________________
generic. Such is also the implicit classification of Vararuci, who, in the Prakstaprakāśa, does not mention apabhrmśa, a proof that he does not consider it as a Prakrit. Yet, the barrier between an apabharamsa and a Prakrit is very thin. The more modern grammarians simply make aabhramca a kind of Prakrit, as it seen in Hemacandr'a, works and in the Mārkandeya Kavindra.' On the other hand, apabhramsas and Prakrit very often go in couples by the side of Saurasenī, there is a Saurasena-apabharamsa, of Mahārāstri a Maharastra-apabharamsa, of Māgadhi a Māgadhaapabharamsa. The examples given in Hemacandras Grammar show that apabharamsa must be nearer the spoken language, without one being able to affirm that it is absolutely identical with it, whereas Prakrit would rather be a compromise between the spoken language or, if you prefer, apabhrmía, and sanskrit.? This is what gives, to a certain extent, grammarians the right to say that Prakrit is based on Sanskrit which is assuredly untrue in a linguistic point of view but correct enough when one considers the principles followed by the creators of Prakrits in then work of adaptation. It is thus possible that at first the name aabhramsa was applied to spoken languages", those deśabhāșa, the use of which, in the legend, Guņādhya had forbidden himself as well as the use of Prakrit and of Sanskrit. But as soon as apabhramśa became a written language those vernaculars, which went by that name became, in their turn, literary and required the intervention of grammarians. Having thus become partly artificial they entered into the cycle of Prakrit, they were no longer distinguished from them, except by their lower level in relation to sanskrit. In shor grammarians came to recognize an apabhramśa type which they submitted to hard and fast rules. It became then necessary to separate it completely from the spoken languages. They then imagined they should distinguish literary apabhramsa from languages purely popular (deśabhāṣā). To tell the truth, if apabhramsa, taken as determined kind of Prakrit is a language relatively well defined, agreement has never been come to as to the meaning and extension of the general category. Apabhramsao. We see that later on, even non-Aryan languages (Mārkandeya), have been admitted into it.
In any case, neither Prakrits nor apabhramsas as we read of them, no more than the monumental Prākrits, can be taken to represent exactly any local dialect. It is true they bear, as a rule, local names, but that even does not mean that they have been used by writes of a determined country of India : it only means that they have had as a basis a local dialect, more or less modified, and artificially altered. It is impossible to tell how far those voluntary alterations have gone the oldest inscriptions are written in a language dechancellerie already rather vague but certainly conventional.
Thus prakrits, in the narrow sense given by grammarians to that term, have no linguistic reality, or rather they have only an indirect one. In
102 C
IN
4511 310 123
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
