Jain Journal 1999 07

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 60

58
JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXXIV, No. 1 July 1999
transformation of the Vedic Sanskrit into the classical one. The language of the Upanişad can be called a pre-classical Sanskrit owing to the fact that already the peculiar features of Vedic Sanskrit started dwindling and a new type of Sanskrit which is very much prone to the classical was emerging. But some of Vedic peculiarities were retained and some features of Pre-classical Sanskrit were coming up. It was at that time Mahāvira was born. After the Upanisadic age, we have the age of Prātisakhya and Sūtra literature whose language was very near to classical Sanskrit rather than the Vedic one. After that, Panini came in 400 B.C. So even though Sanskrit was prevalent at that time, it was the Sanskrit of Panini rather than the Vedic one that was current.
So, in conclusion, from the above survey, we can say that the languages, at the time of the Mauryan empire, were ma classical Sanskrit (interspersed with some sort of Popular Sanskrit, some features of which are also recorded by Pāņini), Pali (mainly of the old Māgadhi type) and Prakrit, with its inscriptional and literary varieties. There might have been some other languages, but they are not recorded either in literature or in any research document discovered later.
As these were the major languages at the time of the Mauryan empire, it is expected that there should be three types of as represented by these languages. The literature in Sanskrit from the 4th cent. B.C. onwards is not as such very much recorded. We have the last phase of the Vedic literature, particularly of the Sūtra type. Vedic literature is characterised by some sacrificial rites and as such, the sūtra literature grew up at the time of the Maurya empire. That these were sacrifices performed by the people at that time was evident by the fact that Maurya Candragupta used to perform sacrifices by himself, even though the Jain versions of the story tell us that as he was a Jain, he could not perform any sacrifice which was against the doctrine of Jainism. Though the date of the sutra literature is not certain, it is at least accepted that some of the sacrificial texts, such as, Āśvalāyana-srauta-sūtra, Katyāyana-srauta sūtra, and Śāmkhāyana-srauta-sūtra were perhaps composed sometime in 400 B.C. in order to direct the people on how to perform sacrifices. Some of the Prātiśākhyas, such as, Taittiriya, Samavediya were also composed at that time. It will not be a case of guess work, if we think that the two Epics--the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhāratawere composed at that time and they were perhaps revised in course of time and finally completed by the 4th cent. A.D. We do not have any literature on Sanskrit Kāvya except some references here and there which tell us that there were some Kävya literature at that