Language of the Krama texts

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Dear list members,

 

Quoting Ganesan quoting Deshpande quoting Grierson :-)

 

'p. 239, M. Deshpande, 1979, (same book)

"Grierson (1929) has given a fascinating account of how

the Kashmiri text of LallA-vAkyAni, originally composed

in the later half of the 14th century, has been preserved orally

to the present day without ever having been written down.

Grierson (1929:74) points out that "save for a few forms

that have remained unchanged ... her verses are in what is

practically modern Kashmiri." However, the text of the

Mahaanayaprakasa was composed in the 15th century and was

written down at the time it was composed, and hence its

language is preserved without any further change. ... " '

 

I think that this is a reference to "The language of the Maha-naya-prakasa

an examination of Kashmiri as written in the 14th century". Memoirs of the

Asiatic Society of Bengal; vol. 11, no. 2.

 

1) The descriptive pamphlet for the KSTS series "An Analysis of the Kashmir

Series of Texts and Studies" describes the language of the two texts

Maharthamanjari and Mahanayaprakasa simply as "some form of Prakrit". Can

anyone confirm (or not) that the language of these two Krama texts are as

Grierson has indicated for the Mahanaya-prakasa indeed the local written

dialect of Kashmiri of the 15th century.

 

2) If this is the case is there some sort of "socio-linguistic" significance

to the Krama texts such as these being written in the local dialect. Would

this be indicative that in general the followers of the Krama doctrine would

be non-brahmanical (i.e. non-sanskrit speaking).

 

Many thanks,

 

 

Harry Spier

371 Brickman Rd.

Hurleyville, New York

USA 12747

 

 

 

 

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