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Prakrit Textual Criticism
Satyaranjan Banerjee
1. Introduction: Statement of the Problem:
The Prakrit language, or more properly, the Middle Indo-Aryan, belongs to the middle period of the Indo-Aryan language which is the Indic branch of the Indo-Iranian sub-branch of the Indo-European family of languages. So it is a connecting link between old Indo-Aryan (i.e., Vedic and Classical Sanskrit) on the one hand and the New IndoAryan languages (such as, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Oriya, Bihari, Assamese etc.) on the other.
Prakrit is a vast subject. It covers literatures for over 1500 years beginning from the time of Mahavira and Buddha (7th or 6th Century B. C.) down to the time of the emergence of New Indo-Aryan (i.e., 1000 A.D.) or even later than that. It includes literature written in Inscriptional Prakrits, nearly about 1500 in number and distributed geographically in almost all parts of India--South, North-west, West, North and East; it includes literature in Pali, both canonical and noncanonical, and also literature written by the Jainas in Ardha-Magadhi, Sauraseni, Maharashtri and Apabhramsa There are some non-Jaina poets, such as, Satavahana, Pravarasena, Väkpatirāja, Rajasekhara, Abdul Rahaman and several others. Sanskrit dramas offer us a great variety of Prakrit dialects beginning from the time of 2nd or 1st Century B. C. down to the time of 10th Century A. D. or even later than that. Prakrit being a common speech and its dialects being representatives of different parts of India, the variety of Prakrit dialects makes it more difficult to handle any Prakrit texts easily. It also includes some other Prakrits, such as, Kharosthi, Niya and Gandhari or Prakrit Dhammapada, outside India.
Apart from the Inscriptional Prakrits, our knowledge on Prakrit language and its dialects and sub-dialects, commonly known as 'Literary
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