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aristrocracy and Prakrits were used by lower classes including women. It is a travesty of the natural method of study that nowadays we all study the Prakrit portions only from their Sanskrit Chāyā; and it is a sad sight that now and then one comes across editions of plays from which Prakrit passages are altogether removed. All this means that the Prakrit passages in the drama are almost neglected as specimens of Prakrit language; and a close study of the variant readings shows that the copyists exhibit a subconscious attempt to bring the forms nearer Sanskrit wherever possible, sometime fail to distinguish the verses from the prose portions, and rarely mind the linguistic authenticity of these passages."
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Jain Education International
USĀNIRUDDHA
The treatises on dramatic theory have unquestionably recognised the use of Prakrits; and the earliest known text, Bharatiya Natyaśāstra, gives elaborate rules which with minor modifications are followed by later authors. 10 Turning to the actual practice, the Prakrit passages are available in the earliest known plays, namely, those of Asvaghosa. Thus the appearance of Prakrits in the drama is conterminous with the beginning of the Ancient Indian drama so far known to us. After Asvaghoṣa, Bhāsa has used Prakrits in all his plays excepting Dūtavākya. Major portion of Mṛcchakaṭikam is in Prakrit. All the three plays of Kalidasa have Prakrits, and there are some Apabhramśa verses in the fourth act of Vikramorvasiyam. Later play-wrights like Harṣa, Bhavabhūti, Viśākhadatta, Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa and others have used Prakrits; but one suspects that with most of the successors of Kalidāsa this writing in Prakrit was mechanical and their composition in Prakrit was as good as the conversion of the Sanskrit sentence into Prakrit. If great zeal was shown for Prakrits by
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