Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c8.22

c8.22

It would thus appear that if all these inferior dialects did exist and were used by dramatic writers, they differed from each other in unimportant particulars, and that most of them belonged to the Mâgadhî species, since the Mss. have confounded them with the Mâgadhî of the grammarians. Hence we are justified in taking the real number of Prâkṛit dialects used for literary purposes to be six, viz., those mentioned by Hemachandra, Trivikrama, and Lakshmîdhara.