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Studies in Jainology, Prakrii
297
and enunciated a theory that Prakrit words, so numerous and current among the vast population, are incapable of carrying any meaning by themselves, but they do have a meaning through the medium of Sanskrit only. To make the point clear, they mean to say that words gonā, goni, gona do not convey to the listener the meaning of a cow or bull directly, but only through the medium of Sanskrit. Their equation is thus : goni : gau. I do not think it requires any elaboration to prove that the natural language of the people of Aryāvarta at least was Prākrit out of which the polished language Sanskrit has developed."
All this means that when the Vedas were composed by the priestly class, there were also, spoken at home and owing to social strata and tribal groups etc., popular dialects or Prākrit dialects current among the masses. Later classical Sanskrit assumed the status of Vedic and Prakrits continued their further journey until when Mahavira and the Buddha picked up an outstanding regional dialect (Ardhamāgadhi or Western Prācya) for preaching their religious tenets and moral principles to the people at large. This was an important event in the cultural history of India, because a spoken dialect (Ardhamagadhi or Western Prācya) got for the first time the status of being the medium of religious and ethical preachings and teachings and, hence, had the change of being cultivated, and the outcome was the appearance of the great Pali and Ardhamagadhi Canons and the Pro-canon (of the Digambaras) in later days. But before the appearance of these canons Emperor Asoka (309 B.C.) had already addressed his subjects in Prakrit through his well known Rock Edicts inscribed in the Brāhmi script found in the different parts of India even today.
Thus Prākrit also got literary status, gradually had its literary dialects and, thus, stood in rank with Sanskrit while the spoken dialects flowed on with the life of the masses. As days passed on, the difference between the literary Prakrits and the spoken dialects widened. By c.5th century A.D. both Sanskrit and Prakrit had almost the same stereotyped literary form and once again an attempt was made to raise the spoken dialect to a literary status
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