A History of Sanskrit Literature c7.s4.18

c7.s4.18

Of the Prākrits Māhārāṣṭrī held pre-eminence by its use in drama, whence it was introduced perhaps by Kālidāsa from lyric poetry, and by its adoption for epic poetry. Çaurasenī was normally the prose Prākrit, though it appears to have been occasionally used in verse; its employment in prose outside the drama was probably once much wider than was later the case when the Jains used a form of Māhārāṣṭrī for prose as well as for verse, though the presence of Çaurasenī forms in prose suggests that Māhārāṣṭrī is here intrusive.² Çaurasenī was markedly more closely akin to Sanskrit than Māhārāṣṭrī; its place of origin was within the sphere of the strongest influence of Sanskrit, and it remained in specially close relation with it both in morphology, syntax, and vocabulary. Hence it was appropriately used for persons of good position in the drama. Māgadhī, on the other hand, was reserved for those of low rank, and, though tales¹ were composed in it, it was of comparatively minor importance. The *Nāṭyaçāstra*, perhaps in the third century A. D., enumerates other dramatic dialects (*vibhāṣās*) which are clearly of no real popular origin; such are Dākṣiṇātyā, Prācyā, Āvantī, and Ḍhākkī or Ṭākkī, which are mere varieties of Çaurasenī, while Cāṇḍālī and Çākārī are species of Māgadhī.² Paiçācī, though practically unknown in the extant dramas, enjoyed, it appears, a considerable vogue in the popular tale, as a result, doubtless, of the fame of the *Bṛhatkathā*.