Sanskrit and Sindhi

Sanskrit and Sindhi

The word ‘Prakrit’ is derived from ‘Pirkriti’, which has two shades of meaning (a) Nature (b) Original form. The antonym of word ‘Prikrit’ is ‘Vikrit’, which means ‘Distorted or Corrupted form’. The root of word ‘Sanskrit’ is ‘Kir’ or ‘Kar’, which means ‘to do’. Its past participle is ‘Krit’ which means ‘done’. ‘Sim’ is a prefix, which means ‘good’. The word ‘sam krit’ (Sanskrit) therefore means ‘fair’, ‘good’, ‘cleansed’, ‘polished’ or ‘refined’. Hence the actual meaning of Sanskrit language is ‘the polished or refined language’ (Bherumal: 1941: 24, 38).

It is therefore that many scholars and linguists ask how it is possible that a natural or original language (Prakrit) can be derived from a polished or refined one (Sanskrit)? And, thus it is believed that Sanskrit is not the origin of Prakrit. On the contrary, Prakrit happens to be the origin of Sanskrit - the refined and polished language. With it, many philologists have started believing that Sanskrit is not the origin of any vernacular tongue prevalent in South Asia. That all Indo-Aryan vernaculars are dialects of various forms of Prakrit language has now been the calculated opinion of many scholars. In their view all these dialects have sprung from different Prakrits, which were used as spoken languages during different times. Or so to say that Sanskrit is not the mother of Indo-Aryan vernaculars. They, in fact, are likely to be the daughters of some old Prakrit. The Sindhi language therefore is not derived from Sanskrit, as is believed by many scholars since long. As a matter of fact, Sanskrit was awarded the status of a literary medium on political and religious grounds by Brahman Hindus. An authority like Grierson also treats Sanskrit as a derived form of Prakrit. We learn from inscription of Asoka (250 B.C) and from the writings of the grammarians like Patanjali (150 B.C) that an Aryan speech of North India, having gradually developed from the ancient vernaculars spoken during the period in which the Vedicr hymns were composed, was the ordinary language of mutual intercourse. The Classical Sanskrit had developed from one of these dialects under influence of Brahmans as a secondary language. Concurrent with this long development of modern Vernaculars, we have the classical Sanskrit, also derived from one of the Primary Prakrit dialects (Grierson: 1919: 127). Sanskrit was described by Panini as Bhasha that was an artificial vehicle of expression, but became a polished language in the Brahmanical Schools. It was certainly not the spoken language of the Udichya country where Panini was born. The language thus regularized by Panini was gradually accepted by the whole Brahmanic world as the language of culture and became a powerful instrument of expression. Sanskrit took over in the 7th or 5th century B.C. Various Prakrits were already in vogue, since the Vedic times at least, though not used for literary purposes yet. The Apabhramsas were looked down upon till about 2nd B.C., but were accepted as colloquial speech-variants by 3rd A.D and even became vehicles of literature between 500 and 1200 A.D. One can say that from the 6th century onwards the relation between Sanskrit, Prakrits and Apabhramsas was that of a standard prestigious dialect versus regional dialects and sub-dialects. The latter were certainly influenced by the former and presented imperfect pronunciation and approximation of Sanskrit sounds and structures, being (most probably) attempts of non-Aryan bilinguals at the adoption of the Aryan speech.