Sambodhi 1977 Vol 06

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 71

S. N Ghosal
64
optional subject and may be adopted as one of the many languages, among which there are many modern languages ligure. Naturally the right of choice being lett open to the students they avoid Sanskrit and adopt a modern language or any other subject in lieu of it, which they can master with the application of less amount of labour and diligence. As a result of this the study of Sanskrit suflers from a set back. The number of students taking Sanskrit becomes extremely reduced.
When the condition of Sanskrit has reached such a state of deterioration it is not strange that the condition of Prakrit should be far worse. Except in few universities in Western India Prākrit is not studied as an independent suhicct any whero. In most of the universitics it is studied along with Sanskrit. In the curriculum of the latter it occupies a place which is nevertheies, very insignificant. In the Sanskrit course it is not studied as a compulso y subject. Here it occurs as a topic of choice. So a student may read it or may discard it altogether. So a student passsing B.A. Honours in Sanskrit or M.A, may be totally ignorant of Präkrit. How the condition of Prakrit is lamentable is best known from the fact that students reading the Sanskrit drama do not read the Prakrit portions of the same in their original, they read contrarily the Sanskrit rendering of the Prakrit passages (the socalled chāyā) and omit the original Prakrit portions. They remain absolutely in the dark about the latter. In fact the teachers of the subject thenuselves do this, which is emulated by their students. This practice has become so rampant that some editions of the dramas include the Sanskritrenderings within the body of the text and push the original Prakrit portions below to the place meant for foot-notes, variants and references. This in fact has given rise to a belief among the students that the Prakrit passages are not the essential constituents of the draina.
How Prakrit has been deprived of its legitimate importance becomes known from another fact too. Now-a-days the lovers of oriental culture reproduce on the stage the Sanskrit drama with a view to making them popular among the people, in all these performances the texts of the works are to be edited for making them suit the time and taste of the spectators. Naturally the speeches of the characters are often to be abridged and portions are to be omitted. But in many cases the editors of such texts remove the Prakrit passages altogether and introduce in their place the Sanskrit translations of such passages. This removes evidently much of the niceties of such dramas. But in some cases such an adventure becomes disastrous. The translation of the Prakrit verses into Sanskrit necessitates the setting of the frame-work of the Sanskrit-metres. The wilful ignorance of this condition deprives the poem of their fundamental character as such. The recitation of such unmetrical stanzas, which lack the cadence and