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Paisachi
Paishachi or Paisaci () is a largely unattested literary language of the middle kingdoms of India mentioned in Prakrit and Sanskrit grammars of antiquity. It is generally grouped with the Prakrits, with which it shares some linguistic similarities, but is still not considered a spoken Prakrit by the grammarians because it was purely a literary language, and because of its archaicism. Identity The etymology of the name suggests that it is spoken by piśācas, "ghouls". In works of Sanskrit poetics such as Daṇḍin's ''Kavyadarsha'', it is also known by the name of , an epithet which can be interpreted either as a "dead language" (i.e. with no surviving speakers), or as "a language spoken by the dead" (i.e. ghouls or ghosts), the former interpretation being more realistic and the latter being the more fanciful. Evidence which lends support to the former interpretation is that literature in Paiśācī is fragmentary and extremely rare but may have been once common. The Siddha- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gunadhya
Guṇāḍhya is the Sanskrit name of the sixth-century Indian author of the ''Bṛhatkathā'', a large collection of tales attested by Daṇḍin, the author of the ''Kavyadarsha'', Subandhu, the author of ''Vasavadatta'', and Bāṇabhaṭṭa, the author of the ''Kadambari''. Scholars compare Guṇāḍhya with Vyasa and Valmiki even though he did not write the now long-lost ''Brihatkatha'' in Sanskrit; the loss of this text is one of the greatest losses of Indian literature. Presently available are its two Kashmiri Sanskrit recensions, the ''Brihatkathamanjari'' by Kshemendra and the ''Kathasaritsagara'' by Somadeva. Date Guṇāḍhya could have flourished during the reign of a Satavahana dynasty, Satvahana king of Pratishthana (modern-day Paithan, Maharashtra). According to D. C. Sircar, he probably flourished between the 1st century BCE and 3rd century CE. An alternative account, mentioned in the ''Nepala Mahatmya'' of the Skanda Purana, states that Gunadhya was born i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kathasaritsagara
The ''Kathāsaritsāgara'' ("Ocean of the Streams of Stories") (Devanagari: कथासरित्सागर) is a famous 11th-century collection of Indian legends, fairy tales and folk tales as retold in Sanskrit by the Shaivite Somadeva. ''Kathāsaritsāgara'' contains multiple layers of story within a story and is said to have been adopted from Guṇāḍhya's ''Bṛhatkathā'' ("the Great Narrative"), which was written in a poorly-understood language known as Paiśāchī. The ''Bṛhatkathā'' is no longer extant but several later adaptations still exist — the ''Kathāsaritsāgara'', '' Bṛhatkathamanjari'' and ''Bṛhatkathāślokasaṃgraha''. However, none of these recensions necessarily derives directly from Gunadhya, and each may have intermediate versions. Scholars compare Guṇāḍhya with Vyasa and Valmiki even though he did not write the now long-lost ''Bṛhatkathā'' in Sanskrit. Presently available are its two Sanskrit recensions, the '' Bṛhatkathamanjar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brihatkatha
''Bṛhatkathā'' (Sanskrit, "the Great Narrative") is an ancient Indian epic, said to have been written by Gunadhya, Guṇāḍhya in a poorly-understood language known as Paiśācī. The work no longer exists but several later adaptations — the ''Kathasaritsagara, Kathāsaritsāgara'' (''कथासरित्सागर''), ''Bṛhatkathāmañjarī'' (''बृहत्कथामंजरी'') and ''Bṛhatkathāślokasaṃgraha'' (''बृहत्कथाश्लोकसंग्रह'') in Sanskrit, as well as the ''Peruṅkatai'' and ''Vasudevahiṃḍi'' in vernaculars — make commentary on the piece. The date of its composition is uncertain. According to testimonials by later Sanskrit poets such as Daṇḍin, Subandhu, and Bāṇabhaṭṭa, Bāṇa, the ''Bṛhatkathā'' existed in the 6th century CE. According to other estimates it predates that period by several more centuries. For example, if the story of Udayana (king), Udayana by poet Bhāsa (and als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brahmi
Brahmi (; ; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' or 'Lat', 'Southern Aśokan', 'Indian Pali', 'Mauryan', and so on. The application to it of the name Brahmi [''sc. lipi''], which stands at the head of the Buddhist and Jaina script lists, was first suggested by T[errien] de Lacouperie, who noted that in the Chinese Buddhist encyclopedia ''Fa yiian chu lin'' the scripts whose names corresponded to the Brahmi and Kharosthi of the ''Lalitavistara'' are described as written from left to right and from right to left, respectively. He therefore suggested that the name Brahmi should refer to the left-to-right 'Indo-Pali' script of the Aśokan pillar inscriptions, and Kharosthi to the right-to-left 'Bactro-Pali' script of the rock inscriptions from the northwest." that appeared as a full ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mahāsāṃghika
The Mahāsāṃghika (Brahmi: 𑀫𑀳𑀸𑀲𑀸𑀁𑀖𑀺𑀓, "of the Great Sangha", ) was one of the early Buddhist schools. Interest in the origins of the Mahāsāṃghika school lies in the fact that their Vinaya recension appears in several ways to represent an older redaction overall. Many scholars also look to the Mahāsāṃghika branch for the initial development of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Location The original center of the Mahāsāṃghika sect was in Magadha, but they also maintained important centers such as in Mathura and Karli. The Kukkuṭikas were situated in eastern India around Vārāṇasī and Pāṭaliputra and the Bahuśrutīya in Kośala, Andhra, and Gandhara. The Lokottaravāda subschool itself claimed to be of the 'Middle Country', i.e. Ganges Basin region in the north of India. The Mahāsāṃghikas and the Lokottaravāda subschool also had centres in the Gandhara region.The Ekavyāvahārika are not known from later times. The Caitik ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vararuchi
Vararuci (also transliterated as Vararuchi) () is a name associated with several literary and scientific texts in Sanskrit and also with various legends in several parts of India. This Vararuci is often identified with Kātyāyana. Kātyāyana is the author of Vārtikās which is an elaboration of certain sūtrās (rules or aphorisms) in Pāṇini's much revered treatise on Sanskrit grammar titled Aṣṭādhyāyī. Kātyāyana is believed to have flourished in the 3rd century BCE. However, this identification of Vararuci with Kātyāyana has not been fully accepted by scholars. Vararuci is believed to be the author of ''Prākrita Prakāśa'', the oldest treatise on the grammar of '' Prākrit'' language. Vararuci's name appears in a verse listing the 'nine gems' (navaratnas) in the court of one Samrat Vikramaditya. Vararuci appears as a prominent character in Kathasaritsagara ("ocean of the streams of stories"), a famous 11th century collection of Indian legends, fairy tales and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maharashtri Prakrit
Maharashtri or Maharashtri Prakrit ('), is a Prakrit language of ancient as well as medieval India and the ancestor of Marathi and Konkani. Maharashtri Prakrit was commonly spoken until 875 CEV.Rajwade, ''Maharashtrache prachin rajyakarte''The Linguist List Dr.Kolarkar, ''Marathyancha Itihaas'' and was the official language of the . Works like ''Karpūramañjarī'' and (150 BCE) were written in it. |
Vindhya Range
The Vindhya Range (also known as Vindhyachal) () is a complex, discontinuous chain of mountain ridges, hill ranges, highlands and plateau escarpments in west-central India. Technically, the Vindhyas do not form a single mountain range in the geological sense. The exact extent of the Vindhyas is loosely defined, and historically, the term covered a number of distinct hill systems in central India, including the one that is now known as the Satpura Range. Today, the term principally refers to the escarpment and its hilly extensions that runs north of and roughly parallel to the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh. Depending on the definition, the range extends up to Gujarat in the west, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the north, and Chhattisgarh in the east. The Vindhyas have a great significance in Hindu mythology, Indian mythology and history. Several ancient texts mention the Vindhyas as the southern boundary of the ''Āryāvarta'', the territory of the ancient Indo-Aryan peoples. Al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Munda Languages
The Munda languages are a group of closely related languages spoken by about nine million people in India and Bangladesh. Historically, they have been called the Kolarian languages. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language family, which means they are more distantly related to languages such as the Mon and Khmer languages, to Vietnamese, as well as to minority languages in Thailand and Laos and the minority Mangic languages of South China. Bhumij, Ho, Mundari, and Santali are notable Munda languages. The family is generally divided into two branches: North Munda, spoken in the Chota Nagpur Plateau of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, and Odisha, and South Munda, spoken in central Odisha and along the border between Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. North Munda, of which Santali is the most widely spoken, has twice as many speakers as South Munda. After Santali, the Mundari and Ho languages rank next in number of speakers, followed by Korku and Sora. The re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Indo-Aryan Languages
The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OIA; attested through Vedic Sanskrit) and the predecessors of the modern Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), Bengali and Punjabi. The Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) stage is thought to have spanned more than a millennium between 600 BC and 1000 AD, and is often divided into three major subdivisions. * The early stage is represented by the Ardhamagadhi of the Edicts of Ashoka (c. 250 BC) and Jain Agamas, and by the Pali of the Tripitakas. * The middle stage is represented by the various literary Prakrits, especially the Shauraseni language and the Maharashtri and Magadhi Prakrits. The term Prakrit is also often applied to Middle Indo-Aryan languages (''prākṛta'' literally means 'natural' as opposed to ''saṃskṛta'', which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kashmir
Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompasses a larger area that includes the Indian-administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the Pakistani-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and the Chinese-administered territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract. Quote: "Kashmir, region of the northwestern Indian subcontinent. It is bounded by the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang to the northeast and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the east (both parts of China), by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south, by Pakistan to the west, and by Afghanistan to the northwest. The northern and western portions are administered by Pakistan and comprise three areas: Azad Kashmir, Gilgit, and Baltistan, ... The southern and so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kshemendra
Kshemendra (; ) was an 11th-century Sanskrit polymath-poet, satirist, philosopher, historian, dramatist, translator and art-critic from Kashmir in India. Biography Kshemendra was born into an old, cultured, and affluent family. His father was Prakashendra, a descendant of Narendra who was the minister to Jayapida. Both his education and literary output were broad and varied. He studied literature under "the foremost teacher of his time, the celebrated Shaiva philosopher and literary exponent Abhinavagupta". Kshemendra was born a Shaiva, but later became a Vaishnava. He studied and wrote about both Vaishnavism and Buddhism. His son, Somendra, provides details about his father in his introduction to the ''Avadana Kalpalata'' and other works. Kshemendra refers to himself in his works as Vyasadasa (; ''Slave of Vyasa''), a title which was perhaps won or adopted after the completion of his . Kshemendra was in great demand as a skilled abridger of long texts. His literary career exte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
