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much from the disorganising effects of the foreign invasion and Sanskrit, especially, losing all State-patronage was almost deprived of its vitality and survived only in the distant courts of Indian Chiefs, while Prakrit became the fruitful mother" of the present vernacular languages, viz; Hindi, Bengali, Guzrati, Marathi etc.
The study of Prakrit is specially indispensable to the Hindi and Bengali philologists, who, in the course of their etymological researches, will often come across many current words of every-day use which though at first appearing to be of Sanskritic origin have really come direct from Prakrit.
Some are of opinion that Prakrit is a corruption from Sanskrit, but the very terms ''Prakrita" and Sanskrita" speak contrariwise. For the word "Prakrita" is derived from "Prakriti" which means "the original or source", while the term "Sanskrita” is derived from the root "kri” with the particle "samo prefixed to it and conveys the meaning.--"purified”. This may justly lead us to the conclusion that Prakrita was the popular lana guage and the source which being purified by the erudite and scholastic Brahmins, came to be stereotyped into "Sanskrita” in the hands of the cultured classes. And we are confirmed in our conclusiou if we look into the Sanskrit dramas. There the persons of rank and learning invariably speak in Sanskrit ; while the females, uncultured folks, servants and other low-class people use some form or other of Prakrit.
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