pea'crit poetby. 393 



Though relative to Ft dent prosody, the rules arc 

 applicable, for the moft part, to Safiscrit prosody alfo : 

 Since the laws of 'versihcation in both languages are 

 nearly the bame. ■ > 



The Prdcrit, here meant, is the language ufually 

 emi-)loyed, under this name by dramatick writers; and 

 rot in a more general fcnfe of the term, any regular 

 provincial dialect corrupted from Sanscrit. He'ma- 

 CHANDRA, in hii gramuiar of Pr^crit, declares it to be 

 so called because it is derived from Sanscrit *. 



AccoRDiNOLY his and other grammars ofthe lan- 

 guage consift of rules for the transformation oi Sanscrit 

 vc'ords into the derivative tongue : and the specimens 

 of it in the /w/ww dramas, as well as in the books of 

 the Jams, exhibit few words which may not be traced 

 to a Sanscrit origin. This is equally true of the several 

 dialects of Frdcrit : viz. S'aurashn or language of S'u- 

 rasena ,'\ and MctgacTM or dialect of Magadha \\ which 

 accoidmg to grammarians, who give rules for dedu- 

 cing the lirst from Sanscrit, and the second from the 

 firsr,*^ or both from Sanscrit, \\ are dialects nearly allied 

 to Prdcrity and regularly formed by permutations, for 

 which the rules are stated by them. The same may be 



• Ske Plate A. Fig. a. 



t CuLLUCA BHATTA (ou Mknu 2. Ip.) says, that Suraiena is the 

 country of Mat'/n/ra. 



+ Ckata or Bihar. But it does not appear, that either this, or 

 the preceding dialei.t, is now spoken in the country, from which it 

 takes its name. Specimens of both ^ire frequent in the Indian dra- 

 mas. 



§ Vararuchi,, and his commentator Bhamaha. 



11 Hkmachandra, who, after Rating the i'pecial permutations of 

 these dialects as derived from Sanscrit, obfcrves in both places, that 

 the rell of the permutations arc the same with tlaofe of Praeiit, . 



