A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s4.4

v1.c5.s4.4

As to when Marāthī developed into its present form from the original Prākrit, no definite evidence is at present forthcoming. ‘If we are to accept the conjectures of those that have bestowed some thought on the question,’ writes Professor W. B. Patvardhan,¹ ‘and have laboured to unearth old documents and relics, we may take it that Marāthī assumed its own form somewhere between the third and seventh centuries (A.D.). If we read the few plates in Marāthī proper, we are struck with the crudeness of style and language, and also of the grammatical forms. The whole space between the third and the tenth century is a gulf in the history of the Marāthī language and literature which has yet to be bridged. Materials to span it probably lie buried in the literary débris of Mahārāshtra, and are waiting for some patient toiler to secure them from total extinction.’ He suggests that the development of Marāthī took place during the supremacy in the Deccan of the Rāshtrakutas (A.D. 753–973 (?)), who were an indigenous dynasty, and that it may have assumed the form and proportions of a literary language under another indigenous dynasty, the Yādavas (Jādavs) of Dēvgiri, one of whose most prominent representatives, Rāmchandra or Rāmdēv (A.D. 1271–1309), is mentioned at the end of the Jñānēshvari in terms which indicate that he had extended his royal patronage to Jñānēshvar (Jñānēv or Jñānoba), the author of that work.