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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
medium of Sanskrit only. To make the point clear, they mean to say that words gonā, gonī, 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 the Aryāvarta at least was Prakrit 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 Prakrit dialects current among the masses. Later classical Sanskrit assumed the status of Vedic and Prakrits continued their further journey until when Mahāvīra and the Buddha picked up an outstanding regional dialect (Ardhamāgadhi or Western Pracya) for preaching their religious tenets and moral principles to the people at large, as they knew for certain "Na sakkam anajjoanajja-bhāsāviņā gāhedum” - "the common man cannot be instructed, taught or explained without the common (spoken) language" (Rayanasāra, gāliā 8). 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 cthical preachings and teachings and, hence, had the chance 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 Carons, Emperor Asola (300 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. Gradually other regional Prakrit dialects such as Mahārastrī, Sauraseni, Magadhi, Paisací and lastly Apabhramsa also got literary status. And by c.1100 A.D, the spoken Apabhramsa gave birth to the Modern Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi etc., Moreover, the Prakrit speaking Jaina monks and recluses, For Private & Personal Use Only
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