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 epic poetry—the Rāvaṇavaha or Sētubandha (attributed to Pravarasēna, before 700), dealing with the subject of the Rāmāyaṇa, and the Gaüḍavaha of Vākpati (7th–8th century ), celebrating the conquest of Bengal by Yaśōvarman, king of Kanauj. Reference must also be made to the Kumārapāla-carita, the title of the last eight cantos of the huge Dvyāśraya Mahākāvya of Hēmacandra ( 1150). The whole work was written to serve as a series of illustrations to the author's Sanskrit and Prakrit grammar, the Siddha-hēmacandra. The last eight cantos are in Prakrit, and illustrate the rules of the corresponding portion of his work. Its hero is Kumāra-pāla of Aṇhilvāḍā. Dramatic literature has also an admired example in the Karpūra-man̄jarī (“Camphor-cluster,” the name of the heroine) by Rāja-śēkhara ( 900), an amusing comedy of intrigue. An important source of our knowledge of Prakrit, and especially of dialectic Prakrit, is the Sanskrit drama. It has already been pointed out that in works of this class many of the characters speak in Prakrit, different dialects being employed for different purposes. Generally speaking, Śaurasēnī is employed for prose and Māhārāṣṭri (the language of lyric poetry) for the songs, but special characters also speak special dialects according to their supposed nationality or profession. In India there is nothing extraordinary in such a polyglot medley. It is paralleled by the conditions of any large house in Bengal at the present day, in which there are people from every part of India, each of whom speaks his own language and is understood by the others, though none of them attempts to speak what is not his mother tongue. The result is that in the Sanskrit drama we have a valuable reflection of the local dialects. It is somewhat distorted, for the authors wrote according to the rules laid down by technical handbooks, and the dialects which they employed were, in the case of the later writers, as dead as Sanskrit. But nevertheless, if not an absolutely true representation, it is founded on the truth, and it is almost our only source of information as to the condition of the Indian vernaculars in the first five centuries The drama which gives the best examples of these dialects is the Mr̥cchakaṭikā. For further particulars regarding the Sanskrit drama, reference should be made to the article.

.—The father of Prakrit philology was Ch. Lassen, the author of the Institutiones linguae pracriticae (Bonn, 1837). This famous work, a wonderful product of the learning of the time, is now out of date, and has been definitely superseded by R. Pischel's Grammatik der Präkritsprachen (Strasburg, 1900). As an introduction to the study of the language, the best work is H. Jacobi's Ausgewählte Erzählungen in Mâhârâshṭrî zur Einführung in das Studium des Prâkṛit, Grammatik, Text, Wörterbuch (Leipzig, 1886). The best editions of the native grammars are E. B. Cowell's of Vararuci's Prākṛta-prakāśa (London, 1868), R. Pischel's of Hēmacandra (Halle, 1877, 1889) [see above], and E. Hultzsch's of Śiṁharāja's Prākṛtarūpāvatāra (London, 1909). For Dēśya words, see Pischel's The Deśînâmamâlâ of Hemachandra (Bombay, 1880). For Apabhraṁśa, in addition to his edition of Hēmacandra's grammar, see the same author's Materialen zur Kenntnis des Apabhraṁśa (Berlin, 1902). For the mutual relationship of the various Prakrits, see S. Konow, “Mâhârâshṭrî and Mârâthî,” in the Indian Antiquary, (1903), xxxii., 180 sqq. For Jaina Prakrit, see under. As regards the secular texts mentioned above the following are the best editions: A. Weber, Das Saptataçatakam des Hāla (Leipzig, 1881); another edition by Durgāprasād and Kāśīnāth Pāṇḍurang Parab under the title of The Gâthasapataśatî of Śâtavâhana (Bombay, 1889) [a good commentary]; S. Goldschmidt, Rāvaṇavaha oder Setubandha (Strasburg, 1880–1883) [text and translation]; Śivadatta and Parab, The Setubandha of Pravarasena (Bombay, 1895); Shaṅkar Pāṇḍurang Paṇḍit, The Gaüḍavaho, a Historical Poem in Prâkrit, by Vâkpati (Bombay, 1887); the same editor, The Kumârapâla-charita (Bombay, 1900); Rajaçekhara's Karpūramañjarī, edited by S. Konow, translated by C. R. Lanman (Cambridge, Mass., 1901).

The literature of the Sanskrit drama is given under.
 * (G. A. Gr.)

 PRAM (Du. praam), the name of a flat-bottomed boat or barge used as a “lighter” for discharging and loading cargo in the ports of the Baltic and North Sea. The word, which is common in various forms to all the languages bordering on those seas, is originally Slavonic; its ultimate etymology connects it with the words found in all Indo-European languages which are to be traced to the root par-, to go through, travel; cf. “fare,” “ferry,” “far,” Gr. , way, Lat. portare, carry, &c.  PRANTL, KARL VON (1820–1888), German philosopher, was born at Landsberg on the Lech on the 28th of January 1820, and died on the 14th of September 1888 at Oberstdorf. In 1843 he became doctor of philosophy at Munich Observatory, where he was made professor in 1859. He was also a member of the Academies of Berlin and Munich. Strongly in agreement with the Hegelian tradition, he defended and amplified it in Die gegenwärtige Aufgabe der Philosophie (1852) and Verstehen und Beurteilen (1877). In these works he emphasized the identity of the subjective and the objective for consciousness, and the fact that the perception of this unity is peculiar to man. He is more important, however, as a commentator and scholar, and made valuable contributions to the study of Aristotle. He published Aristoteles über die Farben (1849), Aristoteles' acht Bücher der Physik (1857), and numerous minor articles on smaller points, such as the authenticity of the thirty-eight books of the Problems. The work by which he is best known is the Geschichte der Logik im Abendland (Leipzig, 1855–1870). Chr. Sigwart, in the preface to the first edition of his Logic, makes “special mention” of the assistance he obtained from this book.  PRATI, GIOVANNI (1815–1884), Italian poet, was born at Dasindo and educated in law at Padua. Adopting a literary career, he was inspired by anti-Austrian feeling and devotion to the royal house of Savoy, and in early life his combination of a sympathy for national independence with monarchical sentiments brought him into trouble in both quarters, Guerrazzi expelling him from Tuscany in 1849 for his praise of Carlo Alberto. In 1862 he was elected a deputy to the Italian parliament, and in 1876 a senator. He died at Rome on the 9th of May 1884. Prati was a prolific poet, his volumes of verse ranging from his romantic narrative Ermenegarda (1841) to the lyrics collected in Psiche (1875) and Iside (1878). His Opere varie were published in five volumes in 1875, and a selection in one volume in 1892.  PRATINAS (the quantity of the second vowel is doubtful), one of the oldest tragic poets of Athens, was a native of Phlius in Peloponnesus. About 500 he competed with Choerilus and Aeschylus, when the latter made his first appearance as a writer for the stage. Pratinas was also the introducer of satyric dramas as a species of entertainment distinct from tragedy, in which the rustic merry-makings and the extravagant dances of the satyrs were retained. The associations of his home, not far from Corinth, where Arion was said to have established the cyclic choruses of satyrs, may account for his preference for this kind of drama. Pratinas was also a writer of dithyrambs and the choral odes called hyporchemata (a considerable fragment of one of these is preserved in Athenaeus xiv. 617). It is related that, during the performance of one of his plays, the scaffolding of the wooden stage gave way, in consequence of which the Athenians built a theatre of stone; but recent excavations make it doubtful whether a stone theatre existed in Athens at so early a date. A monument was erected by the inhabitants of Phlius in honour of Pratinas's son Aristias, who, with his father, enjoyed the reputation of excelling all, with the exception of Aeschylus, in the composition of satyric dramas, one of which was called Cyclops.

See Pausanias ii. 13; Suidas q.v.; fragments in T. Bergk, Poetae lyrici graeci, vol. iii.  PRATINCOLE, a word apparently invented by J. Latham (Synopsis, v. 222), being the English rendering of Pratincola, applied in 1756 by P. Kramer (Elenchus, p. 381) to a bird which had hitherto received no definite name, though it had long before been described and even recognizably figured by Aldrovandus (Ornithologia, xvii. 9) under the vague designation of “hirundo marina.” It is the Glareola pratincola of modern ornithologists, forming the type of a genus Glareola, founded by M. J. Brisson in 1760, belonging to the group Limicolae, and constituting together with the coursers (Cursorius) a separate family, Glareolidae. The pratincoles, of which some eight or nine species have been described, are all small birds, slenderly built and mostly delicately coloured, with a short stout bill, a wide gape, long pointed wings,