The main object however is to assist the student of the History of the great IndAryan Language from Vedic times to the present day. [...] The Extracts 1 to 14 should then be thoroughly mastered and the knowledge acquired applied to any play the student may be reading) The next step will be more philological consisting in the comparison of the several stages and dialects as far as they are described in Chapters IV to X and illustrated in Extracts 15 to the end.' The specimens of Pali acid of old Prakrit are intended as inducement [...] as found in the plays of Kalidasa and his successors and in the grammarians ; (c) the dialects of the later Jain books ; (d) Paisacl in which the Brhatkatha is said to have been composed but which is known only from the statements of grammarians. [...] If we had records of the apabhramas spoken in the areas connected with each of the main Präkrits an important link in the history of the Indian languages would be supplied. [...] Rather the inclusion of such " prakritisms " in the sacred texts indicates that the priests were not yet conscious of the difference.' An interesting parallel to the history of the Indo-Aryan languages is shown by that of the Romance languages in Europe.
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