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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
295
35
PRAKRIT LANGUAGES AND
LITERATURE
Language is a medium or vehicle of thought and a full-fledged language is said to date from the Azilian culture which is assigned to the approximate period between 15,000 B.C. to 8,000 B.C. Hence we can safely say that the invading Aryans stepped on the Indian soil with a full-fledged language about the beginning of the second millenium B.C. We cannot say anything about when and how they tried their hand at producing literatre which is defined as "the permanent record of memorable speech." but we do know that by c.1,500 B.C. they composed and left for us the Rg-veda which stands as the earliest known record of human knowledge.
What language did the invading Aryans speak? How many dialects did their community of speakers use? How possibly did the literary Vedic emerge out of them?
Many such questuons have exercised and are still exercising the minds of scholars in this field. Different opinions are held on these and other allied problems. It is interesting to note that Panini (c.700 B.C.) called the language of the Vedic texts Chāndasa. Nowhere in his great grammatic work does he mention the term Sanskrit which is said to have come into currency by the time of the Rāmāyana. Nor does he mention the term Prākrit anywhere
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