Manasara Series (I. A Dictionary of Hindu Architecture; II. Indian Architecture according to Manasara-Shilpashastra; III. Manasara on Architecture and Sculpture: Sanskrit Text; IV. Architecture of Manasara: Translation; V. Architecture of Manasara: Illustrations; VI. Hindu Architecture in India and Abroad; VII. An Encyclopaedia of Hindu Architecture) v2.c17.102

v2.c17.102

"As regards the origin of this mixed dialect, as well as of all other mixed dialects, I agree with professor Kern (Jaartelling, p. 108 ft.) and Dr. R. G. Bhāndārkar (Indian Antiquary, vol. XII, p. 146) that it is the result of the efforts of half educated people to express themselves in Sanskrit, of which they possessed an insufficient knowledge and which they were not in the habit of using largely. All the Jaina inscriptions from Mathurā were no doubt composed by the monks who acted as the spiritual directors of the laymen, or by their pupils. Though no inscription has been found in which the author is named, the above inference is warranted by the fact that numerous later documents of the same character contain the names of Yatis who are said to have composed them or to have written them. The Yatis in the first and second centuries, no doubt, just as now, for their sermons and the exposition of their scriptures, used the vernacular of the day, and their scriptures were certainly written in Prakrit. It was a matter of course that their attempts to write in Sanskrit were not very successful. This theory receives the strongest support from the fact that the character and the number of the corruptions varies almost in every document, and from various single sentences,.........