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184 The Raṣṭrakūtas and Jainism
the frequent inroads of Sasnkrit and Prakrit languages from north. They were on guard to keep afloat and to succour Kannada in the hour of crisis.
6.8.5. It is paradoxical to note that those who championed the cause of Kannada by advocating free borrowing from Sanskrit and Prakrit went to an extent of openly opposing the dominence of the latter. Jaina authors were keen on Kannada being given its due place, without relegating it to the second or third place in the hierarchy of language preference. Somehow, it did coincide that the royal houses and the gurukulas, monasteries, went out and out favouring the alien Sanskrit more and more, even at the cost of the local language, Kannada in Karnataka. For every form of expression, in idiom and phrase, in language, literature, sästra (science), and in rāja-śāsana order of the government, the scribe took the lead from Sanskrit. In the Rāṣṭrakūṭa regime it had reached a stage when Sanskrit was holier than anything in the language of the region. The wise and the learned of the period sensed that the very existence of Kannada was at stake, and the danger of regional languages loosing its lustre, vigor and vitality was lurking round.
6.8.6. When the question was one of its survival, authors like Śrīvijaya spared no time to declare openly that they are for the language of the mass. They were so firm and uncompromising in their courage of conviction that criticised the attitude of eroding the identity of the living / local language by floating the myth of Sanskrit. While making their point crystal clear they did not mince matters. Not that they hated Sanskrit or Prakrit, but that they loved their language more. They had no objection if somebody were to write the entire text in Sanskrit or Prakrit. Their main grouse was that even while composing a Kannada work, Sanskrit was preferred to the existing Kannada phrases in vogue. This, they said, would harm the interest of Kannada
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