| Paiśācī Prakrit | |
|---|---|
| Paishachi | |
| Brahmi: 𑀧𑁃𑀰𑀸𑀘𑀻 | |
| Region | North India |
| Era | Perhaps from 5th century BCE; most texts, however are from 3rd–10th centuries CE[1] |
Indo-European
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
qpp | |
| Glottolog | pais1238 |
Paishachi orPaisaci (IAST:Paiśācī) is a largelyunattested literary language of themiddle kingdoms of India mentioned inPrakrit[2] andSanskrit grammars of antiquity. It is generally grouped with the Prakrits, with which it shares some linguistic similarities, but is still not considered a spoken Prakrit by the grammarians because it was purely a literary language, and because of its archaicism.[3]
Theetymology of the name suggests that it is spoken bypiśācas, (demons). In works of Sanskritpoetics such asDaṇḍin'sKavyadarsha, it is also known by the name ofBhūtabhāṣa, an epithet which can be interpreted either as a "dead language" (i.e. with no surviving speakers), or as "a language spoken by the dead" (i.e. ghouls or ghosts). Evidence which lends support to the former interpretation is that literature in Paiśācī is fragmentary and extremely rare but may have been once common.
The Siddha-Hema-Śabdanuśāśana, a grammar treatise written by Rev. Acharya Hemachandraacharya, includes six languages: Sanskrit, the "standard" Prakrit (virtually Maharashtri Prakrit), Shauraseni, Magahi, Paiśācī, the otherwise-unattested Cūlikāpaiśācī and Apabhraṃśa (virtually Gurjar Apabhraṃśa, prevalent in the area of Gujarat and Rajasthan at that time and the precursor of Gujarati language).
The 13th-century Tibetan historianButon Rinchen Drub wrote that theearly Buddhist schools were separated by choice ofsacred language: theMahāsāṃghikas usedPrākrit, theSarvāstivādins usedSanskrit, theSthaviravādins used Paiśācī, and theSaṃmitīya usedApabhraṃśa.[4]
The most widely known work, although lost, attributed to be in Paiśācī is theBṛhatkathā (literally "Big Story"), a large collection of stories in verse, attributed toGunadhya. It is known through its adaptations inSanskrit as theKathasaritsagara in the 11th century bySomadeva, and also from theBṛhatkathā byKshemendra. Both Somadeva and Kshemendra were fromKashmir where theBṛhatkathā was said to be popular.[citation needed]
Talking of its existence, Pollock writes:[5]: 92
Linguists have identified this as everything from aneastern Middle-Indic dialect close to Pali to aMunda language of inhabitants of theVindhya Mountains […] In fact there is little reason to bother to choose […] Paishachi is the joker in the deck of South Asian discourses on language, having an exclusively legendary status, since it is associated with a single lost text, theBṛhatkathā (The Great Tale), which seems to have existed less as an actual text than as a conceptual category signifying theVolksgeist, the Great Repository of Folk Narratives […] In any event, aside from this legendary work (which "survives" only in oneJain Maharashtri and several Sanskrit embodiments), Paishachi is irrelevant to the actual literary history of South Asia.
There is one chapter (Chapter 10 of Prakrita Prakasha) dedicated to Paisachi Prakrit in Prakrita Prakasha, a grammar book of Prakrit languages attributed toVararuchi.[6] In this work, it is mentioned that the base of Paisachi isShauraseni Prakrit. It further goes on to mention 10 rules of transforming the base text to Paisachi. These are mostly rules of substitution of letters.