Prakrit Research Papers

The Urdu language has suffered a process of evolution and reforms. In this book this process is explained from a historical linguistics point of view, noting those factors natural and otherwise which have influenced the language to be in... more

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- by Meera Visvanathan
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- 5
  South Asian Studies, Sanskrit, Indian Epigraphy, Prakrit

This paper argues against the Dravidian, Vedic and Paramunda Indus theories, and shows why Dravidian languages, Sanskrit or Paramunda languages could not have been candidates for the Indus Valley Civilization which flourished from 2600 BC... more

Transgressive Śaivite Practices in Early Works of Sanskrit and Prakrit Poetry. A cognitive literary study. This study - written in German language - is focused on literary representations of fictional śaiva ascetics in six different... more

Transgressive Śaivite Practices in Early Works of Sanskrit and Prakrit Poetry.
A cognitive literary study.

This study - written in German language - is focused on literary representations of fictional śaiva ascetics in six different works of Sanskrit and Prakrit kāvya literature. The literary compositions are early examples of different literary genres, written by authors of different religious affiliation in the 1st or 2nd to 10th centuries. The selected passages are analysed in due consideration of the identifiable literary techniques applied by the poets and in the light of the extant prescriptive and normative works of the supposedly depicted religious traditions.
Apart from a general aesthetic appreciation of the historical works of literature, the study is guided by two major questions: Wherein lies the artistic achievement of the selected works and passages? And: are works of literary fiction in a position to convey knowledge, and if so, what kind of knowledge? In order to pursue these questions the passages are interpreted in their respective literary, historical and cultural contexts. For this so called close reading a wide range of relevant literature was taken into consideration, such as parallel texts in
Sanskrit and Prakrit, historical commentaries and normative literature in Sanskrit, and recent secondary literature in Hindi and several European languages. Quotations from the original text passages are translated into German throughout, conveying elements not only of content but also of form as faithful as possible.
Gain of knowledge is thereby aimed at in three different areas of research: (1) content matter such as the represented religious traditions, social forms of interaction and other points of cultural history; (2) the literary works under focus, their linguistic features as well as their transmission histories; and (3) the literary techniques by which the analysed works of fiction contribute to conveying knowledge. This last point draws on elements of the recent theory of aesthetic or literary cognitivism.
On the whole, the study provides an investigation on Indian cultural and intellectual history by means of historical literary works of fiction, and at the same time offers new interpretations of passages of literary fiction on the basis of historical research with a constant focus on the epistemic value of the literary fictions.

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- by Christian Ferstl
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- 6
  Sanskrit Literature, Shaivism, Prakrit, Kavya

Page 1. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens / Vienna Journal of South Asian Studies, Bd. XLVIII/2004, 81-109 © 2005 by Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien Jost Gippert A Glimpse into the Buddhist Past of the Maldives... more

According to the communis opinio, there is no place for the grammatical category of subject in Pāṇini's grammar of Sanskrit. This is due to the fact that, according to many scholars of Pāṇini, Sanskrit lacks this category in its grammar.... more

The Jain monk Jinaprabhasūri (1261-1333) was one of the most prolific intellectuals of early fourteenth-century India. This article analyzes one citrakāvya ('image-poem') stotra (hymn) and two ṣaḍbhāṣā (six-language) stotras in light of... more

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- by Steven M Vose
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- 23
  Jainism, Poetry, Sanskrit language and literature, Sanskrit

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- by Centamiḻ Celvaṉ
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- 5
  Prakrit, Pallava, Pallavas, Pallava history

Michaela Ofitsch, Chistian Zinko (eds.), 125 Jahre Indogermanistik in Graz. Arbeiten aus der Abteilung“Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft” Graz, Graz 2000: Leykam, 255-261.

This paper argues against the Dravidian, Vedic and Paramunda Indus theories, and shows why Dravidian languages, Sanskrit or Paramunda languages could not have been candidates for the Indus Valley Civilization which flourished from 2600 BC... more

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- by Artemij Keidan
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- 9
  Sanskrit, Sanskrit Grammar and Linguistics, Pāṇini, Astadhyayi

The objective of this paper is to formalize and document observations on language spread in multilingual or polyglot societies as understood from a study of spoken and written language in various phases in Indian history starting from the... more

The First Annual Summer School on Languages of Jainism University of Toronto-Mississauga The First Annual Summer School on Languages of Jainism will take place in at the University of Toronto from July 29th to August 2nd, 2019. The... more

The First Annual Summer School on Languages of Jainism
University of Toronto-Mississauga

The First Annual Summer School on Languages of Jainism will take place in at the University of Toronto from July 29th to August 2nd, 2019. The First Summer School will focus on reading and contextualizing the prabandha literature, a rich archive of Jain histories, biographies, and stories composed mainly in Sanskrit and Prakrit. These narratives often display a historical consciousness rarely seen in other genres of Sanskrit literature, making them essential resources for the social and religious history of the period. This year’s Summer School will survey the breadth of themes, figures and places in the Jain prabandha literature and to consider the historiographical challenges and potential rewards of writing the history of late medieval India using these sources. Daily reading sessions will examine themes emerging in a number of sources, such as Jain views of kingship; the roles of monks and laymen as social and political leaders; Jain technologies of power of mantras, tantras, and alchemy; the re-imagining of sacred space and sacred geography; and the relations between Jains and Islamicate polities.

The workshop will be led by Steven M. Vose, the Bhagwan Mahavir Assistant Professor of Jain Studies and Director of the Jain Studies Program at Florida International University in Miami, Florida, an expert in Jainism and a historian of medieval and early modern western India, whose research proposes new ways to use Jain prabandha literature as historical sources. Invited faculty include Shalin Jain and Sarah Pierce Taylor.

Each day will consist of three sessions: A morning reading session, an afternoon lecture or discussion, and an afternoon reading session. Readings will be mainly in Sanskrit with some in Prakrit, and an intermediate knowledge of Sanskrit is encouraged. Each day will also have a lecture and discussion meant to familiarize the participant with the debates spurring the field.

There are no fees associated with attending the workshop itself, and room and board will be provided gratis to a limited number of initial participants. Travel stipends may also be available for a few student participants; however, it is recommended that participants apply to their home institutions for financial aid before asking for travel accommodation assistance.

For registration details and additional information or inquiries please contact: Luther Obrock luther.obrock@utoronto.ca

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- by Steven M Vose and +1
  Sarah Pierce Taylor
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- 17
  Jainism, South Asian Studies, Sanskrit language and literature, Sanskrit

South Asia has since the third century BCE been the center of a distinctive diplomatic culture. Despite the twists and turns of history, and the extreme ethnic and linguistic diversity of the Subcontinent and its peripheries, this culture... more

The paper is devoted to the labile verbs in the Middle Indo-Aryan languages. To begin with, the general causes of the diachronic development of lability are taken into consideration. The main such cause is suggested to be the casual... more

The presence of Apabhraṃśa in tantric Buddhist texts has long been noted by scholars, overwhelmingly explained away as an example of "Twilight language" (saṃdhā-bhāṣā). However, when one looks closer at the vast number of Apabhraṃśa... more

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- by Jackson Stephenson
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- 7
  Buddhism, Sanskrit language and literature, Tantric Studies, Tantra

There is agreement among scholars that at some point in time in the early history of Buddhism, there came to be a lingua franca, but also a perception that what constitutes Pali is a ‘translation’, or a ‘normalization’ of this, but... more

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- by Bhikkhu Mihita
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- 6
  Sanskrit, Linguistics, Buddha, Prakrit

There is agreement among scholars that at some point in time in the early history of Buddhism, there came to be a lingua franca, but also a perception that what constitutes Pali is a ‘translation’, or a ‘normalization’ of this, but... more

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- by Suwanda Sugunasiri
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- 14
  Buddhism, Philosophy, Languages and Linguistics, Buddhist Studies

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- by Steven M Vose
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- 20
  Jainism, Poetry, Sanskrit, Prakrit Language and Literature

This paper is meant to read together with the paper ‘The reconfirmation and reinforcement of the Indus script thesis: a logical assessment and inquiry as to the elusive and enigmatic nature of this script‘, which was published in the... more

This paper is meant to read together with the paper ‘The reconfirmation and reinforcement of the Indus script thesis: a logical assessment and inquiry as to the elusive and enigmatic nature of this script‘, which was published in the ICFAI Journal of History and Culture in January 2011. In the aforementioned paper, we had clearly shown that the Indus script used in the Indus Valley civilization which flourished from 2600 BC to 1900 BC, was a logo-syllabic script. In this paper, we show that the case for the lost manuscript hypothesis has never been stronger than it has been in the past one decade. This hypothesis has had many adherents even in the West even earlier when very little of the Indus had been excavated, but few will now deny that no other scenario is likely. This hypothesis was earlier based on hunches, now its adherents can base it on science and valid epistemology. The Indus Valley Civilization has always amazed legions of archeologists since the 1920’s and has been taught to students all over the world: it can now take its pride of place among old world civilizations. This paper also introduces Logo-syllabic thesis B as opposed to the older logo-syllabic thesis A and lays bare the differences between the two. We insist that only approaches such as those detailed in this paper can be applied for the study of the Indus script given the low quantum of archaeological data in relation to the total known size of the IVC. (This ratio is the lowest for all known civilizations). This paper is meant to be read after ‘Syncretism and Acculturation in Ancient India; a new nine phase acculturation model explaining the process of transfer of power from the Harappans to the Indo-Aryans’ which was published in two parts in the peer-reviewed ICFAI journal of History and culture in January 2009 and January 2010. This paper detailed methods to reconstruct the languages spoken in the IVC.
The present paper was published in the International Journal of Philosophy and Social Sciences (IJPSS), Vol II, No 2, 2012

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- by Steven M Vose
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- 20
  Jainism, Poetry, Sanskrit, Prakrit Language and Literature

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