Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/29

Rh is not clear, but it may be assumed roughly to have included the south of Rajputana, and a considerable portion of the present northern Maratha country. Next the Saurasenî, spoken in Surasena, in modern times the country round Mathura. Thirdly, the Mâgadhi, the vernacular of Behar. Fourthly, the Paiśâchî or dialect of the Piśâchas, whose exact locality is not defined. And fifthly, the Apabhranśa, or “corrupt” dialect, which is perhaps to be found in Sindh and western Rajputana. That this division is artificial, and a mere grouping together of a mass of local dialects, is apparent from the fact that no two writers agree in their arrangement, and the total number of Prakrits is by some authors put as high as twenty or twenty-two. Be this as it may, it is sufficient for our present purpose to note that these dialects were numerous, and that they were in most cases designated by the name of the province where they were spoken. In the Sanskrit dramas, however, a still more artificial distinction prevails, a different dialect being attributed to each class of characters. Thus kings and Brahmans speak Sanskrit, ladies of high rank Maharashtri, servants, soldiers, buffoons, and the like use one or other of the inferior dialects. That this custom represents any state of things that ever existed is highly improbable. The ordinary business of life could not have been carried on amidst such a Babel of conflicting tongues. Perhaps the best solution of the difficulty is to suppose that the play-writers mimicked the local peculiarities of the various provinces, and as in India in the present day great men fill their palaces with servants drawn from all parts of the country, so it may have been then. A Bengali Zemindar employs men from the Panjab and Hindustan as guards and doorkeepers; his palanqueen-bearers come from Orissa, his coachmen and water-carriers from Northern Bengal, and so on. Similarly an ancient Indian king drew, we may suppose, his soldiers from one province, his porters and attendants from another, his dancers and buffoons from a third.