Editing Sanskrit (section)

===Sanskrit and Prakrit languages===
[[File:Word for Sanskrit Samskrita in the Mandsaur stone inscription of Yashodharman-Vishnuvardhana 532 CE.jpg|thumb|An early use of the word for "Sanskrit" in Late [[Brahmi script]] (also called [[Gupta script]]):{{center|<sup>[[File:Gupta ashoka sam.jpg|14px]]</sup><sub>[[File:Gupta ashoka skrr.jpg|17px]]</sub>[[File:Gupta ashoka t.svg|14px]] ''Saṃ-skṛ-ta''}}<br />[[Mandsaur stone inscription of Yashodharman-Vishnuvardhana]], 532&nbsp;CE.<ref name="JFF">{{cite book |last1=Fleet |first1=John Faithfull |title=Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum Vol 3 (1970)ac 4616 |date=1907 |page=153, line&nbsp;14 of the inscription |url=https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.358795/2015.358795.Corpus-Inscriptionum#page/n373/mode/2up}}</ref>]]
The earliest known use of the word {{Transliteration|sa|Saṃskṛta}} (Sanskrit), in the context of a speech or language, is found in verses 5.28.17–19 of the ''Ramayana''.<ref name=wright-sanskrit-first/> Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects ([[Prakrit]]s) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these {{Transliteration|sa|Apabhramsa}}, literally 'spoiled'.<ref>{{cite book |first=Alfred C. |last=Woolner |title=Introduction to Prakrit |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IwE16UFBfdEC|year=1986|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-0189-9 |page=6, context: 1–10}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Clarence |last=Maloney |year=1978 |title=Language and Civilization Change in South Asia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M_oUAAAAIAAJ |publisher=Brill Academic |isbn=978-90-04-05741-8 |pages=111–114 |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134722/https://books.google.com/books?id=M_oUAAAAIAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other [[Indo-European languages]] but which are found in the regional Prakrit languages, which makes it likely that the interaction, the sharing of words and ideas began early in the Indian history. As the Indian thought diversified and challenged earlier beliefs of Hinduism, particularly in the form of [[Buddhism]] and [[Jainism]], the Prakrit languages such as [[Pali]] in [[Theravada]] Buddhism and Ardhamagadhi in Jainism competed with Sanskrit in the ancient times.<ref>{{cite book |first=Gaurinath Bhattacharyya |last=Shastri |title=A Concise History of Classical Sanskrit Literature |year=1987 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-0027-4 |pages=18–19 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QYxpvZLg4hAC |access-date=19 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134732/https://books.google.com/books?id=QYxpvZLg4hAC |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Rune Edvin Anders |last=Johansson |year=1981 |title=Pali Buddhist Texts: Explained to the beginner |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-7007-1068-3 |page=7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fovyapaDaYIC |quote=Pali is known mainly as the language of Theravada Buddhism. ... very little is known about its origin. We do not know where it was spoken or if it originally was a spoken language at all. The ancient Ceylonese tradition says that the Buddha himself spoke Magadhi and that this language was identical to Pali. |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134722/https://books.google.com/books?id=fovyapaDaYIC |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=dundas69>{{cite book |first=Paul |last=Dundas |title=The Jains |year=2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-26606-2 |pages=69–70 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X8iAAgAAQBAJ |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=2 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702114824/https://books.google.com/books?id=X8iAAgAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> However, states [[Paul Dundas]], these ancient Prakrit languages had "roughly the same relationship to Sanskrit as medieval Italian does to Latin".<ref name=dundas69/> The Indian tradition states that the [[Buddha]] and the [[Mahavira]] preferred the Prakrit language so that everyone could understand it. However, scholars such as Dundas have questioned this hypothesis. They state that there is no evidence for this and whatever evidence is available suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had the capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages such as [[Ardhamagadhi]].<ref name=dundas69/>

A section of European scholars state that Sanskrit was never a spoken language.<ref name=Shastri1987p20>{{cite book |author=Gaurinath Bhattacharyya Shastri |year=1987 |title=A Concise History of Classical Sanskrit Literature |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-0027-4 |pages=20–23 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QYxpvZLg4hAC |access-date=19 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134732/https://books.google.com/books?id=QYxpvZLg4hAC |url-status=live }}</ref> However, evidences shows that Sanskrit was a spoken language, essential for [[oral tradition]] that preserved the vast number of Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. The textual evidence in the works of Yaksa, Panini, and Patanajali affirms that Classical Sanskrit in their era was a spoken language ({{Transliteration|sa|bhasha}}) used by the cultured and educated. Some ''[[sutra]]s'' expound upon the variant forms of spoken Sanskrit versus written Sanskrit.<ref name=Shastri1987p20/> Chinese Buddhist pilgrim [[Xuanzang]] mentioned in his memoir that official philosophical debates in India were held in Sanskrit, not in the vernacular language of that region.<ref name=Shastri1987p20/>

{{Wide image|IndoEuropeanTree.svg|600px|Sanskrit's link to the Prakrit languages and other Indo-European languages|350px|right|alt=Tree diagram showing genetic relationships among languages}}
According to Sanskrit linguist professor Madhav Deshpande, Sanskrit was a spoken language in a colloquial form by the mid-1st&nbsp;millennium&nbsp;BCE which coexisted with a more formal, grammatically correct form of literary Sanskrit.{{sfn|Deshpande|2011|pp=218–220}} This, states Deshpande, is true for modern languages where colloquial incorrect approximations and dialects of a language are spoken and understood, along with more "refined, sophisticated and grammatically accurate" forms of the same language being found in the literary works.{{sfn|Deshpande|2011|pp=218–220}} The Indian tradition, states [[Moriz Winternitz|Winternitz]], has favored the learning and the usage of multiple languages from the ancient times. Sanskrit was a spoken language in the educated and the elite classes, but it was also a language that must have been understood in a wider circle of society because the widely popular folk epics and stories such as the ''[[Ramayana]]'', the ''[[Mahabharata]]'', the ''[[Bhagavata Purana]]'', the ''[[Panchatantra]]'' and many other texts are all in the Sanskrit language.<ref>{{cite book |first=Moriz |last=Winternitz |author-link=Moriz Winternitz |year=1996 |title=A History of Indian Literature |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-0264-3 |pages=42–46 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JRfuJFRV_O8C |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=26 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231226083105/https://books.google.com/books?id=JRfuJFRV_O8C |url-status=live }}</ref> The Classical Sanskrit with its exacting grammar was thus the language of the Indian scholars and the educated classes, while others communicated with approximate or ungrammatical variants of it as well as other natural Indian languages.{{sfn|Deshpande|2011|pp=218–220}} Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside the vernacular Prakrits.{{sfn|Deshpande|2011|pp=218–220}} Many [[Sanskrit drama]]s indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. The cities of [[Varanasi]], [[Paithan]], [[Pune]] and [[Kanchipuram]] were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era.{{sfn|Deshpande|2011|pp=222–223}}

According to [[Étienne Lamotte|Lamotte]], Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas, and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied, so did its spread and influence.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Étienne |last=Lamotte |author-link=Étienne Lamotte |year=1976 |title=Histoire du buddhisme indien, des origines à l'ère saka |language=fr |journal=Tijdschrift voor Filosofie |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=539–541 |place=Louvain-la-Neuve, France |publisher=Université de Louvain |department=Institut orientaliste}}</ref> Sanskrit was adopted voluntarily as a vehicle of high culture, arts, and profound ideas. Pollock disagrees with Lamotte, but concurs that Sanskrit's influence grew into what he terms a "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" over a region that included all of South Asia and much of southeast Asia. The Sanskrit language cosmopolis thrived beyond India between 300 and 1300&nbsp;CE.<ref name=pollock1996p197>{{cite book |first=Sheldon |last=Pollock |editor-first=Jan |editor-last=Houben |article=The Sanskrit cosmopolis, A.D.&nbsp;300–1300: transculturation, vernacularization, and the question of ideology |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_eqr833q9qYC&pg=PA197 |title=Ideology and Status of Sanskrit: Contributions to the history of the Sanskrit language |publisher=E. J. Brill |location=Leiden, New York |year=1996 |isbn=978-90-04-10613-0 |pages=197–199; pp. 197–239 for context and details |access-date=22 March 2024 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135457/https://books.google.com/books?id=_eqr833q9qYC&pg=PA197#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>

Today, it is believed that Kashmiri is the closest language to Sanskrit.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-02-19 |title='Kashmir had an overwhelmingly Indic and Sanskritic identity and character' |first1=Akrita |last1=Reyar |url=https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/kashmir-had-an-overwhelmingly-indic-and-sanskritic-identity-and-character-shonaleeka-kaul-jnu/334839|website=timesnownews.com |language=en |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240108212808/https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/kashmir-had-an-overwhelmingly-indic-and-sanskritic-identity-and-character-shonaleeka-kaul-jnu/334839 |archive-date= Jan 8, 2024 }}</ref><ref>P. 116 ''Sanskrit and Other Indian Languages'' By Śaśiprabhā Kumāra; "''Their language was Vedic Sanskrit which is spoken by all Kashmiris presently.''"</ref><ref>''Kashmir: Its Aborigines and Their Exodus'' By Colonel Tej K Tikoo</ref>