4 o ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF KAVYA LITERATURE
ing the Sanskrit period there is no evidence of value. The sug- gestion of the translation of the epic may be dismissed as absurd, but the case with other forms of literature is more worthy of consideration. The fairy-tale is a thing which readily circulates among the people long before it is dignified by literary treatment by the higher classes of society, and in point of fact there is a strong tradition to the effect that it was in a Prakrit dialect, though one closely allied to Sanskrit, that the great collection of such tales, which powerfully affected Sanskrit literature, as the Brhafkatha of Gunadhya, was composed. Gunadhya's work, however, is of very complex art and uncertain date, and in all probability came into being at a time when we have abundant evidence of the existence of Sanskrit literature, so that this instance is irrelevant to the contention in favour of a Prakrit period of literature. Equally little value attaches to the argu- ment for the priority of Prakrit lyric. It was founded on a wholly misleading view of the antiquity of the anthology of Hala, who was placed in the first centiuy A.D. Against this view must be set the form of Maharastil Prakrit, which shows a development in the language such as cannot be dated before the latter part of the second century A.D., if regard be paid to the evidence of the inscriptions and of the Prakrits of the dramas of Acvaghosa. 1 It is true that Vararuci's Prakrit grammar recognizes Maharastrf of the type of the anthology, but there is no evidence that Vararuci is early in date, for his identification by later tradition with the Katyayana who criticized Panini is without serious value. Jacobi, 2 on the other hand, has identified Hala with the Satava- hana under whom Jain tradition records a change in the Church calendar in A.D. 467. There is no cogent reason to accept or deny this date ; what .is clear is that so far as the evidence goes there is nothing to suggest great antiquity for Prakrit lyric. Ltiders, who finds traces of its existence about the second cen- tury B.C. in the short inscriptions of the Sltabenga and Jogl- mara caves on the Ramgarh hill, and who assigns to the same
1 Bruchstuckt buddh. Dramen, pp. 61 ff. On the SUabenga inscr. cf. Boyer, Melanges Livi, pp. lai ff. Kharavela's date is still disputed.
1 Ausg. Erzahlungtn in MAhdrdshtrt, p. xvii ; cf. Bhavisatla Kaha, p. 83. The Paumacariya of Vimala Sun, the oldest Maharasfrl epic, is not before A. D. 300 and may be much later (cf. ibid., p. 59).
