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Siudies in Jainology, Prakrit
10
49
NĀGAVARMA AND THREE AND-A-HALF LANGUAGES
Nāgavarma, the author of the earliest available Kannada work on prosody viz, the Chandombudhi (c.900 A.D.), states in the context of his discussion on ‘vrttas' that languages of the fiftysix regions (visayas) such as Tamil, Telugu, Kannada etc., have been born of three and-a-half languages viz., Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramśika and Paisācika: “Samskrtam Prakrtam Apabhramsikam Paisācikamemba mūruvare bhāsegalol puttuvavellam (Drāviđandhrakarnāțakādi satpamcāšat) sarvavisaya bhāsajātigalakkun."
I propose to examine the linguistic value and significance of this statement which has exercised for long the minds of several scholars in varied ways : Kittel, the editor, does not try to weigh this statement in ils linguistic perspective, but he passes a remark that Nāgavarma probably called the Paisacika a half language because it was spoken only by barbarous tribes. The late M.M.R.Narasimhachar finds the large infiltration of Sanskrit” into the Dravidian languages, but does not make any reference to the statement. Prof.H.P.Nagarajaiah takes the statement to be very interesting from the linguistic point of view because a happy attempt at the linguistic division of the country was made in the
poet's time whether the fifty-six languages including, Kannada etc., Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only
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