PRAKRIT HINDI SHABDAKOSHA
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salokanam trilokanam yadvidya darpanayate
aum namah siddhebhyah
PRAKRIT HINDI SHABDAKOSHA in 2 volumes
Compiled and Edited by Dr. Uday Chand Jain
With a 106 page essay on Prakrit Linguistics
written in Prakrit as well as in Hindi
And the Ashokan Inscriptions in Prakrit
2005 220 x 140 mm 1256 pp
Hardcover Rs. 1600
Jainism is one of the three ancient religions of India. It
has made manifold contributions to Indian culture, ethics
and spirituality. Jains have played an active role in
shaping India's astrology, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy,
ayurveda, linguistics, literature and languages. Jain
literature is vast. There are thousands of works on diverse
topics written in Prakrit, Sanskrit and Apabhramsha as well
as in modern Indian languages.
Apart from the Jain contributions, there is a huge corpus of
secular literature in Prakrit.
There is evidence to show that Prakrit could not have
developed out of Sanskrit. The presence of Prakritisms in
the Vedas is indicative of the fact that spoken Prakrits
existed in the Vedic Age.
Scholars divide Prakrit in three stages
The first stage of Prakrit, or Middle Indo-Aryan is 600 BCE
to 200 CE, consists of the Shauraseni Prakrit of the Ashokan
inscriptions and the Digambara works; the oldest of the
Shvetambara Ardhamagadhi canon and the Prakrit found in the
Sanskrit plays of Ashvaghosha.
The second stage of Middle Indo-Aryan, 200 CE to 600 CE,
comprises the Prakrit used in classical Sanskrit plays,
Hala's Gaha Sattasai, and Prakrit grammars in Shauraseni,
Magadhi, Ardhamagadhi and Maharashtri.
The third stage of Middle Indo-Aryan, 600 CE to 1000 CE,
saw the emergence of Apabhramsha.
1000 CE onwards, New Indo-Aryan came about, comprising
of modern Indian languages like Khadi Boli, Gujarati,
Marathi, Bengali, etc.
Despite this, there has been an acute shortage of scholarly
lexicons in Prakrit. The early twentieth century saw the
Illustrated Ardhamagadho Kosha and in the fifties, the
Paiasaddamahannavo. No new Prakrit Dictionary had emerged
from India after the Paiasaddamahannavo.
This work makes up for the lost time and is a marvellous
effort by Professor Dr. Uday Chand Jain who has taken all
of Prakrit literature both sacred and secular into account
in order to compile this brand new dictionary on Prakrit.
He covers about Prakrit 70000 words in this dictionary,
culled from both sacred and secular works in Prakrit.
This work, comprising of two volumes has been beautifully
printed with a large clear typeface and is elegantly bound.
A unique feature of this work is that Dr. Jain has written
a 106 page essay on Prakrit linguistics in both Prakrit and
Hindi.
Jain is a scholar of Prakrit, Sanskrit and Jain Darshana.
His PhD was written in Prakrit. He belongs to the North
Indian (Bundelkhandi) Digambara lay scholar tradition.
He has already published the following works:
Shauraseni Prakrit Vyakarana
Kundakunda Shabdakosha
Hema Prakrit Vyakarana Shikshaka
Dhammarasayana
Prakrit Vyakarana
Bala-rupa Prakrit Vyakarana
Anuppekkhi (Novel in Prakrit)
Jogabandha (Mahakavya in Prakrit)
His forthcoming publication is:
Sanskrit Hindi Shabdokosha (in three volumes)
This and other book on Prakrit, Sanskrit and Jainism are
available at HINDI GRANTH KARYALAY
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