Jain Journal 1999 07

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

Page 61

BANERJEE PRAKRIT IN THE MAURYA EMPIRE
time. A kavya called the Pātālavijaya or Jämbavati-vijaya, quotations from which are available in some anthological works, is ascribed to Pāṇini. If this kavya can be attributed to Panini, then it can be said that the kavya style of writing was prevalent at the time of Panini in the 4th or the 5th cent. B.C. The reference to the Nața-sutra by Pāņini (IV. 3. 110) shows that there might have been a book of instructions for the dramatic art as found in Bharata's Natya-sāstra at a later time.
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The Varttikakāra Kātyāyana (250 B.C.), also composed some extra sūtras on Pāṇini in order to supplement some of the grammatical features of Sanskrit, not recorded by Pāṇini.
Patanjali (150 B.C.) in his Mahābhāṣya while explaining the vārttika sūtra lub-ākhyāyikābhyo bahulam under Panini's adhikṛtya kṛte granthe (IV. 3. 87) mentions the names of three ākhyāyikās, such as, Sumanottara, Bhaimarathi and Vasavadatta. These three books are lost, but the mentioning of these three books shows that they were very famous, at least, at the time of Patanjali.Patanjali's Mahābhāṣya could also be regarded as a text belonging to the last phase of the Mauryan empire. The Mahabhāṣya also refers to a poem called Vararucam kāvyam (under IV. 3. 101) by Vararuci. In the same place a poet named Jaluka is also mentioned. Is he Aśoka's son Jaluka, otherwise known as Kunala? Pingala, perhaps, a contemporary of Patanjali, presupposes in his Metrics the existence of some love-lyrics.
Cāṇakya or Kautilya was the minister in the court of Candragupta and his Arthaśāstra was composed at that time.
The teachings and doctrines of Lord Buddha were finally codified after the Mauryan empire, but there was a council at Pāṭaliputra where some portions of Buddha's teachings were codified. What was the nature of that literature is not known to us, but from this council we can say that there was an attempt to codify the messages of Buddha in the form of a literary document.
Apart from these two literary documents, we have some specimens of Prakrit literature. Like Buddha, Mahāvira's doctrines were also codified much later (454 A.D.), but there were several attempts to put the teachings of Mahavira in the form of a book sometime during the Maurya Candragupta. During the Maurya period, a famous book named Rṣibhāṣitāni, one of the oldest works of the Jain canonical literature in Ardhamāgadhi seemed to have been composed: This work, classed under Prakimakas, is, perhaps, the first work where the Rsis and Śramaņas were held in high esteem in Vedic, Buddhist and Jain