________________
H
C. Bhayani
circumstances, any attempt to make word division is also in danger of bolog considered nothing but futile guess work.
The present effort of conjecturally reconstructing the text:in so far as it could be done has a very limited aim of making out something from a nearly hopeless text Quite obviously such guesswork 19 always highly risky and subjective, and the results are patently disproportionate to the time and effort involved
The first six verses of ch. XV of the GT. give the list of Prakrit dialects, said to have a total of fortytwo. Most of the first verso and a part of the second verse are missing. Danièlou and Bhatt have tried to restore tentatively the missing portion on the basis of Indicatlong found in the spbsequent part of the chapter. The text of the first six verses along with that of the Seventh verse which introduces the subse. quent illustrative section 19 reproduced below after Danielou and Bhatt. (The obviously incorrect Ms readings are given in the footnotes).
महाराष्ट्री किराती च [सौराष्ट्री मागधी तथा लाटी गोडी च काश्मीरी पौरस्त्या पश्चिमोत्कला ॥ १ पाञ्चाला चापि पैसाची] म्लेच्छी चैव तुरा[नि]का । सोमकी चोळकी काञ्ची मालवी काशिसंभवा ।। २ वेदिकाच कुशावर्ता तथान्या शूरसेनिका । भोजी' च गूर्जरी चैव रोमकी मेदसंभवा ।। ३ मारवी कानमूखी च देवकी पञ्चपत्तना । सैन्धवी कौशिका भद्रा तयान्या भद्रभोजिका ॥ ४ कुन्तला कोसला पारा यावनी कुकुरी तथा । मध्यदेशी च कम्बोजी [मलया चान्त्यमा स्मृता ।। ५ द्वाचत्वारिंशतिः प्रोक्ता एता भाषाः प्रसंख्यया । एता विमृश्य कर्तव्यं गीतं गीतविचक्षणैः ॥ ६ लक्षणानि च सर्वेषां कथयिष्ये यथाक्रमम् ।
सक्षेपेण समस्तं तु न शक्य त्रिदशैरपि ॥ ७ This is followed by the Prakıt verses with the introductory remark aty ft. At the end of the chapter the title is given as OTTOTITE.
In the course of our examination of the Illustrative section below we shall see that in those attempted restoration of tho, names of the dialects, Dapiélou and Bhatt are on quite uncertain grounds.Tegarding the names लाटी, गौडी, उत्कला, पैशाची, तुरानिका and मलया. Probablyarञ्चाली is ninth in the order and पाश्चात्या (or पश्चिमा) is eleventh, but Danielou and Bhatt have assumed the reverse of that order So the last Pada of the first verse has to be something lhne प्राच्या (or पूर्वा) पाञ्चालिका.
1. देविका. 2. सूरसेनिका. 3. बौधी. 4. मोद°. 5. मालवी. 6. कोशला.
