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Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8: 3 The Languages of Indic Inscriptions

Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8

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3 The Languages of Indic Inscriptions

3.1 Middle Indo-Aryan ("Prakrit")

3.1.1 General remarks

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In early Indian inscriptions the Prakrit, or, more precisely, the Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) languages predominated. Indeed, from about the third to the first century B.C. these were the only languages in epigraphic use, and they continued to predominate for at least two centuries

3.1.2 The Prakrits of the Aśokan inscriptions

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Grammatical descriptions: E. Hultzsch, *Inscriptions of Aśoka*, lvi–cxxxi; J. Bloch, *Les Inscriptions d'Asoka*, 43–88.

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In general, the Prakrits of the Aśokan inscriptions (see 4.³.1.1) represent an early stage of development of MIA, in which, for example, the voicing and elision of intervocalic consonants are only occasional and sporadic, and some archaic features are preserved which are lost in later Prakrits, such as *ātmanepada* verb forms of the present tense (e.g., *karote*, Girnār IX.1–3) and the present participle (*vijinamane* [*sic*], Kālsī XIII.36). Moreover, the resolution of consonantal groups by assimilation or epenthesis (*svarabhakti*) is less advanced, especially in the western and northwestern dialects, than in later literary and inscriptional Prakrits. In these respects, then, the Aśokan Prakrits on the whole (and especially the western dialect of the Girnār and Bombay-Sopārā rock edicts) more closely resemble Pāli than any other of the literary forms of MIA.

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Overall, the Aśokan inscriptions can be said to comprise three main dialects:² the eastern, the western, and the northwestern.

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² Some writers, e.g., Sukumar Sen (*A Comparative Grammar of Middle Indo-Aryan* [Poona: Linguistic Society of India, 1960], 10–11), posit a fourth dialect, the "Middle Eastern," for some of the rock edicts. But on the whole it is preferable to consider the languages of these texts, which show a mixture of eastern and western characteristics, as essentially the eastern dialect with sporadic admixture of westernisms, rather than as a distinct dialect.

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3.1.2.1 The eastern Aśokan dialect

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Among the three Aśokan dialects the eastern dialect³ clearly predominates, as it was the local language of the imperial capital at Pāṭaliputra (whence it is sometimes referred to as the "Chancellery Language"). The original versions of the edicts were drawn up in this dialect, to be translated later into the other dialects where deemed necessary. The majority of the Aśokan inscriptions, including all the pillar edicts and minor rock edicts (MRE),⁴ as well as the rock edicts at Kālsī, Dhaulī, Jaugaḍa, and Erraguḍi, are in this dialect, and in some of them it is obviously being used far beyond its original geographical range.

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³ For a specimen of this dialect see Appendix, no. 1 (Rummindeī minor pillar edict).

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⁴ Though some of the MREs, especially those in the south, show an admixture of western forms, e.g., in preferring *r* to *l*; see n. 2.

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The distinctive features of the eastern dialect include:

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1. The three sibilants of Sanskrit are represented by *s*.⁵
2. The dialect has only *l* for Sanskrit *r* and *l*; e.g., *lājā* = *rājā*.
3. The Sanskrit nasals *ñ*, *ṇ*, and *n* all become *n*.
4. Sanskrit *kṣ* becomes *kh*.
5. Consonantal groups are subject to resolution by *svarabhakti* more frequently than in the other dialects.

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⁵ Rock edicts X–XIII at Kālsī show all three sibilants used indiscriminately (e.g., X.27 has both *yaso* and *yaṣo* for Sanskrit *yaśas-*). Though this peculiarity has never been fully explained, it is evidently a matter of scribal confusion rather than a true dialect feature. The retroflex and palatal sibilants also occur occasionally in the minor rock edicts, sometimes with etymological justification (e.g., Maski 1. 2, *vaṣāni* = Skt. *varṣāṇi*).

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6. Final *-as* of Sanskrit (as in the nominative sing. masc. of noun stems in *a*-) becomes *-e*.
7. The locative sing. masc./neut. ends in *-si* (for *-ssi*).
8. The present participle *ātmanepada* often ends in *-mīna* (e.g., *pāyamīnā*, Delhi-Toprā V.8).

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The main features of this dialect—the predominance of *l*, the nominative masculine in *-e*, the loss of *ñ* and *ṇ*, and the sibilant *s*⁶—accord on the whole with the later literary Prakrit known as Ardha-Māgadhī, whence it has been called by Lüders and others⁷ “Old Ardha-Māgadhī.”

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3.1.2.2 The western Aśokan dialect

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The western dialect appears only in the rock edicts of Girnār and the Bombay-Sopārā fragments. Its characteristics include:

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1. The whose graphic peculiarities—particularly the absence of notation of vowel quantity—tend to obscure some of the features of the language. The principal distinctive features of the dialect include:

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1. The three sibilants are maintained, generally as in Sanskrit (but see also item 5).
2. Both *r* and *l* are retained as in Sanskrit.
3. The Sanskrit nasals *ñ*, *ṇ*, and *n* are retained.
4. Sanskrit *kṣ* is apparently retained in the form of a special character (𐨮; see 2.3.4), variously transliterated as *kṣ*, *ch*, *ch’*, and so on, whose precise phonetic value is uncertain.¹¹
5. Many consonantal clusters are retained, especially those with *r*; but the latter are frequently subject to metathesis, for example, in *dhrama* = *dharma* and *krama* = *karma*.¹² Special developments include *ṣy* > *ś* (e.g., *manuśa* = *manuṣya*, Shāhbāzgaṛhī II.4; cf. item 8) and *sv* and *sm* (in the locative sing. ending) > *sp* (e.g., *spagraṃ* = *svargam*, Shāhbāzgaṛhī VI.16).
6. Final *-as* in Sanskrit is represented by *-o* at Shāhbāzgaṛhī, but at Mānsehrā generally by *-e* (see later remarks).
7. The locative sing. ends in *-e* or *-spi* (<* *-smin*; cf. item 5).
8. The future tense affix is *-iśa-* (< *-iṣya-* [see item 5]; e.g., *vaḍhiśati* = *vardhiṣyati*, Shāhbāzgaṛhī IV.9).

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¹¹ H. W. Bailey (BSOAS 11, 1946, 774) suggests the pronunciations */ṭṣ/* or */ṭṣ’/*.

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¹² This metathesis was formerly thought by some (notably Senart; IA 21, 1892, 148–50) to represent merely an orthographic peculiarity of Aśokan Kharoṣṭhī, as seems to be the case with the reversed conjuncts noted in the Girnār Brāhmī inscriptions (see n. 9). But it has been pointed out by Grierson (JRAS 1913, 682–3) and others since him (see discussion and references in von Hinüber, *Das ältere Mittelindisch*, 28–9) that such metatheses are characteristic of the Dardic languages of the northwest to the present day, and that such forms in Aśokan (and in later Gāndhārī/Kharoṣṭhī) inscriptions therefore must reflect actual dialect features.

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The dialects of the two northwestern sets of rock edicts diverge in several respects, notably in the treatment of final *-as* noted earlier (item 6). Thus as the equivalent of Sanskrit *rājñaḥ* (genitive), Shāhbāzgaṛhī has *raño* but Mānsehrā *rajine*, reminiscent of the eastern form *lājine*. Some dialectal peculiarities of Mānsehrā have thus sometimes been dismissed as "Māgadhisms," but this may not be the case; later Gāndhārī/Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions also vary between *-o* and *-e* (CII 2.1, cxii–cxiii), and recent research into the historical grammar of Gāndhārī¹³ has shown that the notation of final vowels is highly inconsistent in Gāndhārī generally.¹⁴

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¹³ Notably G. Fussman, "Gāndhārī écrite, Gāndhārī parlée," 473 and 479–80.

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¹⁴ See also the comments of Brough in GD 115.

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All in all, the Aśokan inscriptions give a broad view of the dialect spectrum of MIA vernaculars in the third century B.C. But it must also be understood that they do not provide anything like a real dialect map of the time. For the geographical distribution of the dialects—especially of the eastern dialect—can hardly correspond with linguistic reality; the eastern dialect was obviously not the mother tongue of residents of the far north and the central south, though it was used for inscriptions (Kālsī, Erraguḍi, etc.) in those regions. Moreover, the languages as they are presented in the inscriptions are surely not exact renditions of the contemporary vernaculars. It has been suggested,¹⁵ for example, that such features as the retention of consonantal clusters reflect orthographic conservatism and the influence of Sanskrit, and that the actual stage of phonetic development of MIA in Aśoka's time could have been further advanced than it would seem from the inscriptions.

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¹⁵ See for example Senart, IA 21, 1892, 146–8.

3.1.3 Other inscriptions of the Mauryan era

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The scanty epigraphic remains of the Mauryan period other than the records of Aśoka (see 4.3.1.2) are all from the northeast, and most of them exhibit the typical Ardha-Māgadhī features of the "Chancellery Language" (-*e* for -*as*, *l* for *r*, *s* for all sibilants, etc.). Some of these inscriptions, notably Mahāsthān (SI I.79–80) and Sohgaurā (SI I.82–3), seem to reflect a more colloquial and/or archaic variety of this dialect.

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The Jogīmāṟā cave inscription (ASIAR 1903–4, 128–31) is the only one from any period preserving what seems to be pure Māgadhī, showing the sibilant *ś* instead of *s* (e.g., *śutanuka . . . devadāśikyi* = *sutanukā devadāsī*) besides the aforementioned characteristic features of Ardha-Māgadhī.¹⁶

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¹⁶ The Nāgārjunī hill inscriptions of Aśoka's grandson Daśaratha (SI I.77–8) have in some places the sibilant *ṣ*, e.g., in the king's name *daṣalatha*, and in others *s*. But this variation may not be dialectally significant; cf. the similar cases in Kālsī and some other Aśokan inscriptions noted previously (3.1.2.1. n. 5).

3.1.4 Later inscriptional Prakrits

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3.1.4.1 Inscriptions in the west-midland dialect

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After the Mauryan period there is a major shift in the linguistic features of the inscriptional Prakrits. The predominance of the eastern dialect of the Aśokan and other inscriptions of the Mauryan period ends abruptly; in fact, not a single inscriptional record in eastern dialect has been found from the post-Mauryan era. The dominant role in all regions except the northwest and Sri Lanka falls hereafter to a variety of Prakrit which most resembles, among the Aśokan dialects, the western dialect of the Girnār rock edicts, and which among literary languages has the most in common with Pāli and archaic forms of Śaurasenī. In other words, this dialect partakes of the typical characteristics of the western and central MIA languages: nominative singular masculine in *-o*, retention of Sanskrit *r* and *l*, predominance of the sibilant *s*, and so on.¹⁷ Like the Aśokan Prakrits, this central-western epigraphic Prakrit is still relatively archaic, with only occasional intervocalic voicing of unvoiced stops and elision of voiced stops. But unlike some of the Aśokan inscriptions, consonant groups from Sanskrit are nearly always assimilated.¹⁸

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¹⁷ For a specimen of this common epigraphic Prakrit, see Appendix, no. 3 (Bhārhut label inscriptions).

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¹⁸ An apparent exception is the Besnagar pillar inscription of Hēliodōros (Appendix, no. 2), which contains conjuncts such as *tr* (*putreṇa*, l. A–3) and *dr* (*bhāgabhadrasa*, l. A–6). But these examples would seem to fall into the category of early orthographic Sanskritisms (see 3.2.3.2) rather than of phonetic archaisms.

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The causes of the abrupt dialectal shift from east to west undoubtedly lie in political and historical developments, that is, the decline of Magadha as the center of power in northern India after the collapse of the Mauryan empire and the movement of the center of political power in the following centuries toward the west and northwest.¹⁹ Like the eastern dialect under Aśoka, the central-western dialect of the post-Mauryan era was used far beyond what must have been its original homeland. Thus we find inscriptions in this standard epigraphic Prakrit as far afield as Orissa in the east, for instance, in the Hāthīgumphā inscription (SI I.213–21), while in the south it is abundantly attested in inscriptions from such sites as Nāgārjunakoṇḍa and Amarāvatī. This central-western MIA dialect was, in fact, virtually the sole language in epigraphic use in the period in question, and therefore seems, like Pāli, to have developed into something like a northern Indian lingua franca, at least for epigraphic purposes, in the last two centuries b.c.

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¹⁹ See the comments of Mehendale, HGIP, xxxvii.

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This is not to say that the inscriptions in this dialect, which Senart called “Monumental Prakrit,”²⁰ are totally devoid of local variations. On the contrary, we do occasionally find, in the southern inscriptions, for example, instances of the influence of the local (Dravidian) language, as in *ayira-haghāna* = *ārya-saṅghānām* at Nāgārjunakoṇḍa (*Āyaka*-pillar ins. C–2; SI I, 232, l. 10). There are also considerable variations in orthography, with inscriptions from the later part of the period in question, that is, those of about the third and fourth centuries a.d., showing an increasing precision, most notably in indicating geminate consonants which had hitherto almost always been represented by the corresponding single consonant (see examples cited in SIE 43–4). Stylistically too, there is a considerable range of variation, from the brief and unadorned style of the donative inscriptions from Buddhist *stūpa* sites such as Sāñcī and Bhārhut to the quasi-literary compositions of the Hāthīgumphā inscription of King Khāravela or the Nāsik inscription of the time of Vāsiṣṭhīputra Puḷumāvī (SI I.203–7). But all in all, the standard epigraphic or “Monumental” Prakrit can be treated as essentially a single language whose use spread far beyond its place of origin, and which should not be taken to represent the local vernacular of every region and period where it appears.²¹

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²⁰ IA 21, 1892, 258.

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²¹ For this reason, the methods of analysis followed by Mehendale in HGIP are misleading. His classification of Prakrit inscriptions of the post-Mauryan epoch into geographical groups (western, southern, central, and eastern) is valid only with reference to their findspots; but to trace separate linguistic developments within and influences among the various groups, as Mehendale does, is based on the misconception that each of them constitutes a distinct linguistic entity. As Senart showed in *Les Inscriptions de Piyadassi*, this is not the case, and most of the conclusions drawn by Mehendale concerning the trends and directions of phonetic and morphological change cannot be accepted. A definitive historical linguistic treatment of the post-Aśokan epigraphic Prakrit, bearing in mind the complientire question of the subdialects of Gandhari remains unanswered, due at least in part to the problems of the casual orthography which is characteristic of the Kharosthi/Gandhari inscriptions.

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3.1.4.2 Inscriptions in other MIA dialects

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3.1.4.2.1 *Gāndhārī

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Grammatical descriptions: S. Konow, CII 2.1, xcv–cxv; J. Brough, GD 55–118; G. Fussman, “Gāndhārī écrite, Gāndhārī parlée.”

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In the northwest and adjoining regions, inscriptions of the post-Mauryan era (see 4.3.2) continued to be written in essentially the same language as the Aśokan rock edicts from this area, that is, the MIA dialect which used to be referred to as “Northwestern Prakrit” but which is nowadays more commonly called “Gāndhārī,” following H. W. Bailey’s suggestion.²² The inscriptions in this language are invariably written in Kharoṣṭhī script and are virtually all Buddhist in content. They range in date from approximately the second century B.C. to the third or possibly fourth century A.

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*meridarkha* = μεριδάρχης; Swāt ins., CII 2.1, 4) and Saka (*erjhuṇa* = *alysānaile’ysānai*; Takht-i-bāhī ins., l. 5, CII 2.1, 62 and xcvii).

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The Kharoṣṭhī documents from central Asia (see 4.3.7.12) provide specimens of a separate dialect of Gāndhārī used far beyond its native region. These documents show that Gāndhārī became the official language of the Indianized kingdom of Shan-shan or Kroraina in the southeastern Tarim basin in about the third century a.d. (cf. 2.3.1 and 2.3.2). This “Niya Prakrit” or “Kroraina Prakrit,” which was analyzed in detail by T. Burrow in *The Language of the Kharoṣṭhi Documents from Chinese Turkestan*, agrees on the whole fairly closely with the language of the post-Aśokan Gāndhārī inscriptions from India,²⁵ but also differs from Indian Gāndhārī in several significant particulars, such as the following:

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²⁵ See also Burrow, “The Dialectal Position of the Niya Prakrit” (see n. 10), 419–35 (esp. 423–5); and recently, Colette Caillat, “Connections Between Asokan (Shahbazgarhi) and Niya Prakrit?” IIJ 35, 1992, 109–19.

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1. Certain phonetic tendencies, such as a confusion between voiced and unvoiced consonants (more pronounced than in Indian Gāndhārī), and particularly a tendency to deaspirate Indic aspirates, apparently reflecting the phonetic structure of the (unattested) local dialect (Burrow, *Language*, 5 and 9).
2. The loss of distinction between endings for the nominative and accusative endings. The ending is generally *-a*, in both the singular (<*-e* according to Burrow, “The Dialectal Position,” 421 and 424) and the plural (presumably for *-ā*).
3. The use of an ending *-tu* for the second person singular of all tenses of the verb; for example, *labhiśatu* ‘you will get’. According to Burrow (*Language*, 43), this is “probably taken from the 2nd person of the pronoun.”
4. The development of a periphrastic construction for the preterite active, consisting of the past participle plus the personal endings of the present, except for the third-person singular where the ending is omitted; for example, *triṭhemi* = *\*dṛṣṭaḥ* + *-mi* ‘I saw’; *taḍita* = *\*tāḍitaḥ* ‘he beat’ (*Language*, 50–3).
5. The frequent use of the infinitive in *-amnae* (also occasionally found in Indian Gāndhārī; Burrow, *Language*, 49); for example, *karamnae* ‘to do’.
6. The frequent use of postpositions not found in other MIA dialects, such as *prace* ‘concerning’ (<*\*pratyayam*) and *vamti* ‘to, with’ (<*upānte*; *Language*, 42).
7. The extensive use of loanwords from various non-Indic languages, especially from Iranian languages (*Language*, vii–viii), from the local “Krorainic” language which apparently was closely related to Tocharian (*Language*, viii–ix), and occasionally from Greek (e.g., *milima* = μέδιμνος; *Language*, 111).

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3.1.4.2.2 *Sinhalese Prakrit

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Grammatical descriptions: S. Paranavitana, *Inscriptions of Ceylon*, I.xxvii–xlv; Wilhelm Geiger and D. B. Jayatilaka in Jayatilaka et al., eds., *A Dictionary of the Sinhalese Language* (Colombo: The Royal Asiatic Society, Ceylon Branch, 1935), I.1, xxiv–xxvii; Saddhamangala Karunaratne, *EZ* 7, 39–44.

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The language of the Old Sinhalese or Sinhalese Prakrit inscriptions of about the third century b.c. to the third or fourth century a.d. (see 4.3.7.1) is characterized by several unusual phonological features. Palatal *ś* generally predominates over the other sibilants, but Sanskrit sibilants also are frequently reflected by *h*. Sanskrit aspirates are generally represented by the corresponding nonaspirates (e.g., *dama* = *dharma*), but *jh* regularly replaces *j* (e.g., *rajha* = *rājā*; Paranavitana, xxxi; Karunaratne, 9). Otherwise, consonants in intervocalic position are generally preserved as in Sanskrit, though they are often subjected to voicing. Long vowels are commonly shortened, though according to some authorities this is merely a graphic device (Geiger and Jayatilaka, xxv–xxvi; contra, Paranavitana, xxviii).

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The morphology of Sinhalese Prakrit is on the whole not much different from that of the other old inscriptional Prakrits. The nominative singular ends in *-e* and the genitive in *-sa*, *-śa*, or *-ha*.²⁶ In these respects, as in others such as the predominance of the palatal sibilants, the dialect appears to have been influenced by the Māgadhī of the Buddhist missionaries sent to Sri Lanka from northeastern India in the Mauryan period (Geiger and Jayatilaka, op. cit., xx).

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²⁶ Due to the brevity and formulaic character of the Sinhalese Prakrit inscriptions, there is almost no material for the study of finite verb morphology; such few verb forms as do appear are nearly all participial.

3.1.5 Literary Middle Indo-Aryan in inscriptions

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3.1.5.1 The literary Prakrits

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The standardized literary Prakrits (mainly Māhārāṣṭrī, sometimes also Śaurasenī and Māgadhī) were occasionally employed in inscriptions of the medieval era,²⁷ either in independent Prakrit inscriptions or within Sanskrit inscriptions. The outstanding example of an independent literary Prakrit inscription is an inscription of the eleventh century a.d. at Dhār consisting of two “centuries” (actually 109 verses each) of Māhārāṣṭrī verses in praise of the tortoise *avatāra* (*avanikūrmaśatam*) (EI 8, 241–60; cf. 4.1.8). Not surprisingly, Prakrit was also sometimes used for Jaina inscriptions, most notably the Ghaṭayāla inscription (JRAS 1895, 513–21), which is composed almost entirely of Āryā verses in Māhārāṣṭrī.

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²⁷ This is of course a purely literary phenomenon, historically unrelated to the use of the MIA vernaculars in early inscriptions.

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The literary Prakrits also occur in the inscriptional dramas (see 4.1.8 and 7.2.2.2.2), where they play their usual role as the language spoken by the lesser characters; thus we find specimens of Māhārāṣṭrī and Śaurasenī in the *Pārijātamañjarī-nāṭikā* at Dhār and the *Harakeli-nāṭaka* at Ajmer, and of these dialects plus Māgadhī in the *Lalitavigraharāja-nāṭaka*, also from Ajmer. Occasionally a Prakrit verse is also included in an ordinary Sanskrit inscription, for instance, verse 12 (in Māhārāṣṭrī) of the Vārāṇasī copper plate inscription of Karṇa (SI II.340).²⁸

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²⁸ For other examples of literary Prakrit together with other languages, see section 3.6.

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3.1.5.2 Pāli

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Inscriptions in canonical Pāli²⁹ from India proper are relatively rare. Those examples which do occur are usually Buddhist inscriptions of cultic content (cf. 4.1.7), such as the two Sārnāth stone inscriptions (EI 9, 291–3) recording the “Four Noble Truths” and the “Buddhist creed.” Other Indian inscriptions in Pāli or closely related dialects include the *Pratītya-samutpāda* formulae on the Devnīmorī casket and in a Ratnagiri inscription.³⁰

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²⁹ It should be noted that in some early (and even some more recent) epigraphic publications the term “Pāli” has been inaccurately used to refer to various other MIA dialects.

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³⁰ See O. von Hinüber, “Epigraphical Varieties of Continental Pāli from Devnimori and Ratnagiri,” in *Buddhism and Its Relation to Other Religions* [for full reference see Index of Inscriptions Cited s.v. Devnīmorī], 185–200 for these and for references to other Pāli inscriptions.

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Unlike in India, Pāli inscriptions are found in large numbers in some Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia, especially Burma and Thailand, and also in smaller numbers in Sri Lanka and Cambodia (see 4.3.7.1 and 4.3.7.5–4.3.7.7).

3.2 Mixed or “Hybrid” Dialects

3.2.1 The character of “Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit” (EHS)

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From about the first to the fourth century of the Christian era, a large number of inscriptions from northern, central, and occasionally also southern India were written in a peculiar language which is neither fully Sanskrit nor fully Prakrit but partakes of the characteristics of both. This language has accordingly been referred to by such terms as “mixed dialect,” “Sanskrit influenced by Prakrit,” or “Prakrit influenced by Sanskrit.” In 1978, Th. Damsteegt coined the term “Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit” (EHS) in his book of the same name, on the analogy of Franklin Edgerton’s “Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit”; and although, like its prototype, the term is potentially misleading in some cases, it deserves to be, and largely has been, adopted for general use.

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EHS texts are typically more or less Sanskritic in orthography but Prakritic in morphology and syntax. Thus a typical EHS word occurring frequently in the inscriptions is *bhikṣusya* ‘of (the) monk’, corresponding to Sanskrit *bhikṣoḥ* and MIA *bhikkhus(s)a*. Here the stem is spelled as in Sanskrit, while the inflection is a pseudo-Sanskrit rendition of the Middle Indic *-ssa*. Similarly, the standard EHS dating formula is *etāye pūrvāye* or variants thereof, equivalent to Sanskrit *etasyāṃ pūrvāyām* ‘on the aforementioned [date (*tithau*)]’.

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An example of a typical EHS text,³¹ in both content and form, is the Kaṅkālī Ṭīlā (Mathurā) *toraṇa* inscription (Lüders, MI §20 [Lüders’ tr.]):

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³¹ For a longer specimen of EHS, see Appendix, no. 5 (Sārnāth umbrella shaft ins.).

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*bhadata-jayasenasya āṃtevāsinīye dhāmaghoṣāye dān[o] pāsādo*

“The temple (is) the gift of Dhāmaghoṣā (Dharmaghoṣā), the female disciple of the venerable Jayasena.”

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Notable here, among other characteristic features, is the juxtaposition of the Sanskrit genitive masculine ending *-sya* with the Prakrit feminines in *-āye* and *-īye*; the semi-Sanskritized stem of the proper name *dharmaghoṣā-* (according to Lüders’ interpretation) contrasting with the un-Sanskritized stem of *pāsādo* (Skt. *prāsāda-*); and the spellings, influenced by MIA orthography, of *bhadata-* (for *bhadanta*) and *āṃtevasinīye* (for *aṃte-*).

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It must be emphasized that EHS, like the epigraphic Prakrits, is by no means a standardized or a unified language. The orthography and morphology of EHS inscriptions vary widely and unpredictably, and they display various grades or degrees of hybridism. In general, one may think in terms of more

3.2.3 The linguistic nature of EHS

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3.2.3.1 Relation to Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit

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The epigraphic mixed dialects bear a clear and close linguistic relation to the idiosyncratic Sanskrit of Buddhist texts generally and particularly to the true "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit" (BHS) of texts such as the *Mahāvastu*. Although the epigraphic and literary hybrids do differ in particulars, this is at least in part due to the different character and content of the documents preserved in them. In any case, the variability of both of these unstandardized languages presents major obstacles to a detailed comparison. But despite these complications, there can be no doubt that the two represent different manifestations of the same basic linguistic phenomenon, namely, the gradual Sanskritization of MIA vernaculars. It is also certain that the hybrid language used in the first three centuries of the Christian era was neither an exclusively Buddhist nor an exclusively literary construction, as seems to be assumed by certain scholars (notably Edgerton) who did not sufficiently consider the epigraphic evidence. For among the hybrid inscriptions of this period, we have documents of not only Buddhist but also Brahmanical and Jaina content which are original compositions in the hybrid dialect.

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Thus the epigraphic evidence contradicts the notion espoused by Edgerton and others that the specimens of hybrid dialects that we have are merely incomplete or imperfect translations into Sanskrit of texts originally written in MIA dialects; in other words, that the hybrid language is merely a literary artifact and not a real language. The inscriptions prove that hybrid Sanskrit was, or at least eventually became, a living linguistic entity, and thus support the position of Lamotte (HBI 638) and others that some Buddhist texts were actually composed in BHS.

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3.2.3.2 The origins of EHS

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This still leaves unanswered the question of the historical origins of the epigraphic (and Buddhist) hybrid dialect. In general, opinions on the controversial question of the motivations and mechanics of the semi-Sanskritization of MIA fall into two camps. The first is the school which holds that the hybrid is little more than a bad imitation of Sanskrit, that is, that its incomplete and imperfect Sanskritization reflects incompetence and ignorance on the part of the composers of the documents. Thus T. Burrow says that "such a mongrel language was actually employed by those who wished to employ the superior Sanskrit language but were not able to master its grammar." K. R. Norman elaborates this view: "They [the donors] would presumably dictate in Pkt, and once it had become fashionable to write inscriptions in Skt, the scribes would 'translate', to the best of their ability, into that language. The correctness of the Skt depended, therefore, on the scribes' competence."

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³⁶ *The Sanskrit Language*, The Great Languages (London: Faber and Faber, 1955), 61.

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³⁷ Review of Damsteegt, EHS, in *Lingua* 48, 1979, 293. A similar position was maintained by Senart in his important but by now largely outdated discussion in *Les Inscriptions de Piyadassi* of "Mixed Sanskrit," which he saw as essentially an orthographic phenomenon with no real linguistic basis: "Mixed Sanskrit is only a manner of writing Prâkrit, consisting in going as near as possible to the orthography and the etymological forms known to the religious language [i.e., Sanskrit]" (*IA* 21, 1892, 275).

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The other school of thought tends to view the degree of hybridism in a given document as a matter not so much of knowledge or ability as of taste; thus Lamotte describes hybrid Sanskrit as "une langue littéraire où le dosage du prākrit et du sanskrit était laissé à leur appréciation personelle" (HBI 642; see also 638 and 645). The epigraphic evidence in particular tends to support the views of this second school. Especially worthy of note are cases such as the Morā well inscription (MI §113; see 3.3.2) where a single inscription comprises portions both in hybrid and in more or less standard Sanskrit, distributed according to function; here, as is usually the case, the prose portion is in hybrid language while the verse—which is composed for the occasion, not quoted from another source—is in good Sanskrit. Such cases indicate that Lamotte was correct in supposing that the use and degree of hybridism were essentially controlled by the taste and judgment of the composers of the texts, and that at least some of them could write in standard Sanskrit when they saw fit.

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Certain grammatical features of the epigraphic language also support this view. Particularly interesting in this regard is the sporadic application of Sanskrit sandhi rules. The "wrong" application of sandhi is one of the most characteristic features of the epigraphic hybrid, and is often what most clearly distinguishes inscriptions in highly Sanskritized hybrid from fully standard Sanskrit; a characteristic example is the label inscription on the Kaniṣka portrait statue from Māt (Mathurā; MI §97), which reads *mahārājā rājātirājā devaputro kaniṣko*. Here the MIA nominative masculine ending *-o* is used instead of Sanskrit *visarga*, not only *in pausa* (*kaniṣko*) but also before *k* (*devaputro k-*). This usage is very common in EHS, and of course actually reflects not "wrong sandhi" but the retention of the old MIA ending in the otherwise (i.e., orthographically) Sanskritized word. Contrast with this the peculiar sandhi forms found in later Mathurā inscriptions of the posthybrid era, such as *śākyabhikṣunyār jayabhaṭṭāyār yad* . . . in the Kaṭrā pedestal inscription (MI §8) and *viṣṇusyaḥ gomindrapūttrasyaḥ ha*[*ku*]*datta-p*[*au*]*ttrasyaḥ* (Mathurā Nāga statue ins., MI §161). Both of these inscriptions date from the Gupta period, when Sanskrit had become the standard epigraphic language, and in them we clearly do have incompetent attempts to write Sanskrit; the incorrect sandhi does not reflect underlying MIA forms, but simply the misapplication of Sanskrit rules improperly learned or understood by the composer.

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Thus the combined evidence of grammar and usage speaks against the assumption that the hybrid language simply represented failed attempts to write Sanskrit and supports the notion that hybrid was a coherent (though not rigidly standardized) language in and of itself, and that those who wrote it did so intentionally. This is not to say, however, that the hybrids were consciously formulated and developed. Rather, the available evidence suggests that hybrid Sanskrit arose in the course of a gradual Sanskritizing movement which had its origins in the late centuries B.C., expanded in the early centuries of the Christian era, and culminated in the final triumph of classical Sanskrit in the Gupta era. Early tendencies toward Sanskritization, in the form of sporadic semi-Sanskritized orthography, appear in some Prakrit inscriptions of the pre-Christian era. Such "Prakrit influenced by Sanskrit" is seen, for example, in the Besnagar pillar inscription (Appendix, no. 2) in such spellings as *bhāgabhadrasa trātārasa* (l. A-6; cf. n. 18), and in the Pabhosā cave inscription (SI I.96), *rājño gopālīputrasa* (l. 1). The hybrids would seem to reflect the extension and regularization of these early tendencies toward Sanskritization. In other words, it seems that the semi-Sanskritized Prakrits of the early Christian era gradually attained a de facto status of their own as semiliterary languages; in Jean Filliozat's words, it was not merely a matter of "seulement sanskritisation de textes, mais encore sanskritisation de dialectes."³⁸

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³⁸ Review of F. Edgerton, *Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar/Dictionary, T'oung Pao* 43, 1954, 147–71 (quoted 168).

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Thus it is more likely that scribes and authors wrote in such a dialect not because they were unable to write in "pure" Sanskrit (or "pure" Prakrit) but simply because this had become the prevalent and preferred style of their time and place. The linguistic borders, in other words, between "Sanskrit" and "Prakrit" were probably not as strictly fixed in practical usage as they appear to be when the matter is viewed (as it usually is) from the point of view of formal literature. From the less formal Buddhist texts, and especially from the epigraphic remains of the period in question, we instead get the impression that a variety of dialects, or perhaps rather of dialectal styles, covering a broad spectrum from pure MIA to pure standard Sanskrit were available for varying purposes and contexts. The choice of a given dialect by a given writer was, to be sure, governed to some extent by his knowledge and level of education; but to an equal, and perhaps greater, extent, it was the content and nature of the document he was writing which would determine the appropriate level of Sanskritization.

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Due to the limitations of the materials, it is not possible to specify with any precision the MIA dialect or dialects underlying the hybrid language. But both the geographical concentrations of the inscriptions in the Mathurā area and its predominant grammatical features such as the nominative masculine in *-o* indicate that the epigraphic dialect, like the Buddhist literary hybrid, reflects an underlying midland dialect (HBI 645).

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Attempts to explain the motivations and linguistic forces shaping the development of the hybrids tend to focus on two main concepts. First, there is the idea, promoted by Joseph Mansion³⁹ and Filliozat,⁴⁰ that they essentially arose as a lingua franca enabling Buddhist monks from various regions of India to converse easily at a period in history when their local MIA dialects were beginning to diverge to the point where they were no longer easily mutually intelligible. This assumes, first of all, that the hybrid remains reflect an actual spoken language,⁴¹ which would be difficult to prove. Other elements of the theory too are less than totally convincing. For one thing, it is questionable whether the MIA dialects of the time were really so different; from the available literary and inscriptional data, it would appear that they were not yet so widely divergent as to present major difficulties of communication. Moreover, while it is true that the literary remains of the hybrid language are virtually all Buddhist, the inscriptional data, as we have seen, include hybrid documents of all three major religious traditions, that is, Buddhist, Brahmanical, and Jaina; the statistical predominance of Buddhist records may simply reflect the predominance of Buddhism itself at the time in question. The development of hybrid Sanskrit may well have been influenced and promoted by the Buddhists, but the epigraphic evidence shows that hybridization was actually part of an overall linguistic trend which transcended sectarian divisions. In the words of Lamotte, “le sanskrit mixte n’est pas un phénomène strictement bouddhique, mais s’insère dans l’évolution générale de la langue indienne” (HBI 638).

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³⁹ *Esquisse d'une histoire de la langue sanscrite* (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1931), 109.

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⁴⁰ Op. cit., 164–6.

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⁴¹ Cf. Filliozat, op. cit., 166, describing the hybrid language as "un langage réellement parlé."

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The second theory of hybridization places more emphasis on the status value of Sanskrit as the traditional language of the learned elite. According to this view, the early adoption of Sanskritic spellings and the ever-increasing Sanskritization of the epigraphic language, and eventually the adoption of classical Sanskrit itself, all reflect the irresistible influence of Sanskrit as the language of learning par excellence. In this connection it has been pointed out by several authors, from Sylvain Lévi⁴² to Damsteegt (EHS 207–9), that the Sanskritizing trend was accelerated by the influence of the Scythian and Kuṣāṇa rulers of northern and western India in the period concerned. As foreigners, they were evidently inclined to patronize the elite language in an effort to legitimize their rule and emphasize their own Indianization. Thus it is no accident that the Sanskritized hybrid came into extensive use at precisely the time and place that the Kuṣāṇas and Śaka Kṣatrapas were ruling; just as it is no coincidence that the first major literary Sanskrit inscription, Rudradāman’s Junāgaḍh rock inscription (see 3.3.3), was written on behalf of a Śaka king who, like his predecessors in Mathurā, was trying to appear “more Indian than the Indians.”

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⁴² “Sur quelques termes employés dans les inscriptions des Kṣatrapas,” *JA*, ser. 9, vol. 19, 1902, 95–125 (esp. 117–9).

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All in all, the theories based on the status of Sanskrit seem to provide the strongest explanation for the gradual hybridization of the inscriptional Prakrits, and for the ultimate Sanskritization of Indian epigraphy. The status of Sanskrit was so deeply ingrained in traditional India that it slowly but surely eroded the precedent established by Aśoka (presumably for Buddhistic motivations) of using Prakrit for epigraphic purposes.

3.3 Sanskrit

3.3.1 The earliest Sanskrit inscriptions

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It is, in the words of Louis Renou, “le grand paradoxe linguistique de l’Inde”⁴³ that Sanskrit, the linguistic parent of MIA, first appeared in inscriptions much later than its own descendants. For Sanskrit began to come into epigraphic use only in the first century B.C., according to the now generally accepted dating (mainly on paleographic grounds) for the oldest Sanskrit inscriptions, namely, the Ayodhyā (SI I.94–5) and the Ghosuṇḍī (SI I.90–1) and Hāthībāḍā (EI 22, 198–205) stone inscriptions.

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⁴³ *Histoire de la langue sanskrite*, Les Langues du Monde 10 (Lyon: IAC, 1956), 84.

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The Ayodhyā inscription records in two lines of essentially standard Sanskrit the foundation by the “righteous king” (*dharmarājñā*) Dhana[*deva*?] of a structure (*ketanam*) in memory of his father Phalgudeva.⁴⁴ The formation of the compound *dharmarājñā* instead of the theoretically correct *dharmarājena* is of no great consequence, since compounds of this type are found frequently in less formal registers of Sanskrit. Also worthy of note is the apparent use of the genitive instead of the ablative in *puṣyamitrasya ṣaṣṭhena*, assuming that the usual interpretation⁴⁵ as "sixth [in descent] of [i.e., 'from'] . . ." is correct. But here, too, the intrusion of the stronger genitive case into the domain of the weaker ablative is not uncommon in informal Sanskrit usage.

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⁴⁴ The paleographic estimate of a date in the first century B.C. is corroborated by the statement that the donor is the “sixth [in descent] of [i.e., from; cf. SI I.95 n. 3] General Puṣyamitra” (*senāpateḥ puṣyamitrasya ṣaṣṭhena*), since the Puṣyamitra referred to is presumably the founder of the Śuṅga dynasty in ca. 187 B.C.

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⁴⁵ Cf. SI I.95 n. 3.

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The three inscriptions from Hāthībāḍā and one from Ghosuṇḍī are all separate renderings of the same text, recording the construction of a structure⁴⁶ for the worship of the deities Saṃkarṣaṇa and Vāsudeva. The text, which except for the beginning of the first line can be reconstructed from the four extant fragmentary versions, is again in essentially "correct" Sanskrit with a few possible exceptions. For instance, the word accompanying the names *saṃkarṣaṇa-vāsudevābhyāṃ* is spelled *bhagavabhyāṃ* instead of the expected *bhagavadbhyāṃ* in both versions (Hāthībāḍā A and Ghosuṇḍī) in which it is preserved; but this may be no more than a scribal error (cf. EI 22, 201). Also, it has been suggested (SI I.91 n. 1) that the donor's personal name, given as *sarvatāta*, "may be actually Sarvatrāta." But this is uncertain, as the king in question is otherwise unknown, and even if the inscription did record a Prakritic form of the ruler's name this would be of no great linguistic import, since personal names are frequently recorded in Prakritic forms in Sanskrit inscriptions.

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⁴⁶ *pūjāśīlāprākāro nārāyaṇa vāṭakā*; the exact sense of the phrase is uncertain.

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In conclusion, then, the language of the Hāṭhībāḍā-Ghosuṇḍī inscriptions, like that of Ayodhyā, is essentially standard Sanskrit, though with some marginal indications of informal usage and style.

3.3.2 Early Sanskrit inscriptions from Mathurā

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Except for these very few examples from the last century before the Christian era, the earliest Sanskrit inscriptions are found in Mathurā, which has yielded several records of the first and second centuries A.D., that is, the time of the Śaka Kṣatrapas and the early Kuṣāṇas, which are written in Sanskrit or a dialect very closely approaching it.⁴⁷ The earliest of the Sanskrit inscriptions from Mathurā are probably those of the time of the Kṣatrapa Śoḍāsa, who is dated with reasonable certainty to the early years of the first century A.D. The most important of these is the Morā well inscription discussed earlier (3.2.3.2; MI §113), which seems to record the dedication of a shrine to five epic heroes. The opening portion of this fragmentary inscription, recording its date, was written in the hybrid dialect (*mahakṣatrapasa rājūvulasa putrasa svāmi* . . . ), while the remaining three lines are in Sanskrit, evidently including a verse in the *Bhujaṅgavijṛmbhita* meter (EI 24, 198). But for minor orthographic liberties of a type often seen in Sanskrit inscriptions (cf. 3.3.8.1), such as *ārcādeśāṃ śailāṃ* instead of *arcādeśān śailān* (accusative plural), the latter part of the inscription is virtually standard Sanskrit.

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⁴⁷ Here, as in the case of the hybrid dialects discussed earlier, it is not always absolutely clear whether or not a given text should be labeled "Sanskrit."

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A similar linguistic situation is observed in another fragmentary Mathurā stone slab inscription of Śoḍāsa's time (MI §178) whose first two lines appear to be in hybrid dialect ("not quite correct Sanskrit," in Lüders' words) as indicated by the nonstandard sandhi in *pārvato prāsādo*, l. 2, but whose third and fourth lines seem to contain an *upajāti* verse in standard Sanskrit. A third inscription of Śoḍāsa's time (MI §115) on a doorjamb from Morā is in standard Sanskrit except for the typical hybrid form *svāmi(sya)* (l. 10). Other undated Sanskrit inscriptions attributable to the same general period include a fragment of a stone inscription from Kaṅkālī Ṭīlā (possibly a Jaina inscription) with text in *śārdūlavikrīḍita* meter (MI §21) and a fragmentary Mathurā coping-stone inscription in "pre-Kuṣān characters and composed in pure Sanskrit" (MI §162), which is probably a Brahmanical dedication.

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The Sanskrit inscriptions from the earliest phase at Mathurā show certain interesting patterns. First, they are mostly Brahmanical in affiliation. While the Kaṅkālī Ṭīlā inscription may be Jaina (it is too fragmentary to be identified), in any case there are no Buddhist inscriptions among them. Second, some of them comprise two dialects, with the practical portion (containing the date, etc.) in the hybrid language and a eulogistic portion in standard Sanskrit verse. Others, such as the Morā doorjamb inscription, are in standard Sanskrit but show occasional hybrid tinges in morphology or orthography.

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Moving on to the period of the Great Kuṣāṇas (i.e., Kaniṣka and his successors, provisionally assumed here for purposes of discussion to have begun ruling in A.D. 78; cf. 5.5.1.4), we now find more Mathurā inscriptions in reasonably standard Sanskrit, including for the first time some of Buddhistic content. For instance, several of the pillar base donations from the Jamālpur mound (e.g., MI §47–9 and 53) are in standard Sanskrit or very close to it; for instance, §48, *aya[ṃ kum]bh[ako dā]naṃ saṅghaprakṛtān[ā]ṃ Bh[ad]raghoṣa-pramukhā(nāṃ)*. A longer inscription is the Īsāpur *yūpa* (MI §94) of the year 24 (= ca. A.D. 102?) of Vāsiṣka, commemorating the performance of a *dvādaśarātra* sacrifice in proper Sanskrit but for some minor orthographic variations (gṛṣma- for grīṣma- [l. 3]; hiatus in -cchandogena iṣṭvā [l. 6]). A few decades younger is a pedestal inscription from Tokri Ṭīlā (MI §99) recording donations, apparently Brahmanical, during the reign of Huviṣka (the date is lost) in more or less correct Sanskrit but with some peculiarities such as the apparent gerund *dṛśya* (l. 3) and the unclear word *nanayat* (l. 1).

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Overall, a fair number (but still only a fraction of the total corpus) of the inscriptions of Mathurā from the early first to about the middle of the second century A.D. are written in fairly standard Sanskrit. Most of the Sanskrit inscriptions are Brahmanical in affiliation, and the Sanskrit of Buddhist inscriptions is more prone to hybridisms, though these are also not totally absent from the Brahmanical ones. In conclusion, although the hybrid dialect is still predominant, Sanskrit is beginning to establish itself as an epigraphic language in this era, especially in Brahmanical circles, continuing the trend which began in the first century B.C.

3.3.3 Sanskrit inscriptions from western India in the Kṣatrapa period

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The inscriptions of the earlier house of Western Kṣatrapa kings, namely, the Kṣaharāta line of Nahapāna (middle of the first century A.D.?), are mostly in Prakrit or in hybridized Prakrit, with the important exception of Nāsik inscription no. 10 of Nahapāna's son-in-law Uṣavadāta (SI I.167–70). The opening portion of this inscription (ll. 1–3), eulogizing Uṣavadāta, is written in a fair approximation of standard Sanskrit with some hybrid features such as frequent sandhi hiatus (e.g., *dharmātmanā idam*, l. 3) and hybrid morphology such as *bhojāpayitrā* (l. 1). The remainder of the inscription, recording the actual donations, is in a somewhat more hybridized style. Senart (EI 8, 79) pointed out that about the first half of the eulogistic portion is virtually a Sanskrit rendition (or, as Senart puts it, a “reproduction in Sanskṛit orthography”) of the description of Uṣavadāta in the Prakrit Kārle cave inscription of the time of Nahapāna (SI I.171–2). The linguistic innovation in this inscription presumably reflects contemporary developments in Mathurā and adjoining regions, though it is not clear why Sanskrit was used for this inscription only; apparently, this is an instance of the orthographic options alluded to previously (3.2.3.2).

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The Junāgaḍh rock inscription of Rudradāman (SI I.175–80), the greatest king of the second Western Kṣatrapa line of Caṣṭana, was written shortly after A.D. 150 and represents a turning point in the history of epigraphic Sanskrit. This is the first long inscription recorded entirely in more or less standard Sanskrit, as well as the first extensive record in the poetic style. Although further specimens of such poetic *praśastis* in Sanskrit are not found until the Gupta era, from a stylistic point of view Rudradāman’s inscription is clearly their prototype. But as noted by Kielhorn⁴⁸ and others,⁴⁹ the language of the Junāgaḍh inscription is not pure classical Sanskrit in the strictest sense of the term. The orthography is inconsistent in the use of *anusvāra* and *visarga* and in the notation of double consonants, and the nonclassical retroflex *ḻ* occurs several times (e.g., *pāḻī*, l. 1). Local dialect features are probably reflected in the lengthened vowels in *nīrvyājam avajītyāvajītya* (l. 12). *Vīśad-* instead of standard *viṃśati-* (l. 7) also reflects local dialect pronunciation of the epic variant *viṃśat-* (cf. *sīha* for *siṃha* in the Guṇḍā ins., discussed in the next paragraph). *Patinā* instead of *patyā* (l. 11) in the sense of ‘lord’ is likewise a common epicism, though technically incorrect. Other questionable uses from the classical point of view include *anyatra saṃgrāmeṣu* instead of *. . . saṃgrāmebhyaḥ* (l. 10; cf. Kielhorn, EI 8, 40 n. 2) and the redundant *ā garbhāt prabhṛti* (l. 9). The language of the Junāgaḍh inscription is thus a close approach to high classical Sanskrit, but, like early literary Sanskrit generally, it shows the influence of the less formal epic-vernacular style in which some of the grammatical niceties of Pāṇinian/classical Sanskrit were not observed. But the nonstandard features in question are in general not of the same order as those which characterize the hybrid and hybrid-influenced inscriptions of Mathurā. Thus although we can suspect that the inspiration for using Sanskrit for epigraphic purposes emanated from Mathurā (there are clear historical connections between the Western Kṣatrapas and the Scythian dynasties of Mathurā), the source of the Sanskrit of the Junāgaḍh inscription was evidently the preclassical literary style current among the literati of the day rather than the Sanskritized hybrid of Mathurā and adjoining regions.

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⁴⁸ EI 8, 39–40.

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⁴⁹ E.g., Renou, *Histoire de la langue sanskrite*, 96, refers to “des épismes linguistiques.”

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This literary style of Sanskrit was not, however, employed in the inscriptions of the time of the Western Kṣatrapa rulers who succeeded Rudradāman. These inscriptions, which are unofficial records, reflect a less formal style which retains some characteristics of the hybrid language. A typical example is the Gundā inscription (SI I.181–2) of the time of Rudrasiṃha I (Śaka 103 = A.D. 181), which contains such nonstandard forms as *(tri)yuttaraśate* for *tryuttara-* and *rudrasīhasya* for *rudrasiṃhasya* (cf. *vīśad-* for *viṃśat-* in the Junāgaḍh inscription), as well as the hybrid sandhi *rājño kṣatrapasya*. Inscriptions of contemporary dynasties in western India show similar linguistic characteristics. A Sātavāhana inscription of the time of Vāsiṣṭhīputra Śrī-Śātakarṇi (second century A.D.) from Kaṇherī (Bühler, IA 12, 1883, 272) is in hybridized Sanskrit (e.g., *śrī-sāta[karn]ī[s]ya*, l. 1). From a slightly later period, the Kānākheṛā inscription (SI I.186–7) of A.D. 279 is in mostly standard Sanskrit but still shows some features reminiscent of hybrid, such as the causative participle *khānāpito* (l. 6).

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