The Central Institute of Indian Languages was - set up on the 17th July 1969 with a view to assisting and coordinating the development of Indian languages. The Institute was charged with the responsibility of serving as a nucleus to bring together all the research and literary output from the various linguistic streams to a common head and narrowing the gap. between basic research and developmental research in the fields of languages and linguistics in India. In pursuance of this objective the Institute is bringing out its research’ results in printed form during the past years. The present book is the first effort to print select books written by University scholars which help in the fulfilment of the above objective.
The study of Prakrit forms an important link in the study of the historical] development of modern India. Yet neither a comprehensive linguistic grammar of this group of languages nor scientific linguistic introductions to all constituent languages are available. This has hampered the establishment of a definitive chronology of Prakrit writings and the determination of the exact sequence of linguistic changes from OIA to NIA. The evidence available from Inscriptional Prakrit and Literary Prakrits are amenable to varied and at times even contradictory interpretations. To resolve such issues and establish relative chronology of changes on a sound footing, it is important to bring out critical editions of as many Prakrit texts as possible. Dr. H. S$. Ananthanarayane ‘5s one of the few young scholars in the country who combines sound study of Prakrit with training in linguistics. His Linguistic Introduction to Prakrit Based on Selections from Hala’s Sattasat 1s 4 welcome contribution, which 1s expected to help students of linguistics in particular and MIA in general.
The publication of this book by the CIIL is another example of its crowing ties with scholars in the universities and its role as an apex national organisation providing support in meeting specific needs in the study of Indian languages in all its aspects. I am thankful to Dr. Ananthanarayana for giving us the manuscript for publication. I am grateful to Prof. A. N. Upadhye, the doyen of Prakrit scholars in India. for kindly reviewing the manuscript.
This work is the result of a grant from the Ford Foundation made available at the University of Chicago, during the year 1962-63. I am highly grateful to Professor J. A. B. van Buitenen who was responsible for inviting me to the University of Chicago and for providing me with an opportunity of working on this research project. His interest and encouragement in my work made my stay at the University a pleasant one. I am also thankful to my friend K. Doraswamy of Kurukshetra University, for reading through these pages and for making valuable suggestions and criticism. Though the Reader was ready almost a decade ago, due to various reasons it could not go to the press - until the November of 1972. I am therefore greatly indebted to Dr. D. P. Pattanayak, Director of the Central Institute of Indian Languages at Mysore, for accepting this work to be included among the publications of the Institute. I am thankful to Shri H. L. N. Bharati for his help in the arduous task of reading the proofs. I am also thankful to the Manager and the Staff of Manipal Power Piess for printing this work neatly and promptly. I owe a great deal to my wife who has been a constant source of my strength and inspiration.
I hope that this Reader will be found useful by students of Prakrit who may not possess any knowledge of Sanskrit. Comments and criticism are welcome and will be greatly appreciated.
The Sattasai (Saptasati) which has come down. to us under the name of Hala! may very well be a compilation by him of the existing verses by different authors.
Originally, the name of the author of each of the stanzas was appended to it. Of these names we know only a few-and the tradition varies a great deal in the matter of assignment of the verses. ‘The commentary of Bhuvanapala lists 384 names.? The various recensions differ in their distribution of the verses, and probably few can now be definitely assigned to their authors.
The commentator Kulanathadeva identifies Hala with the king Salivahana; the same is corroborated by another commentator Gangadhara Bhatta. Colebrooke who cites the latter was already in doubt regarding this identification. He writes, "It is not, however, probable that he (Salivahana) really composed those verses; it would be perhaps too much to conjecture, that the true author of them was patronized by that monarch, whose existence as an Indian sovereign has been brought in doubt". Bhau Daji4 identifies the author with a king Satavahana. We may quote the following statement from his article, for it contains some interesting facts.
"Jaina authors have also stories regarding Satavahanas of Paithana. Sidraka is said by Rajasekhara to have been a Brahman minister of Satavahana, who afterwards bestowed upon his minister one half of his — dominions, for rescuing his queen. from danger. Satavahana is described by them to have made a collection of Gathas" ........ "I possess a copy of 700 gathas attributed to Satavahana, having love for their subject. They are in mixed prakrit."
Hemacandra in his Abhidhanarajendra (712) and Desisabdasangraha (294, 379, 523) identifies Salivahana with Satavahana and Salahana respectively. Bana in his introduction to the Harsacaritas speaks of a work by Satavahana who is given as Salivahana in another reading. Somadeva, the author of Kathasaritsagara, refers to a king Satavahana in Pratisthana on the banks of Godavari.
The Sattasai is an anthology of Prakrit verses chiefly of erotic content. It treats of life in village, their joys and sufferings. One also finds brief descriptions of nature, moral axioms and love. It 1s, to quote A.B. Keith, "written in artificial and carefully studied language, the Maharastri prakrit, and metre, they show, nonetheless, a measure of naturalness which is doubtless the reflex of the matter of fact spirit of the Maratha people. Among much that is sensual or licentious, trivial or hackneyed, we find many effective expressions of the sentiment of love’. The meteris throughout Arya. Which is best Suited for singing, The date of this anthology has not been deter- mined. Weber put it in the 3rd century A.D. at the earliest, but earlier than the 7th century. Macdonel Says that the poet Hala probably lived before A.D. 1000, Jacobi, on the other hand, identified Hala with the Satavahana, king of Pratisthana, to whom the Jain tradition attributes in A.D. 467 the reformation of the calendar of the Church. Keiths Places the Sattasai in the middle of 5th century while D. R. Bhandarkar attempts to Push the date to 6th century. Professor K. A. Nilakantha Sastry takes it to 2nd or 3rd century A.D. and Mirashi to as late as 8th century, 1 The language of the Gathas is the variety of Prakrit known as Maharastri.
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