Magadhi Prakrit Explained

Magadhi Prakrit
Also Known As:	Māgadhī
Nativename:	Brahmi
Region:	India
Extinct:	developed into the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages
Familycolor:	Indo-European
Fam2:	Indo-Iranian
Fam3:	Indo-Aryan
Glotto:	none

Magadhi Prakrit (Māgadhī) is of one of the three Dramatic Prakrits, the written languages of Ancient India following the decline of Pali. It was a vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan language, replacing earlier Vedic Sanskrit.

History and overview

Magadhi Prakrit was spoken in the eastern Indian subcontinent, in a region spanning what is now eastern India, Bangladesh and Nepal.^{[1] [2]} Associated with the ancient Magadha, it was spoken in present-day Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and eastern Uttar Pradesh under various apabhramsha dialects,^[3] and used in some dramas to represent vernacular dialogue in Prakrit dramas. It is believed to be the language spoken by the important religious figures Gautama Buddha and Mahavira^[4] and was also the language of the courts of the Magadha mahajanapada and the Maurya Empire; some of the Edicts of Ashoka were composed in it.^{[2] [5]}

Magadhi Prakrit later evolved into the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages:^{[6] [7]}

• Bengali–Assamese
• Bihari
• Halbic
• Odia

External links

• Jain Agams
• Jainism in Buddhist Literature
• PhD. Mathew W S. Toulmin. Reconstructing linguistic history in a dialect continuum: The Kamta, Rajbanshi, and Northern Deshi Bangla subgroup of Indo-Aryan. The Australian National University. 2006.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Prasad . Balaram . Mukherjee . Sibasis . Magadhi / Magahi . lsi.gov.in . 24 February 2022.
2. Book: Chatterji . Suniti Kumar . The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language . 1926 . vi . English.
3. Book: Grierson . Sir George Abraham . The Languages of India: Being a Reprint of the Chapter on Languages . 1903 . Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India . 57–58 . en.
4. Book: Beames, John. Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India: To Wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, and Bangali. 1879 . 2012. Cambridge University Press. 978-1-139-20887-1. Cambridge. 10.1017/cbo9781139208871.003.
5. Bashan A.L., The Wonder that was India, Picador, 2004, pp. 394
6. South Asian folklore: an encyclopedia : Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, By Peter J. Claus, Sarah Diamond, Margaret Ann Mills, Routledge, 2003, p. 203
7. Ray, Tapas S. (2007). "Chapter Eleven: "Oriya". In Jain, Danesh; Cardona, George. The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge. p. 445. .