New History of the Marathas v1.c5.41

v1.c5.41

If one were to trace the linguistic development of India through ancient times, one might roughly put down Vedic Sanskrit to be the spoken speech of the early Aryans until about 500 B.C. ; Mahārāshtri and the other Prakrits were in vogue for about a thousand years from 500 B.C. to 500 A.C., after which Marathi and other modern Indian languages gradually began to take shape; and Marathi became the language of the court and learned writers from about 800-1000 A.C. onwards. *Bhāvārtha-Dīpika*, a commentary on the *Bhagavadgita* by the first great writer in Marathi, Jnaneshwar, is the earliest celebrated work in Marathi, having been completed in the year 1290 A.C. during the reign of King Ramachandra Yadav of Devgiri, only four years before he was attacked and his kingdom destroyed by the Muslim conqueror Ala-ud-din Khilji. Jnaneshwar concludes his work with these words, "I have thus decorated the Goddess of Gita with this country ornament."⁴ Side by side with the use of the Prakrits and Marathi, the use of classical Sanskrit was never abandoned as the literary tongue *par excellence*. Learned scholars always preferred to write in Sanskrit.