THE PRÁKRITA-PRAKÁŚA: OR, THE PRÁKRIT GRAMMAR OF VARARUCHI, WITH THE COMMENTARY (MANORAMA) OF BHÁMAHA. THE FIRST COMPLETE EDITION OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT, WITH VARIOUS READINGS FROM A COLLATION OF SIX MSS. IN THE WITH COPIOUS NOTES, AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION, AND INDEX OF PRÁKRIT WORDS; TO WHICH IS PREFIXED AN EASY INTRODUCTION TO HORACE HAYMAN WILSON, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., BODEN PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, ETC., ETC., ETC., IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF ALL THAT HE OWES TO HIM, AN OXFORD PUPIL INSCRIBES THIS VOLUM E. PREFACE. PRÁKRIT is the general term, under which are comprised the various dialects which appear to have arisen in India out of the corruption of the Sanskrit, during the centuries immediately preceding our era. Their investigation offers much to interest both the philological and the historical student; for not only is a knowledge of Prákrit (and especially of the principal dialect usually understood by that name,) essential to the explanation of many forms in the modern languages of India *-supplying, as it does, the connecting link between these and the ancient Sanskrit—but, while thus throwing light on the history of one branch of the Indo-Germanic family of languages, it affords many valuable illustrations of those laws of euphony, with whose effects we are ourselves familiar, in comparing the modern Italian and Spanish with the Latin out of which they sprang. At the same time Prákrit is closely connected with several deeply interesting historical questions. 'The sacred dialects of the Bauddhas and the Jainas are nothing else than Prákrit, and the period and circumstances of its transfer to Ceylon and Nepál are connected with the rise and progress of that religion which is professed by the principal nations to the north and east of Hindústán.' † When the Greeks, under Alexander, came in contact with India, Prákrit seems to have been the spoken dialect of the mass of the people. The language of the rock-inscriptions of King Asoka, which record the name of Antiochus and other Greek princes about 200 B.C., is also a form of with the Prakrit forms چود تیره باره For instance, of, the Hindustani * in Vararuchi, ii. 44. i. 9. + Professor Wilson's “ Hindú Drama," Introduction, p. lxvi. |