Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s2.t2.3

c8.s2.t2.3

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.