Digital Edition :
Introduction to PRAKRIT - 1917.
By Alfred C. Woolner
Printed at The Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta - 1917.

Prakrit (also transliterated as Pracrit) (Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति)) is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects.The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious orthodoxy of saṃskṛtā. Alternatively, Prakrit can be taken to mean "derived from an original," means evolved in natural way. But there are scholars[who?] who believe that Prakrit is older than Sanskrit, and it is on the base of Prakrit (original) that the Sanskrit (refined) language was made. This also is in tune with the Jain religion, where the first Tirthankar is Adinath himself. The Prakrits became literary languages, generally patronized by kings identified with the Kshatriya caste, but were regarded as illegitimate by the Brahmin orthodoxy. The earliest extant usage of Prakrit is the corpus of inscriptions of Asoka, emperor of India. The various Prakrit languages are associated with different patron dynasties, with different religions and different literary traditions, as well as different regions of the Indian subcontinent.

Prakrit is foremost a native term, designating "vernaculars" as opposed to Sanskrit. Some modern scholars follow this classification by including all Middle Indo-Aryan languages under the rubric of "Prakrits", while others emphasise the independent development of these languages, often separated from the history of Sanskrit by wide divisions of caste, religion, and geography.[7] While Prakrits were originally seen as "lower" forms of language, the influence they had on Sanskrit, allowing it to be more easily used by the common people, as well as "Sankritization" of Prakrits gave Prakrits progressively higher cultural cachet.[8]Ardhamagadhi ("half Magadhi"), an archaic form of Magadhi which was used extensively to write Jain scriptures, is often considered to be the definitive form of Prakrit, while others are considered variants thereof. Prakrit grammarians would give the full grammar of Ardhamagadhi first, and then define the other grammars with relation to it. For this reason, courses teaching "Prakrit" often teach Ardhamagadhi Pali (the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism) tends to be treated as a special exception, as classical (Sanskrit) grammars do not consider it as a Prakrit per se, presumably for sectarian rather than linguistic reasons.Each Prakrit represent a distinct tradition of literature within the history of India. Other Prakrits are reported in old historical sources, but are no longer spoken (e.g., Paisaci).

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