________________
428
Studies in Jatnology, Prakrit
50
A NOTE ON WHY STUDY PRAKRIT LANGUAGES AND
LITERATURE
Language as a medium or vehicle of thought, is said to have developed into its full-fledged phase during the period of Azilian Culture (Upper Palaeolithic or Old Stone age) between 15,000 B.C, to 8,000 B.C, and hence we can say that the ProtoAryans certainly spoke such a developed language. Then from the commencement of the Second Millenium B.C, the probable days of the arrival of the invading Aryans on the Indian soil, till c.600 B.C, the days of the rise of Jainism and Buddhism, the natural language of the common people or masses was some kind of Prakrit and the literary forms of it, as cultivated and refined by the elite, were the Vedic and Sanskrit. To clucidate the point:
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 Prakrit anywhere in it. The theory that from Vedic descended Classical Sanskrit and from Classical Sanskrit descended Prakrit, is, held to be unscientific, because several linguistic features of the Vedic language are nearer to those of
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
