Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c6.10.3

c6.10.3

Lassen also wrote a book entitled Institutiones Linguæ Pracraticæ, based upon the grammatical works of native writers, and upon the Prâkṛit passages occurring in the Sanskrit dramatic plays. Professor Weber, whose industry and comprehensive grasp are admirable, has published an elaborate analysis of the language and contents of a Jaina religious work in Prâkṛit entitled the Bhagavatī, and of the language of a collection of Prâkṛit songs by Hâla, together with an edition and translation of the work. Dr. Cowell has brought out a nice edition of the Prâkṛita-Prakâs’a by Vararuchi; and Dr. Muir, whose works are so valuable to the student, devotes a large portion of his second volume of the “Sanskrit Texts” to Prâkṛit philology, in which he gives his own views and a summary of those of other scholars. In Ceylon, Mr. D’Alwis has published a work on the Pâli, and in India an edition of the Prâkṛit Grammar of Kramadîs’vara has been published in the Bibliotheca Indica, and of that of Hemachandra in Bombay by a Jaina priest with the assistance of a Sâstrî⁴. The modern vernaculars have not yet succeeded in attracting the attention of the learned in Europe. Essays on some points of vernacular philology by Professor Hoernle, of Jayanarayan’s College, Benares, have appeared in the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society. But the most important work on this subject that has yet appeared is Mr. Beames’s Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages.