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Genesis of the Prakrit Languages
descent from Puşyamitra who had performed two Horsesacrifices, and is from Ayodhya; the other two are known as the Ghoshundi and Hathiwara grants and their provenance is near Jaipur; they cannot be pushed beyond the beginning of the Christian Era. It is curious to note that despite the projected zeal of the Sungas for the revival of Brahmanical ritualism and reinstatement of Sanskrit scholarship, all the Sunga records known so far are in Prakrit, and a Greek, Heliodorus by name, who consecrated a Garuda-dhvaja to propitiate Visņu in the kingdom of Sunga Bhagbhadra at Vidisha, possibly the capital, also made his record in Prakrit in the Brahmi script. The best narrative record from the historical point of view is that of Khāravela who got it recorded in c. 172 BC on the Hāthigumphā on the Udayagiri near Bhubaneshwar in Orissa, in Prakrit in the Brahmi script, continuing the tradition of the Mauryan administration. This tradition was also continued by the Sātavāhanas in the Narmada-Godavari valley, whence they carried it down to Kanchipuram where they created the Thondimandalam and founded the Pallava Kingdom with Prakrit as the court language.1 The dynasty of Khāravela as well as that of the Satavahanas or Andhra-bhṛtyas, were founded by the servants, possibly of the Mahāmātra rank, of the Maurya Empire.
Just as inscriptions in Sanskrit were rare before AD 150 so were inscriptions in Prakrit rare after the Gupta period, say AD 500 onwards. A notable example is provided by the record of Kakkuka, found near Ghatayala in Jodhpur District, dated in Samvat 918 (AD 861). It is in kavya style, composed in chaste Jain Mahārāṣṭri, and contains 23 verses, recording the founding of a Jain temple, establishing of a market and erecting of two pillars, and inter alia mentions the curious fact that he had descended from a Brahmin father and a Kṣatriya mother.2
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Ref. A. Chakravartinayanar's Historical Introduction to Pañcāstikäyasāra, pp. ix-xii.
J.R.A.S., 1855, Vol: 27, p. 513; Woolner, A.C., Introduction to Prakrit, pp. 146-51.
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