Origin of Prakrit

[Ram Sury]

Sarvebhyo Namaḥ,

These are my original findings (in brief) of how, when and where Prākṛtam originates. I have not published them but would like to invite comments and thoughts.

Prākṛtam does not, as many western scholars have thus far claimed, originally represent a sociolectal or dialectal/vernacular form as opposed to Sanskrit, nor can all the innovations that are today commonly grouped under the umbrella term Prākrit be traced far back into the Vedic period as being the vernacular speech of the people.

The evidences from Pāṇini, Patañjali, Yāska etc have been misinterpreted mainly by scholars based in the West (I'll explain these misinterpretations in detail later) in such a way as to substantiate their conclusions that these grammarians recognized other Indo-Aryan languages outside Vedic and Sanskrit but no such fact is however actually evidenced in their texts. 

For example the girl described in the Mahābhāṣya as using plural forms once in error (instead of dual for her eyes and feet) is misinterpreted by some scholars to mean that this represents a form of regional dialect/sociolect where everybody spoke plural in every situation where a dual was expected by Sanskrit. No such claim is made by Patañjali however that the girl was not speaking Sanskrit or that her mistakes were made by all commoners. Other evidences are similarly misinterpreted by modern scholars to take Prakrit back to a unknown hoary antiquity without proper evidences. There are in fact no explicit references to middle-Indic being used by common people long before the Mauryan era in any textual source. 

The references to Asuric speech mentioned by Patañjali should be taken as Prākṛtic innovations originating from Iranic dialectal/orthographic sources from the North-West, rather than assuming that such explicitly mleccha (foreign) usages were used by all Indian commoners. It makes no sense to say that Patanjali was calling almost all his own countrymen mlecchas (Asuric speech community) or "demons" as some scholars mistranslate Asura as, when it would simply have meant Zoroastrian/Iranic.

My contention is that Prākṛta innovations (for the most part except where they are directly and explicitly inherited as-is from Vedic) originated substantially only in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE and not before that.

In 5th century BCE Northern India, all speech was in vernacular Old-Indic (i.e. late-Vedic) and writing was not in use yet. Writing was introduced in India using a new script called Kharoṣṭhī (which had been newly defined as a variant of from the imperial Aramaic script used by the Achaemenid Empire that had invaded North-Western India in the early 5th century BCE).

Doubtless the use of early Kharoṣṭhī for Old-Indic (though not phonetically very accurate for old-Indic phonemic inventory) was to keep it comprehensible with old-Iranic as these Indo-Iranian languages were both used, along with the Aramaic language itself, in different regions of the Śakyan (Hakhāmanah or Achaemenid) empire.

(Late-)Vedic was an accented Old-Indic language (having at least 3–4 major dialects) spoken all across northern and central India at that time. Doubtless some of the etymological clarity in Old-Indic word forms, was lost when writing was introduced in Sanskrit in the early 4th c. BCE - as orthography couldn't/didn't represent the older accented dialects (and Old-Indic as a whole) with full phonetic accuracy - and the ensuing variance between speech and writing led to a gradual loss of accents in speech too during the last few centuries BCE.

There was also significant linguistic confusion due to the large-scale mixing of old-Iranic dialects in Gandhāra in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE with Old-Indic due to the Śākyan (Achaemenid) invasion of NW India - leading to many phonetic, grammatical and orthographic innovations originating in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE that are grouped under the umbrella term "Prākṛta", heralding middle-Indic.

There is no Śākyan empire known in the mid first millenium BCE Indic textual sources except the Achaemenids who invaded NW India and introduced the prākṛtic innovations from the north-west (and which innovations were continued in the Mauryan era and later thus giving rise to Middle-Indic.

Please share your thoughts.

Thanks,

Ramakrishnan Suryanarayanan

[Bijoy Misra]

Dear Dr. Suryanaryanan,

There is a distinct school that advocates that Prakrit as a language is a distorted form of Sanskrit.

I disagree with such inference.  To me, Prakrit is not a label of a language but the class of indian 

communication languages that had developed throughout history.  Valmiki uses प्राकृत as a label

on people who would be hill-based and not gone through the Vedic schooling, (generally called 

आर्य ).  The basis vocabulary of such languages would be similar to the Vedic Sanskrit that 

eventually Panini lumps as सज्ञा in Book Vi.  In such thinking, the Vedic Sanskrit would be an 

offshoot from these Prakrit family languages.  The analytic work is not done. To me, the whole 

proto-indo-European is an artificial unscientific construct and is stuck in some quarters for 

historical reasons.

Best regards,

Bijoy.Misra  

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[BVK Sastry]

Namaste

 

1. I agree with Prof. Bijoy Misras line of thinking. : { Prakrit is a Co-Located language with Samskrutham in history of Bharath. Users have preferred Samskruth- Prakruth per their needs to document their teaching and propagate. }

 

2. I agree with Prof. Bijoy Misra;s proposition :  < To me, the whole  proto-indo-European is an artificial unscientific construct and is stuck in some quarters for historical reasons.> .

 

There is a critical need to revisit the ‘ Samskruth-Prakruth- Relations : Socailly, Linguistically from a native perspective’ by coming out of ‘ IE artificality locked to ‘Tower of Babel/Darwinism’.

The study needs to shift gears from ‘ Non-Translatable’ to ‘ Deliverables’. This is where Prof. Misras work on linking language to neuro-science / consciousness studies is of significance.

 

3.  Just as studying ‘Samskrutham using lens of Prakrtuh’ is faulty, study of ‘ Samskruth-Prakruth-relations’ using ‘ Desi – Apabhramsha- Mleccha- ’  lens is also faulty.

 

Studying ‘apple’ using  the category-rules of  ‘oranges- grapes, strawberries  ( using  logic of ‘Apple and Orange/grapes/strawberries  are all  fruits; therefore same rules apply for all fruits for analysis), is faulty.  It is called ‘Hermeneutic error / Categorization Error’.

 

Regards

BVK Sastry

[Sivasenani Nori]

If we look at the evidence, we see relentless simplification at work: from Vedic to classical Sanskrit to Prakrits to Apabhramsas to modern languages. And this is found not just in the case of Sanskrit or in India. For instance, in spoken Telugu, the dative and accusative cases are fast disappearing. Singlish (Singapore English) used to be derided as pidgin English three decades back, now there are classes offered to teach Singlish! That languages evolve through simplification is a well-accepted principle in linguistics. 

Yet, this directionality is supposed to have reversed at some point, when it comes to Sanskrit. Doesn't sound right.

Regards 

N Siva Senani

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[Bijoy Misra]

Dear Dr Nori,

What we are observing is that the brain always economizes.  Most of the context goes into accent and tone and not in the letter.

The original primitive language may only have a limited set of nouns evolved through the properties.  The brain cognizes objects.

The verbs came from the nouns.  So in our view, the process has been more of evolution from the primitives in time.

As you can observe, the same concept is expressed in lss words orally than written.  A single word in Sanskrit can take

half a page in English.  It has to do with the acoustic response of the brain to speech.

We are still studying.  It is complex.

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra

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[Ram Sury]

Dear Dr. Miśra,

Thanks for your comments. Please can you call me Mr., as I am not a Dr.

The "distorted form of Sanskrit" is also the way early Sanskrit grammarians have principally viewed proto-Prākṛt - before that single proto-prākṛt register multiplied later into many named-prākṛts in the early centuries of the common era (Śauraseni, Māgadhī, Mahārāṣtrī etc).

The original proto-prākṛt however (which was later on, in the common era, called Paiśāci - was originally called Pāścātya (western) - it got corrupted/prakritized into 'Pesacca' and reimported into Sanskrit as paiśācī) used to exist originally in NorthWestern India - today in Western academia it is known as Gāndharī. Thus the hypothesis that Prakrit arose first in Eastern India is not in sync with the hard evidence - Prākṛt was originally introduced from the North-West during the period of Achaemenid (Śākya) rule of Gandhāra from the 5th century BCE onwards. This is why grammarians like Patañjali associate the prākṛtisms with Asuric speech, and with mlecchas (foreigners) - both of which would suit the Iranic speakers of the Achaemenid era and Mauryan era living in Gandhara (NW-India). Patañjali was therefore not associating any Indo-Aryans with Asuras or mlecchas.

Is there any historical literary or other evidence for what you say - that Prākṛt was not the label of a language but a class of Indian communication languages that have existed throughout history? As far as I know there is no indication or literary evidence of the existence of such a class of Prakrit languages in the Vedic era. Prakrit as a whole is a purely classical-sanskrit-era phenomenon i.e. its origin, growth and demise have all happened in the post-Vedic period.

Extrapolating it to the Vedic period without any literary or manuscript evidence - is what I am trying to argue against. There is evidence to the contrary which indicates that the earliest Prakrit was only a single North-Western literary register in the pre-Mauryan era which gets spread all across India through Mauryan inscriptions (and due spread of Buddhism, again primarily from north Western India) and in the course of the next half a millenium splits into multiple separate registers (still these dont appear to be dialects but were purely literary registers).

Vedic is not a prakrit (no part of Old-Indo-Aryan can be called a prakrit). Pāṇini does not regard Vedic as a form of Prakrit, if he did he would have included prakrit in his grammar. Prakrit did not exist in any form until the end of the Vedic period. Panini treats Vedic & Classical Sanskrit as simply two stages of Sanskrit and does not say that there is any third stage of Indo-Aryan that we might consider equivalent to Prakrit or middle-Indic. Patañjali however mentions individuals speaking defective Sanskrit (and foreigners speaking Asuric dialects, which he viewed as a corrupted form of Sanskrit which is in reality Iranic-influenced-corruptions in Sanskrit, which we consider prākrit today)

Regards,
Ramakrishnan Suryanarayanan

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[Bijoy Misra]

Sri Suryanaryana,

Don't get stuck with what has been said.  Try to be analytic and find your own track.

What I am saying is that प्राकृत is a generic term used by Valmiki.

In the context, it would mean people who are non-vedic in their conduct.

Track that back in jaina literature and in older indigenous oral literature.

Follow the syllable theory of Bhatrhari and reject the phonetic theory.

it may not be simple or cursory, but dig in and you would discover more.

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

1. The perspective of looking at Prakrit as the  name of a language or as a name for a group of languages with several different names is different from the perspective of looking at Prakrit as the name for the dialect or dialects spoken by the common public. From the second perspective, the relation between Sanskrit and Prakrit can be viewed as the relation between Standard Language/Stadanrd Dialect and (the other spoken) dialects. 

2. From the second perspective, to imagine a stage/period of history when only the  Standard Language/Stadanrd Dialect existed without (the other spoken) dialects is unrealistic. Since Prakrit is the name given to these  ( other spoken) dialects, to imagine  a stage/period of history when only Sanskrit existed without Prakrit(s) is unrealistic. 

3. From the perspective that the language of the Vedas is the language that was spoken by the composers (spoken by those who considered themselves or considered by others to be impersonal media) of Vedas , to imagine that the language of the Vedas had no other spoken dialects is unrealistic. If the language of the Vedas is considered to have a historical continuity of evolutionary relationship with Sanskrit, i.e., just as an older form of Sanskrit, the other spoken forms that existed alongside the language  spoken by the composers (spoken by those who considered themselves or considered by others to be impersonal media) of Vedas can be called older forms of Prakrit(s). 

4. Documentation of the name of a language is different from the documentation of that language. In general, it is very much possible that the documentation of the name of a language occurs at a later stage than the documentation of that language. 

5. Number of written languages is miniscule compared to the number of languages that exist(ed) in a spoken form without being written. To deny the existence of a language that is not written is against common sense. Existence of languages / dialects that are not written can be inferred based on the existence of their other dialects or their older and later forms, evidence for the existence of a group of  human beings etc. To imagine that  a group of human beings for whose existence evidence exists did not have a language/dialect is unrealistic. 

6. Most major languages of the world have a very very long  pre-historic  (before written documentation) history and that history is what is studied through the rigorous methods of historical linguistics like comparative and reconstruction methods. Most such reconstructed languages /dialects do not have their names mentioned anywhere.  

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Nagaraj Paturi

 

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

Director, Indic Academy

BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra

BoS, Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth, Veliyanad, Kerala

BoS Veda Vijnana Gurukula, Bengaluru.

Member, Advisory Council, Veda Vijnana Shodha Samsthanam, Bengaluru

BoS Rashtram School of Public Leadership

Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Studies in Public Leadership

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies, 

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education, 

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

 

 

 

[उ॒ज्ज्व॒लः]

वि॒ष॒यस्या॒स्य सू॒क्ष्मतांं॑ सा॒धु प्रति॑पादिताः स्मो नागराजमहोद॒येन॑!

मंगलवार, 13 अप्रैल 2021 को 10:15:01 am UTC+5:30 बजे Nagaraj Paturi ने लिखा:

[Bijoy Misra]

Nagarajji,

Very well put.  The scientific hypothesis is that the basic unit of expression of a human being in a syllable

that originates anatomically.  This is where the transformation happens from an analog thought to a discrete

acoustic expressible signal.  The latter can be represented by a Paninain set which can be extended in case

other independent expressible units are discovered elsewhere in the world.  There is possibly a natural grammar

of expression regulated by biology, on which we add cultural grammar.  We bring the role of communication

and phonetics in the cultural grammar, through which speech becomes a language.  All natural speech would

consist of nouns (objects) and the relation would be expressed in accent and intonation, which would be subjective. 

This is our primary thinking so far (after ten years)..

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra

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[rajeev Lochan]

This paper may help. It was given by prof Richard Solomon in the ongoing Sanskrit lecture series of NIAS-CSP

Prakrit Dialectal Basis in the Language of the Ṛgveda

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/wp-content/uploads/Prakrit-Dialectal-Basis-in-the-Language-of-the-%25E1%25B9%259Agveda.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwizrZ3TjfvvAhXY63MBHeOGAHQQFjAAegQIAxAC&usg=AOvVaw0iMLUr1bLP6jSsuNKms4QK&cshid=1618313021964

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[Madhav Deshpande]

Dear Rajeev Ji,

     Thanks for sharing this article by the Russian scholar. Best wishes,

Madhav M. Deshpande

Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies

Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]

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[Ram Sury]

Dear Dr. Paturi,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

You're right that there is currently an alternative view of Prakrit (which defines Prakrit as being various Spoken dialects that diverge from Standard Sanskrit, and Sanskrit as being ipso-facto an unvarying standard to measure the extent of that variance of the spoken dialects) but this is a modern Western view, and it is both simplistic & incorrect in many ways as I shall point out below.

The old-Indic dialects in the time of Patañjali were of 4 types (as per the Mahābhāṣya):

1. The Old-Indic dialects directly attested in the Vedic texts.
2. The Standardized Classical Sanskrit that fits the rules laid down in the Aṣṭādhyāyī (used by some Śiṣṭas even though they had not learnt the Aṣṭādhyāyī themselves).
3. The language spoken by Śiṣṭas (kaśyāś-cid-vidyāyāḥ pāragāḥ - living in the region of Āryāvarta and following the way of life generally prevalent in that region) that occasionally diverged from the rules of Pāṇini but was still considered valid Sanskrit (i.e. Ārṣa prayogas & Śiṣṭa-prayogas) which may have included surviving Vedic usages/archaisms (both attested and unattested in the Vedic corpus - but which usage was capable of being justified by a scholar/Śiṣṭa).
4. The vernacular Sanskrit dialects spoken by both Śiṣṭas & commoners that was practically identical with the language of the Śiṣṭas (point 3 above) except that this language also had some errors (apaśabdas) that differed from individual to individual. He gives five examples of such incorrect usages:

• The case of yarvāṇas-tarvāṇaḥ is mentioned as the case of some Ṛṣis (individuals, not entire communities) who sometimes mispronounced some Sanskrit words (yad vā naḥ as yarvāṇas, and tad vā naḥ as tarvāṇaḥ) when speaking colloquially (even though they knew and used correct pronunciation during yājña-karmas). It appears that these mispronunciations were so rare as to be noted and those śiṣṭas were apparently known thereafter by those nicknames (alluding to their mispronunciation) which means that this case was an exception rather than the rule.
• The case of a girl using the plural forms for her eyes and feet is also mentioned by him while commenting on A1.4.21 ("akṣīṇi me darśanīyāni , pādā me sukumārā iti") but this is mentioned as an example of her personal misunderstanding (or occasional incorrect grammatical usage, where the girl otherwise speaks correct language) and not as an example of widespread dialectal variation.
• The third case is mentioned of an individual brāhmaṇī woman who due to some personal incapacity pronounces ṛtakaḥ as ḷtakaḥ and a young girl (kumārī) in imitation of the brāhmaṇī's mispronunciation also says ḷtakaḥ. Here the case is not just personal ignorance of the kumārī but also imitating the iñcorrect usage of others as in the case of children imitating parents. Here too it is an individual's incorrect usage rather than dialects spoken by communities.
• He also mentions some artificially-invented-feminine-variants of the masculine word gauḥ - like gāvī, goṇi, gotā, gopotālikā which he gives as examples of apaśabdas - but does not consider them normative/dialectal usage.

So Patañjali makes no mention of any community's usage (or wholesale dialects) as being incorrect - all the examples he mentions of the incorrect usages are individual's errors (and are exceptional not normative) and incorrect on an occasional word-basis rather than whole dialects, except in one case:

• He suggests that one of the aims of studying the grammar is to ensure that Āryas do not become like mlecchas (foreigners), for it is the characteristic of the mlecchas to habitually mispronounce Sanskrit i.e. habitually use corrupt language (apaśabdas). He thus defines habitually speaking apaśabdas as the characteristic not of the natives of Āryāvarta, but principally of foreigners. He also mentions the case of the Asuras saying helayo helayaḥ ( te_asurā helayo helaya iti kurvantaḥ parābabhūvuḥ । tasmād brāhmaṇena na mlecchitavai na_apabhāṣitavai । mleccho ha vā eṣa yad apaśabdaḥ । mlecchā mā bhūma_ity adhyeyaṃ vyākaraṇam ।)

Therefore those who habitually/normally/extensively mispronounce Sanskrit are Iranic (Asuric) speakers and foreigners, and these were explicitly recognized by him as āsuric foreigners, not the natives of Āryāvarta. The use of 'helayo helayaḥ' is originally from the śatapatha brāhmaṇam (where it is 'helavo helavaḥ' with a va instead of the ya in Mahābhāṣya, or 'hailo hailo' as in another rescension) which actually shows many characteristic sound shifts of prakrit as the ra>la; ya>va; the loss of the visarga etc.). Hence it is clear that those who speak prakritized language are Iranic people from the north-west India that was under Śakyan (Hakhā-manish or Achae-menid) rule for about 175 years until the start of the Mauryan empire. That is where prakrit sound shifts (and the right-to-left kharoṣṭhi script which was originally not suitable for orthographically depicting Old-Indic with full phonetical accuracy) originated from.

Which ancient Sanskrit or Prākṛt grammarian has defined Old-Indic (Vedic or Pāṇinian-era bhāṣā) as being comprised of both Sanskrit and Prākṛt, or as Middle-Indic being similarly comprised of both Sanskrit and Prākṛt? It appears to be an ahistorical imagined notion that has only been prevalent among some modern scholars today. As far as most of the old Indian grammarians are concerned, Prākṛtam is called so as it is derived from its Prakṛtiḥ - which is Saṃskṛtam (i.e. all Old-Indic, not just the Pāṇinian-standard alone). Also the prākṛts are themselves treated by the grammarians as codified literary registers (i.e. artificial languages found only in specific types of literature) not the evolving natural spoken dialects of the common man. 

In short - there may have been plenty of old-Indic spoken dialects (spoken variants of standard Sanskrit - as the existence of the Pāṇinian standard ipso facto means it was a standardization of pre-existing Spoken Sanskrit dialects) --- but those old-Indic dialects were part of a living Sanskrit language, prakrit was originally something entirely different. Prakrit(s) were originally foreign (Iranic, or Persianized-Sanskrit) dialects according to Patañjali which appeared similar to corrupted-sanskrit, and which due to Asuric (Zoroastrian/Buddhist) literary influence gradually grew in usage but could not entirely displace Sanskrit due to the efforts of the śiṣṭas. Therefore we should be looking at Prakrit in the same way as we look at Urdu today (i.e. Persianized Hindustani) as history seems to have repeated in this case.

Regards,
Ramakrishnan Suryanarayanan

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[Ram Sury]

Dear Śrī Rajeev Lochan,

Thanks for bringing this paper to my attention. 

She appears to be ignoring contrary evidence (i.e. cherry picking her evidence), so her argument appears very much like circular logic.

For example see the end of page 11 where she says that tanū ("body") is used as a reflexive pronoun "oneself" while in Sanskrit it is the noun ātman "spirit" which is used.

In Pāli it is usually āttan (ātman) that is in most common use as the reflexive pronoun (see "attā hi attano natho" from dhammapada for example), and the same is the case for the so-called Gāndhārī language - which she does not mention for obvious reasons. Cherry-picking particular usages does not prove any systematic relation.

Also see - pages 6 & 7 (Introduction) of Pali: A Grammar of the Language of the Theravada Tipitaka' by Prof. Thomas Oberlies where he lists down some non-Indic sound-shifts in Pāli that are not found in any dialect of Old-Indic but are traceable to Iranic (specifically Avestan).

Regards,
Ramakrishnan Suryanarayanan

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

Dear Sri Ramakrishnan Suryanarayanan,

1. To base totally on what is reflected in texts for knowing what existed during the time of that text is a methodological flaw that can be called 'textualism'. It has a component of denying the existence of anything that is not reflected in the text. 

2. We could be talking of two different things while we may think that we are talking of the same thing. 

3. "Standard" in words like "Standard Language" , "Standard Dialect " terms used in Linguistics , do not have a value connotation. Regional and social spoken variations of a given language are called its dialects and as such regional and social variegatedness and faster pace of change with time (pravaahinee desyaa) are the features of dialects. In societies where people have a life needing communication across the regions and social groups that use dialects, a form/dialect of that language that serves the purpose of that cross-regional and cross-communal communication evolves. This form / dialect is given the name 'standard language' or 'standard dialect' , without any value connotation. As such , this form has low to no variegatedness across regions and communities of the language area/people and slow to no change with time. 

The word 'standard' here does not even imply that it is a form chosen as a yard / measuring rod to study the variations in the other spoken forms. 

4. Standardization like many processes of language (like culture and other human social phenomena) happen naturally without the effort of an individual or organized body and can also be effected by  the effort of an individual or organized body to an extent. Resources like grammars and dictionaries may participate in this process of standardization, give a direction to it, but are not essential for the process of evolution and sustenance of a standard form. The only driving force and essential agency for the evolution and sustenance of a standard form of language is a life needing communication across the regions and social groups that use dialects.

5. Dialects do exist for any language spoken by people with social variations and spread beyond a geographical area of a certain size. Languages that are localized to an extremely small area and  without social variations in the speaking community can theoretically be understood to be not having dialects. 

6. If you agree that Samskrutham /Sanskrit also had a similar spoken reality and had related regional and social dialects but you contend that those dialects need not or should not be called Prakrutam /Prakrit, the name  Prakrutam /Prakrit should be reserved to a certain form of language or a certain language only , that is fine. But if your point is that  Samskrutham /Sanskrit did not have a  spoken reality of having related regional and social dialects, then that is what I say is unrealistic. That is why I said that there does exist a view that the  dialects related to Samskrutam/Sanskrit need not or should not be called Prakrutam /Prakrit, the name  Prakrutam /Prakrit should be reserved to a certain form of language or a certain language only. I said that there also exists a view that the Sanskrit-related regional and social dialects should be called as  Prakrutam(s) /Prakrit(s).  Unless you make it clear whether you agree  that Samskrutham /Sanskrit had a spoken reality of having related regional and social dialects, there is a chance of you being misunderstood and we going round and round around the same point. If your point is that the name  Prakrutam /Prakrit should be reserved to a certain form of language or a certain language only and you are saying that language 'originated' at a certain period of history, that is a different arguable and debatable point. 

7. But if you do not agree that Samskrutham /Sanskrit also had a similar spoken reality and had related regional and social dialects, and you base yourself on the nonavailability of such a description of  Samskrutham /Sanskrit having a spoken reality of having related regional and social dialects, then that argument of you has a methodological flaw that can be called textualism. 

8. For some, not you,  Samskrutham /Sanskrit was never a spoken language, hence can not have related regional and social dialects. It was a language artificially created for liturgical purposes. Prakrutham/ Prakrit is a language artificially created for writing Sanskrit 'dramas'. Those like me who believe that Samskrutam/Sanskrit was and continues in some sections of society to be a spoken language and that the two forms of language used in Sanskrit plays reflects the reality of Samskrutham /Sanskrit having a spoken reality of having related regional and social dialects , disagree with such people.  

         

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[Bijoy Misra]

Another well-thought out post by Prof Paturi..

Dear Sri Suryanarayana,

I don't know your training and past research.  You have the right intention, but you have to

pose the problem in an analytic way from the first principles.  Please look from the ground up

than top down.  The latter has unfortunately been the approach by the modern researchers,

the claim being nothing is known.  Nothing is known through the available written text, but

that does not limit people's life and living.  Please try to go for fieldwork in the interior of the

country and hear the verbal sounds.. If you have time, a good study of वाक्यपदीय would be

beneficial.

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra

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[Ram Sury]

Dear Dr. Paturi,

Thanks again for elaborating. 

You have said "If you agree that Samskrutham /Sanskrit also had a similar spoken reality and had related regional and social dialects but you contend that those dialects need not or should not be called Prakrutam /Prakrit, the name  Prakrutam /Prakrit should be reserved to a certain form of language or a certain language only, that is fine." 

-- Yes this is what I'm saying. Sanskrit (or Old-Indic) definitely had multiple vernacular dialects even in Patañjali's time. Those vernacular dialects of Sanskrit were observed and their common/standardized features were described by Pāṇini. That does not mean the vernacular dialects are not sanskrit and that only the Pāṇinian standard is sanskrit.

Modern western-academia is full of those who claim that only the Pāṇinian classical standard is sanskrit (and that Sanskrit was only spoken by the śiṣṭas) - and that all the commonly spoken dialects of the people were not Sanskrit - and that they were prakrit(s). This is historically completely incorrect.

The idea that common spoken dialects of the common people of Āryāvarta were prakrit - is not found in any of the ancient literature to my knowledge. None of the old grammarians (as far as I am aware) have said that dialectal/vernacular/spoken Old-Indic is Prakrit or that all apaśabdas are ipso facto widespread dialectal usage.

So the modern idea that all the commonly spoken old-Indic dialects can be called prakrit does not fit historical reality - it conflicts with the definition of prakrit (as the name of an originally āsuric/mleccha dialect) as used by the respected grammarians like Patañjali.

I quote from the Pātañjala Mahābhāṣya specifically to highlight his observations. If Patañjali says the people of Āryāvarta were speaking sanskrit in his own time (sometimes with grammatical mistakes, while śiṣṭas usually spoke it without any mistakes) - which modern scholar can overrule those observations of Patañjali today (by claiming that the common people of his time were not speaking sanskrit) and on what basis?

• yarvāṇas tarvāṇaḥ - is mispronounced sanskrit, but does not look anywhere close to prākṛt, as prakrit does not have any visarga
• pronouncing ṛtakaḥ as ḷtakaḥ cannot have happened in prākṛt as the use of ṛ is wholly absent in prākṛt so there would have been no choice in the matter.
  
• akṣīṇi me darśanīyāni , pādā me sukumārā - this is a grammatical error, but the sentence is fully in sanskrit, not in prakrit.
• gāvī, goṇi, gotā, gopotālikā - could be fictitious words in Sanskrit or prakrit - there is no claim that these were widespread dialectal variants.
  

All the examples he gives of apaśabdas by people living in Āryāvarta are individual/personal errors (not widespread dialectal apaśabda usages) made by commoners and śiṣṭas who otherwise speak valid Sanskrit - those apaśabdas were not normative/dialectal in nature. 

The only dialectal/normative use of apaśabdas that he mentions is the āsuric speech of the mlecchas (Iranic people who may have migrated into Gandhāra during the rule of the Sakya (Achaemenid) empire's rule of Gandhara in the 5th & 4th centuries BCE.

The Sanskrit language of the North-West that was influenced by specifically Iranic apaśabda usage is what later becomes known as prākṛtam. Sanskrit however was not wholly superceded/replaced by Prākrit as the Śiṣṭas of Āryāvarta didn't adopt the mleccha (prakrit) usages - they put all their efforts to preserving Sanskrit which alone they identified as their traditional language. Prākṛtam was not viewed as an integral part of Indic/vedic tradition of Āryāvarta at all by the śiṣṭas as they knew it was affected by mleccha (foreigner's) usages. 

The Sanskrit plays are not from the vedic period, but from the last 2000 years - when those plays were written, there probably were multiple prakrits but even those dramatic prakrits were artificial literary languages (their linguistic characteristics were fixed by literary convention) they were not the continuously natural evolving speech of the people. 

If the prakrit represented a more widely understood natural language, the prakrit parts of the drama would not have needed a sanskrit chāya, rather the sanskrit parts should have had a prakrit chāya.

Regards,

Ramakrishnan Suryanarayanan

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

> Modern western-academia is full of those who claim that only the Pāṇinian classical standard is sanskrit (and that Sanskrit was only spoken by the śiṣṭas) - and that all the commonly spoken dialects of the people were not Sanskrit - and that they were prakrit(s). This is historically completely incorrect.

------ Yes, there is a strand of breaking India forces that try to create and use Sanskrit-Prakrit schism in support of their attempts. 

I completely agree with you in your disagreeing with the view that 'all the commonly spoken dialects of the people were not Sanskrit'. My view is that  all the commonly spoken dialects of the people were also Sanskrit. 

But those among western and westernized Indian academics who deal with Prakrit(s) as a separate entity than Sanskrit too do not deny the relation between Prakrit(s) and Sanskrit. The only point of contention for some of them is whether the  Prakrit(s) that they are studying under a separate department of the university are  commonly spoken dialects of Sanskrit or not. Or in other words, whether to treat Sanskrit and Prakrit(s) together as a single language or not. Not to treat them as a single language suits their requirement of having a separate department of the university. For those involved in breaking India efforts, this helps in creating Hinduism-Buddhism and Hinduism-Jainism wedge and using it. For them this is useful to create and continue the  argument that Sanskrit was the privileged preserve of the Brahmins and all other Indians were denied that preserve out of social discrimination. The picture that in all the geographical areas where Sanskrit was spoken , common people spoke its dialects and there was need for them to learn Sanskrit (or for Sanskrit speakers to learn the dialects) , in the areas where Sanskrit was not spoken, common people did not need to communicate with any Sanskrit speakers, so there was need for common people to learn Sanskrit - does not suit their breaking India agenda.  

Fact is that Vedic works use Prakrit(s) too and Buddhist and Jain works use Sanskrit too. But to project Pali (and other Prakrit(s)) as the languages exclusive for Buddhist and Jain works and Sanskrit as not the language of works of Buddhism and Jainism and Sanskrit as the single language for Vedic works, no Prakrit(s) in them  helps their language-based schism politics. 

There definitely was a dialect of Sanskrit language of the North-West that was influenced by specifically Iranic 'apaśabda' usage (all non-standard is naturally 'apaśabda' for the standard and vice-versa) . Your emphasis seems to be on the point that what came to be called as Prakrit(s) is just this dialect of Sanskrit not any other. Others may argue with you that the label Prakrit(s) was and is used in reference to dialects of Sanskrit other than the one  north-western dialect that was influenced by Iranic 'apaśabda' usage too. 

So now the discussion is around this point : whether what came to be called as Prakrit is just this dialect of Sanskrit of the North-West that was influenced by specifically Iranic 'apaśabda' usage not any other 

or 

 the label Prakrit(s) was and is used in reference to dialects of Sanskrit other than that dialect too. 

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

Correction :

The picture that in all the geographical areas where Sanskrit was spoken , common people spoke its dialects and there was no need for them to learn Sanskrit (or for Sanskrit speakers to learn the dialects) , in the areas where Sanskrit was not spoken, common people did not need to communicate with any 

not 

The picture that in all the geographical areas where Sanskrit was spoken , common people spoke its dialects and there was need for them to learn Sanskrit (or for Sanskrit speakers to learn the dialects) , in the areas where Sanskrit was not spoken, common people did not need to communicate with any 

[Bijoy Misra]

Friends,

My scientific view has been that the early language is object-based and syllable-based. Objects existed before the language.  Object variations

and relationships are achieved by variations in accent and tone along with the addition of suffixes. Vocabulary is limited.  I wish to classify this

class of languages as Prakrit (natural) in the modern terminology.  This is a neurological view.  Grammarian S'akaṭāyana (sphoṭa theory) carries

this view before Panini.  The nouns get used as verbs with suffixes.  The object name defines its existence.  There is no भू concept.  It is a static

object space.  Jains maintain such a cosmology.  Apparently S'akaṭāyana had created a grammar, but not seen yet.

The situation changes when we add transformation of objects and add concepts of evolution.  This necessitates verbs and action definitions. 

Parts of Rgveda (i have come upto sukta 49 first Mandala) are object dominated  but the 9th and tenth Mandala seem as action-dominated.

While sphoṭa is purely based on individual units of speech (syllables), new words get created which need not be existing objects.  Thoughts

like time can come in and morphology of words can develop.  This is where Panini comes in and creates the structural grammar.  We call it Sanskrit

following Vālmīki. देवभाषा and मनुष्यभाषा can be alluded.

This is a broad reconstruction in my mind.  I continue to look into various parts of it and create a quantitative model. Don't wait for me.  We are slow.

Thank you for raising the issues and continued discussion.

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

>..If the prakrit represented a more widely understood natural language, the prakrit parts of the drama would not have needed a sanskrit chāya, rather the sanskrit parts should have had a prakrit chāya.

---- Experts in manuscript research on this list may be able to help regarding how old or recent is the practice of providing Samskrutachhaayaa in the manuscripts. 

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