The Rashtrakutas and their Times c7.s1.113

c7.s1.113

This controversy as to the original form of the word Rāṣṭrakūṭa is partly due to a misunderstanding as to what we mean by the term 'original.' Fleet, while maintaining that Raṭṭa was not derived from Rāṣṭra, does not assert that Raṭṭa is a des'ī or Dravidian word of non-Aryan parentage. We have already pointed out a number of cases, where original ṣṭa in Sanskrit becomes simple ṭṭa in Mahārāṣṭrī and Jain- Mahārāṣṭrī.⁵⁶ There is, therefore, no phonetic difficulty in deriving the term Raṭṭa from the Sanskrit term Rāṣṭra or Rāṣṭrakūṭa. As to the question which of these was the original form, the answer will entirely depend upon what we mean by ‘original’. From the 3rd century B.C. to about the 4th century A.D., Prakrits were usually used for epigraphical purposes, and perhaps for daily intercourse as well. The form raṭhi was therefore the original or earlier form in vogue, when the terms Rāṣṭrakūṭas and Rāṣṭrapatis began to be generally used on the use of Sanskrit becoming common for epigraphical purposes. In this sense Raṭhi or Raṭṭa is no doubt the earlier form, but philologically and historically the term Raṭṭa has to be admitted as a derivation from and contraction of the term Rāṣṭrakūṭa.