Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s12.20

c12.s12.20

The Eastern Prākṛit became an important vehicle of religious culture when the message of Buddha and Mahāvīra was delivered in it in the 6th-5th centuries B.C. and although it was a very much advanced or degenerate speech from Old Indo-Aryan standards, it obtained some pre-eminence in the Nanda Maurya periods both as the language of the Buddhist and Jaina faiths and official language of the court or of the empire. But this pre-eminence seems to have died out with the passing away of the Mauryan empire.