[INDOLOGY] Question about Gandhari Prakrit

[Madhav Deshpande]

Thanks, Johannes and Herman.  Your responses are along the lines that I
suspected, but I wanted a more authoritative confirmation than my own
hunch.  I have suggested that Pāṇini survives in Patañjali's Āryāvarta, but
his homeland is no longer within its limits.  Best wishes,

Madhav

Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]


On Sat, Jan 23, 2021 at 12:19 AM Johannes Bronkhorst <
johannes.bronkhorst at unil.ch> wrote:

> Dear Madhav,
>
> You raise an interesting question. One factor that must probably be taken
> into consideration in trying to answer it is the following: Though a center
> of Vedic culture at the time of Pāṇini (i.e., presumably before Alexander's
> invasion and the Maurya Empire), Gandhāra was no longer Brahmanical
> territory after the collapse of that empire. This I argue at length in my
> book *How the Brahmins Won* (Brill 2016), especially § I.1.3.
>
> Johannes Bronkhorst
>
>
> On 23 Jan 2021, at 00:58, Madhav Deshpande via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
>      I have a question about the Gandhari Prakrit.  From the Gandhari
> Dharmapada edited by John Brough to recent publications of the Buddhist
> Gandhari materials, we have come to learn of Gandhari as a variety of
> Prakrit.  To my memory, the Prakrit grammars do not mention Gandhari
> Prakrit, while they do refer to numerous regional varieties.  I am just
> wondering why the Gandhari Prakrit did not enter into the description of
> Prakrit varieties by the Prakrit grammarians.  If Pāṇini's grammar coming
> from the Swat valley survived and prospered in the mainland of India, why
> did the Gandhari Prakrit remain unknown?  Any suggestions?
>
> Madhav M. Deshpande
> Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
> University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
> Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
> Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India
>
> [Residence: Campbell, California, USA]
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