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Dialect and Sub-dialects of Prakrit : 35
High and the Low German, in Celtic, the Gadhelic and Cymric, as in India the Sanskrit and Prakrit, and it is by no means an unlikely explanation, that, as Grimm suggested in the case of High and Low Guman, so likewise in the other Aryan Languages, the stern and strict dialects, the Sanskrit, the Aeolic, the Gadhelic, represent the idiom of the fathers and brothers, used at public assemblies, while the soft and simpler dialects, the Prakrit, the Ionic, and the Cymric, sprang originally from the domestic idiom of mothers, sisters and servants at home”
Although compared with some dialects of Europe the position of Prakrit dialects in India is different from Europe. A comprehensive history of Prakrīt dialects can easily be reconstucted on the basis of documents written in different Prakrit dialects Thus the early or first MIA (600 BC 200 BC) and the first two stages of the second MIA (200 BC 200 AD and 200 AD 400 A-D) are replenished with Inscriptions, Pālı, Jaina-Writings, Ašvagbosa's Prakrits, etc Some of the very important and noteworthy Inscriptional Prakrit are given below
BC 3rd Century
i The Asokan Inscriptions (with Brahmi
and Kharoşthi scripts) 2 Jogimara Cave Inscriptions of Deva
didna, Ramgar hill 3 Mahāsthan Stone Plaque Inscriptions,
Bogra, North Central Bengal 4. Sobgaura Copper-plate Inscriptions,
Gorakhpur, UP 5 Piprahwa Vase Inscriptions, Piprahwa
Basti Distt UP 6 Heliodora's Besnagar Pillar Inscrip
tions, MP 7 Hathi gumpha Inscriptions of Khara
vela 8 Tışya Abhaya's Ritigala Cave Ins
cription, Ritigala, Ceylon. 9. Kharosthi or Khotan Dhammapada.
B C 2nd Century
BC 1st »
AD Ist ,
