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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
323
38
ON THE PAISACÍ ORIGIN OF
KANNADA LANGUAGE
Paisaci is one of the very archaic Prakrit dialects. It is in Paisací that Gunadhya composed his great Brhatkathā which could stand in rank with the Rāmāyana and the Mahābhārata. But unfortunately the Brhatkathā is irrecoverably lost; no other literary work in Paisací has come down to us; and we have to depend mainly on grammarians like Hemacandra who has described the language fairly well in his Siddhahema Sabdanusasana. Because of its peculiar and independent nature, Paisací has been considered as the fourth language besides Sanskrit, Prakrit and Apabhramsa. Phonologically Paisací shows closer relation with Sanskrit and Pāli.
Often attempts are made to trace isolated characteristics of Paisacī in one language or the other. An attempt is made to detect Dravidian affinities in the so called Paisaci language of the North West, on the ground that Paisāci was connected with the Dravidian Group of languages. Moreover scholars like Prof.Muliya Timmappayya and Dr. V.R.Umarjio have tried to prove that the Kannada language originated from the Paisaci one! I propose to examine, in this paper, this theory of the Paisací origin of the Kannada language and also present a few observations on the samc.
Prof. Muliya Timmappayya's line of thought regarding the
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