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Prakrits
Prakrit ( ) is a group of vernacular classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 5th century BCE to the 12th century CE. The term Prakrit is usually applied to the middle period of Middle Indo-Aryan languages, excluding Pali. The oldest stage of Middle Indo-Aryan language is attested in the inscriptions of Ashoka (ca. 260 BCE), as well as in the earliest forms of Pāli, the language of the Theravāda Buddhist canon. The most prominent form of Prakrit is Ardhamāgadhı̄, associated with the ancient kingdom of Magadha, in modern Bihar, and the subsequent Mauryan Empire. Mahāvı̄ra, the last tirthankar of 24 tirthankar of Jainism, was born in Magadha, and the earliest Jain texts were composed in Ardhamāgadhı̄. Etymology There are two major views concerning the way in which Sanskrit and Prakrit are related. One holds that the original matter in question is the speech of the common people, unadorned by grammar, and that p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Gāndhārī Language
Gāndhārī was an Indo-Aryan Prakrit language found mainly in texts dated between the 3rd century BCE and 4th century CE in the region of Gandhāra, located in northwestern Pakistan. The language was heavily used by the former Buddhist cultures of Central Asia and has been found as far away as eastern China, in inscriptions at Luoyang and Anyang. Gandhari served as an official language of the Kushan Empire and various central Asian kingdoms, including Khotan and Shanshan. It appears on coins, inscriptions and texts, notably the Gandhāran Buddhist texts. It is notable among the Prakrits for having some archaic phonology, for its relative isolation and independence, for being partially within the influence of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean and for its use of the Kharoṣṭhī script, compared to Brahmic scripts used by other Prakrits. Linguistic evidence links some groups of the Dardic languages with Gandhari. The Kohistani languages, now all being displaced from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Dramatic Prakrit
Dramatic Prakrits were those standard forms of Prakrit dialects that were used in dramas and other literature in medieval India. They may have once been spoken languages or were based on spoken languages, but continued to be used as literary languages long after they ceased to be spoken. Dramatic Prakrits are important for the study of the development of Indo-Aryan languages, because their usage in plays and literature is always accompanied by a translation in Sanskrit. Dialects The phrase "Dramatic Prakrits" often refers to the three most prominent of them, Shauraseni, Magadhi and Maharashtri Prakrit. However, there were a slew of other less commonly used Prakrits that also fall into this category. These include Prācya, Bahliki, Dakshinatya (spoken in modern-day states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra), Sakari, Candali, Sabari, Abhiri, Dramili Prakrit, and Odri. There was an astoundingly strict structure to the use of these different Prakrits in dramas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Maharashtri Prakrit
Maharashtri or Maharashtri Prakrit (') is a Prakrit language of ancient as well as medieval India. 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 Satavahana dynasty. Works like ''Karpūramañjarī'' and Gatha Saptashati (150 BCE) were written in it. Jain Acharya Hemachandra< ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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 BCE and 1000 CE, and is often divided into three major subdivisions. * The early stage is represented by the Ardhamagadhi of the Edicts of Ashoka (c. 250 BCE) 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 ''saṃskṛt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion, diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age#South Asia, Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a lingua franca, link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting effect on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Indo-Aryan languages# ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Indo-Aryan Languages
The Indo-Aryan languages, or sometimes Indic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east of the Indus river in Bangladesh, Northern India, Eastern Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal. Moreover, apart from the Indian subcontinent, large immigrant and expatriate Indo-Aryan–speaking communities live in Northwestern Europe, Western Asia, North America, the Caribbean, Southeast Africa, Polynesia and Australia, along with several million speakers of Romani languages primarily concentrated in Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. There are over 200 known Indo-Aryan languages. Modern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Old Indo-Aryan languages such as early Vedic Sanskrit, through Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Prakrits). The largest such languages in terms of First language, first-speakers are Hindustani language, Hindi–Urdu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Pali
Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Canon'' or ''Tripiṭaka, Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravada, Theravāda'' Buddhism. Pali was designated as a Classical languages of India, classical language by the Government of India on 3 October 2024. Origin and development Etymology The word 'Pali' is used as a name for the language of the Theravada canon. The word seems to have its origins in commentarial traditions, wherein the (in the sense of the line of original text quoted) was distinguished from the commentary or vernacular translation that followed it in the manuscript. K. R. Norman suggests that its emergence was based on a misunderstanding of the compound , with being interpreted as the name of a particular language. The name Pali does not appear in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Brahmi Script
Brahmi ( ; ; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system from ancient India. "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 fully ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Richard Pischel
Richard Pischel (18 January 1849 – 26 December 1908) was a German Indologist born in Breslau. In 1870 he received his doctorate from the University of Breslau under the guidance of Adolf Friedrich Stenzler (1807-1887). His graduate thesis was ''De Kalidasae Cakuntali recensionibus'' ("On the Recensions of Kālidāsa's Shakuntala"). In 1875, he received an appointment to the University of Kiel, where he was a professor of Sanskrit and comparative linguistics. From 1885 to 1902, he was a professor of Indology and comparative linguistics at the University of Halle. At Halle, he collaborated with Karl Friedrich Geldner (1852-1929) on important Vedic studies (''Vedische Studien''; three volumes). In 1900 he was appointed rector of the University, and from 1886 to 1902, served as director and librarian of the ''Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft'' (German Oriental Society). In 1902 he was appointed professor of Indology at the University of Berlin. He died on 26 December ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Oskar Von Hinüber
Oskar von Hinüber (born 18 February 1939 in Hanover) is a German Indologist. He joined the German Navy after leaving high school, and holds the rank of commander as a reservist. From 1960 to 1966 he studied at University of Tübingen, University of Erlangen–Nuremberg ,and University of Mainz, receiving his Ph.D. in 1966. From 1965 to 1981 von Hinüber served as assistant and then associate professor at Mainz and from 1981 was a professor of Indology at the University of Freiburg. He retired in March 2006. Von Hinüber's special interests are Pāli, Sanskrit, and Middle Indo-Aryan languages, the history of technology in South Asia, inscriptions of the Northwest, and manuscripts and manuscript traditions in South and Southeast Asia. Among his many publications, the ''Handbook of Pali Literature'' is especially indicative of his comprehensive learning and scholarly authority.von Hinüber, ''A Handbook of Pali Literature'' (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1997), reissued 2001, 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Gaha Sattasai
The Gāhā Sattasaī or Gāhā Kośa ( Gāthā Saptaśatī) is an ancient collection of Indian poems in Maharashtri Prakrit language. The poems are about love. They are written as frank monologues usually by a married woman, or an unmarried girl. They often express her unrequited feelings and longings to her friend, mother or another relative, lover, husband or to herself. Many poems are notable for describing unmarried girls daring for secret rendezvous to meet boys in ancient India, or about marital problems with husbands who remains emotionally a stranger to his wife and bosses over her, while trying to have affairs with other women. ''Gaha Sattasai'' is one of the oldest known Subhashita-genre text. It deals with the emotions of love, and has been called as "opposite extreme" to '' Kamasutra''. While ''Kamasutra'' is a theoretical work on love and sex, ''Gaha Sattasai'' is a practical compilation of examples describing "untidy reality of life" where seduction formulae don't ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Shauraseni Language
Shauraseni Prakrit () was a Middle Indo-Aryan language and a Dramatic Prakrit. Shauraseni was the chief language used in drama in medieval northern India. Most of the material in this language originates from the 3rd to 10th centuries, and represented a regional language variety with minor modifications to the same linguistic substratum as other Dramatic Prakrit varieties. Among the Prakrits, Shauraseni is said to be the one most closely related to Classical Sanskrit in that it "is derived from the Old Indian Indo-Aryan dialect of the Madhyadeśa on which Classical Sanskrit was mainly based." Its descendants include Punjabi, Lahnda, Sindhi, Gujarati, Rajasthani, and Western Hindi. See also * Saurashtra language * Apabhraṃśa * Prakrit Prakrit ( ) is a group of vernacular classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 5th century BCE to the 12th century CE. The term Prakrit is usually applied to the middle period ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
