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Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s13.t11: Prākṛit, Buddhistic and Jain literature

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s13.t11

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Prākṛit, Buddhistic and Jain literature

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The earliest literature of Buddhism and Jainism which arose and grew in Kosala and Magadha adopted the Prākṛit as its vehicle of expression. Tradition which is late and which receives support from some citations in works like the gloss of Malayagiri on a Jain work and from a reference in Bhoja’s *Śṛingāra Prakāśa*, ascribes a Prākṛit grammar to Pāṇini himself, but this is only a late attempt to invest Prākṛit with a status equal to that of Sanskrit. Equally undependable is the ascription of the Prākṛtaprakāśa on the Mahārāṣṭrī and other dialects to Vararuchi, the Vārttikakāra, for the languages dealt with here are of later form. The early Ardhamāgadhi originals of the Jain canon have not survived, what we now have being later redactions.

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The Buddhistic canon was in Pāli which had close affinities with Paiśāci. Pāli-Paiśāci, and in fact all the later Prākṛits, owe their origin, according to Hoernle¹ to the ways in which the non-Sanskritic populations of the different localities spoke the Sanskrit tongue. Konow² draws attention to the fact that according to a Tibetan tradition the Sthaviras or Theras had their books in Paiśāci, and that according to Pischel these Paiśāci books may be the Pāli canon. Pāli-Paiśāci dialects with slight local variations were current in wide parts of India from the north-west to the Deccan, and it is this language which influenced or bore affinities to the Dravidian.³

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¹ ZDMG. 64 (1910) pp, 103-4, 118.

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² Ibid. p. 103,

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³ Ibid. pp. 107-118.

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Any considerable or authentic Prākṛit material of this time that we possess is confined to the edicts of Aśoka. The language of these edicts is in three dialects, closely related to one another and exhibiting only slight differences, one of these the eastern, prevalent in Magadha and the language of the capital, gave rise to the later Māgadhī Prākṛit; the other two were of the west and north-west, the latter being the earliest of the three. That Aśoka adopted this language for the propagation of Dharma proves that it was widely prevalent among the people.

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These edicts are valuable in another direction too. For, whether one believes or not in the traditions about the Buddhistic councils and the compilation of the Pāli canon soon after the Nirvāṇa of the Buddha or in the time of Aśoka, we have the irrefutable evidence of these edicts of Aśoka to show that some Buddhistic texts were in existence at this time. The Calcutta-Bairat edict names seven texts which have been traced in the canon. Of equal value are the inscriptions on the Bharhut and Sāñchī stūpas of the second and first centuries B.C.; while their carvings presuppose Buddhajātaka legends, the inscriptions there mention actually reciter (bhāṇaka), Sūtta reciter (Sūttāntika), one versed in the five Nikāyas (Pañcanekāyika), one versed in the Piṭakas (Peṭakin) and preacher of Dhamma (Dhammakathika). These epigraphical references are some indication that at the time of Aśoka there was a Buddhistic canonical literature to which the available Pāli canon bears general resemblance.

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Jainism does not lag behind in recording legends of the constitution of the Ardhamāgadhī canon at Pāṭaliputra in the time of Chandragupta, and of the Jain affiliations of the Nanda and Maurya kings and ministers. To Badrabāhu, whom Jain legend brings to Karṇāṭaka along with king Chandragupta who too became a Jain, are ascribed the ten Niryuktis and the Kalpa-sūtra. While it may be true that the Jain Aṅgas have in them portions going to the Mauryan times in antiquity, it is well understood that their bulk represents very late work.

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CHAPTER XI

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MAURYAN ART

Cites (5)