Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s1.t2.4

c8.s1.t2.4

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.