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The psalms of the Buddhists and even the hymns of the Ṛig Veda were vernacular literature in their day, and in the south the songs of the Devaram and Nâlâyiram are of some antiquity. But in the north, though some Prâkrit literature has been preserved, Sanskrit was long considered the only proper language for religion.
Such subjects were congenial to the later Jain writers and they not only cultivated both Sanskrit and Prakrit but also had a vivifying effect on the vernaculars of southern India.
The scene is laid on the shores of the Indian Ocean, and the plot turns upon the rescue of a Greek maiden from the hands of barbarians, who speak a non-Greek language with elements apparently derived from Prakrit.*
Their priests, like the Buddhists', never marry, they live in isolated viharas and choose their successors from amongst the members of any social class. According to them, Prakrit is the only sacred language, and is used in their sacred literature, as well as in Ceylon. Jainas and Buddhists have the same traditional chronology.
In the time of Asoka the dialect of Magadha must have been understood over the greater part of India, like Hindustani in modern times, but in some details of grammar and phonetics Pali differs from Mâgadhî Prakrit and seems to have been influenced by Sanskrit and by western dialects.
If he is a tinker, he knows Kennick, or cant, or thieves' slang by nature, but the Rommany, which has very few words in common with the former, is the true language of the mysteries; in fact, it has with him become, strangely enough, what it was originally, a sort of sacred Sanscrit, known only to the Brahmins of the roads, compared to which the other language is only commonplace Prakrit, which anybody may acquire.
He holds that the historical portions of the older Purânas were compiled in Prakrit about 250 A.D. and re-edited in Sanskrit about 350. See also Vincent Smith, Early History, p. 21 and, against Pargiter, Keith in J.R.A.S. 1914, p. 1021.
Firstly the Sanskrit Abhidharma of the Sarvâstivâdins seems to date from his council and secondly a Buddhist drama by Aśvaghosha of about the same time represents the Buddha as speaking in Sanskrit whereas the inferior characters speak Prakrit.
The Buddha allowed all men to learn his teaching in their own language, and different schools are said to have written the scriptures in different dialects, e.g. the Mahâsanghikas in a kind of Prakrit not further specified and the Mahâsammatîyas in Apabhramsa. The language of Bengal illustrates what may have happened to the Buddhist scriptures.
Simplicity of plot, unity of episodes, and purity of language, unite in the formation of the Hindu dramas. Prose and verse, the serious and the comic, pantomime and music are intermingled in their representations. Only the principal characters, the gods, the Brahmins, and the kings, speak Sanskrit; women and the less important characters speak Prakrit, more or less refined according to their rank.
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