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Date of Second Middle Indo-Aryan A Fresh Chronological Estimate
Dr. SATYA SWARUP MISRA
Linguists have divided Indo-Aryan under three stages from the point of view of their historical development. These are Old IndoAryan, Middle Indo-Aryan, New Indo-Aryan. Each of these three stages of Indo-Aryan show several sub-stages. Linguistically dates have also been assigned to these various stages and sub-stages.
For Indo-Aryan linguistic chronology the dates assigned to different periods of Indo-Aryan, by Prof. Suniti Kumar Chatterji, has been widely accepted. In a recent work, I have proposed other dates, for various stages of Indo-European, Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan, which totally differ from Prof. Chatterji's chronology. Since in the said work of mine all the stages from Indo-European upto Indo-Aryan have been dealt with, within a limited space, all evidences could not be included in that. But in that work also the whole chronological structure rests on some important and solid chronological evidence, which also need not be repeated here.
Since this conference is one of Prakrit and Jainology, I limit the scope of my paper to chronological discussions of Second MIA or Prakrit, although this has a link with the other stages of Indo-Aryan and therefore my chronological discussion of any one stage presupposes the other stages and rests upon the chronological evidence of the other stages.
Chatterji ( Origin and Development of the Bengali Language p. 14), presents his chronological approach to Indo-Aryan with the following words: Definite dates cannot be laid down in language history, but the period from the time of the composition of the vedic hymns ? 1500, ? 1200 BC) to the times immediately preceding Gautama Buddha (557-477 BC) may be regarded as the OIA period. The MIA period may be said to have extended from 600 BC to about 1000 AD; of which 600 BC to 200 BC could be early or first MIA stage; 200 BC to 200 AD, the transitional MIA stage; 200 AD to 500 or 600 AD the 2nd MIA stage and 600 AD to 1000 AD the 3rd or late MIA stage.
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