Sambodhi 2007 Vol 31

Author(s): J B Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 24

RABINDRA KUMAR PANDA
SAMBODHI
the Deccan; for, the old Marathi has this ending. We are not, however, in a position to determine the point. In any case, it is clear that the Mrcchakatika dialects belong to a period prior to the sixth century A. D.; for, Hemacandra formulated his grammar from his knowledge of the Jaina Prakrit literature, which was written before the sixth century or even earlier. The peculiar language of Mathur/ is not at all inexplicable. There cannot be two dialects, current in the same part of the country, with a sharp line between them. There will always be people who speak a language composed of a varying proportion of each of them. The very fact that Samvāhaka, Dyūtakara and Māthura speak mixed dialects, which do not confirm to any strict rules of Prakrit grammar, shows that Śūdraka moved in the midst of living Prakrit languages and wrote them as he heard them spoken about him.
It is rightly by H. M. Sarma “various Prakritic dialects used in the piece are free from artificialities noticeable in those of other dramatists. Their evidence is riot invalidated by the mere statement of Prof. Levi that the older :Prakrit - grammarians take no notice of them. Their works have no pretensions to comprehensiveness. They treat of those words which have regular formation and are well-known."4
S.R.Banerjee also rightly remarks;
"In the whole terrain of Sanskrit dramas, the major dialects which are found used -are Sauraseni and Māgadhi. Even Mahārāstrī is not frequently found in the dramas unless it is verse or a song. It is only in the Mrcchakatika we have some sub dialects, such as Dhakki or Takki, Pracya Avanti, Chandali Sakari. But unfortunately the features of these sub dialects given by grammarians do not tally with the texts of the Mrcchakatika. Though the features of the sub dialects are not very many to form a separate language, they sufficiently represent some features which characterize them as a separate language. The question is: How these grammarians could collect the features of their sub dialects? In this connection it can also be said that how Vararuci could ignore the sub dialects of the Mscchakațika when he belonged to the 5th or 6th cen. A.D. much long after the composition of Mrcchakaţika we have not yet tried to solve this problem of the features of Prakrit as found in Sanskrit dramas before the advent of Vararuci."5
It appears from all these anomalies that a through study of all these sub