Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s2.t2.12

c8.s2.t2.12

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.