History of Bengali Language and Literature c5.14

c5.14

Bengali, a form of Paiçāchi Prakrita. The Buddhist priests had already, in the latter part of the tenth century, begun to write books in Prākrita called the Gouḍa Prākrita. This Prākrita was called by the grammarian Kriṣṇa Pandit, who flourished in the twelfth century, as a form of Paiçāchi Prākrita or a Prākrita spoken by the evil spirits. The rules specified by him, in his celebrated grammar Prākrita-Chandrikā, as peculiar to our dialect, apply to it up to this day. According to him র and ণ change into ল and ন, and য is pronounced as জ in this form of Prākrita, and of শ, ষ, স, one form only is found in current use. These are, generally speaking, the characteristic features of spoken Bengali up to this day and our old manuscripts are full of examples of them. The reasons which made Kriṣṇa Pandit give our language the contemptuous name of Paiçāchī Prākrita, are not far to seek. It is the same that made Manu*condemn all touch with this land. The dialect of the Buddhist people, in which the Buddhist priests were writing books, could not be accepted by the Sanskritic school which arose with the revival of Hinduism.