INTRODUCTION literary and not a spoken language. The latter was always an artificial and grammatic language developed by literary cultivation like Sanskrit and literary Pali. The term Paisagi is derived from the word Pisag (demon). The aboriginal tribes, Davidians, Kolarians and others, who came in contact with, or under the subjection of the Aryans used a distorted form of the Aryan vernacular. It was called Paisagi. It was, however, never the language of the demons. The champions of the Aryan exclusiveness and Hindu orthodoxy despised, abominated, hated and cursed the abori- gines, the native foes or religious antagonists from the very beginning of Aryan immigration into India and described them as demons or cannibals ( Pisag or Raksa). Take for instance the cursing hymn in the Rig-Veda (VII. 104. 1-2) where Vasistha invokes indra and Soma, the slayers of cannibals (Raksa-hanau), and pours forth vials of invectives on the heads of their native foes or religious opponents. In any case Paisagi was a language of men. As time went on with long intercourse with the Aryan immigrants the aborigines gradually improved this language till at last their speech and the Aryan Vernacular, each assimilating the speech of the other, gave rise to the common vernacular of each particular place. Thus the Paiaci was eventually assimilated in the Maharastra-Sauraseni and Magadhi-Pra৮ts. c) Apabhrama With literary cultivation and under rigid rules of grammar Prakit ceased, in the course of time, to grow and became stereotyped like Sanskrit. But during all this time the spoken language of the Aryans and of those who came under their influence continued to grow and devclop. This growth of the Aryan language mixed, to some extent, with the speech of the aborigines was considered by Prakrt grammarians to be a corrup- | tion of the literary Prakrt, Sauraseni and Magadhi. This is Apabhramsa In point of fact it was the language current among the mass people by the side of the grammatical Prakrt. Apabhramsa contains some elements of Vedic and prevedic languages like Pali which are not to be found in the grammatical Prakrt. MaxMiller treats the language of the ins- criptions-as well as that of the Northern Buddhist canons as the old Apabhramsal. Hemgandra mentions Apabhramsa as of the nature cf Sauraseni. He at the same time maintains that it may be of Magadhi and Paisagi groups as well. On the other hand Markandeya arrangcs the vernacular of the eastern country under the Magadhi Apabhramsa. Thus the Part grammarians broadly divide the verrnaculars of India into two main groups of Apabhransas, viz., Western or Maharastra-Sauraseni 1see his “Scence of Language", Vol. I, p. 170.
- Hemcandra-IV, 446.
5 Ibid, IV, 447.
