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.c17.105

v2.c17.105

"As to the language of other inscriptions [in caves at Nāsik] which, like those of Gotamiputra and his son, were not composed by learned men, one can easily understand how ignorant persons not knowing Sanskrit or Pāli well, but still not ignorant enough to know nothing of both, would compound together Saṅskṛit, Pāli, and vernacular words. Even in our days we find this phenomenon in the *patrikās* or horoscopes written by our *Joshis* or astrologers, which are neither in pure Sanskrit nor in pure vernacular, but contain a mixture of both, and the Sanskrit words and forms in which are incorrectly written. And an explanation of this nature I have also to give of another variety of language that is found in the writings of the northern or Nepalese Buddhists. Unlike those of the Singalese and Burmese Buddhists these are written in Sanskrit, but in such works as the *Lalitavistāra*, or the life of the Buddha, we find along with prose passages in pure Sanskrit a number of verses which contain words or forms which are not Sanskrit. Thus, for instance we have—