritable tri-bhāṣā-sutra of the Age, and clearly shows that along with the native tongue Sanskrit and Prākrit were being spoken in every Kashmirian home. Conditions may have been the same more or less in other parts of India, particularly among the cultured classes.
If we study the Nātyaśāstra of Bharata and Dramatical literature from Bhasa to Rajasekhara, we find the use of various Prākrit dialects in dramas side by side with Sanskrit. There are dramas in Sanskrit but there are dramas in Prākrits also which are known as Saţtakas. Such dramas in Sanskrit and Prākrit could not have been written bv poets and enacted on the stage, unless the audience was capable of understanding and appreciating both the