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INTRODUCTION
143
<division of Prākrit was. The firsr two chapters of Puruşottama's work are not available. Mk, in spite of having agreement with Puruşottama in most of the places, does not tell us to have consulted his work. Mk alone of the three authorities gives a clear-cut and bold assertion of the theory in his work.
In the available portion of the introduction to his work, Rt informs us to treat those dialects which have already been mentioned' by one Lankesvara (Lankesvarabhāṣitāsu ) to whom scholars try to ascribe a Prākrit grammar called Prākrtakāmadhenu. The extant work going by the name Prākrtakāmdhenu can hardly claim to be the source of Rt. He is definitely referring to a bigger work and as the enumeration of dialects in his introduction shows, he has proceeded true to the line of his predecessor. In the previous section I have shown how widely Mk differs from Rt in dealing wich Paiśāci dialect. In the present section I shall show some remarkable disagreements between the two authors in respect of Mahārāștrī and Sauraseni. Considered from these points, we can see that though the three authors have almost similar approach to the Prākrit dialects, it is almost impossible that the later among them consulted the work of the earlier one. They had definitely a common source which has unfortunately been lost to us.
73. The theory of the fourfold division of Prākrit might have owed its origin partly to Bharata and partly to Dandin. As we have seen in NS there is clear mention of the division of Prākrit into Bhāşā and Vibhāṣā. In his Kavyadarsa Dandin mentions Mahā
2. See PK p. XV-XVII
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