being identical in form. Very similarly are declined the bases
ending in other vowels. The few still ending in consonants and
which have not become merged in the a-declension, present numerous
apparent irregularities, due to the inevitable phonetic changes,
which must be learned from the textbooks.
| Skr. | Ś. | Ap. | M. | AMg. | Mg. | |
| Singular: | ||||||
| Nom. | putras | puttō | puttu | puttē | puttē | puttē |
| Acc. | putram | puttaṁ | puttu | puttaṁ | puttaṁ | puttaṁ |
| Instr. | putrēṇa | puttēṇa | puttē̃ | puttēṇa(ṁ) | puttēna(ṁ) | puttēṇa |
| Dat. | putrāya | — | — | puttāa | puttāē | puttāa |
| Abl. | putrāt | puttādō | puttahu | puttāō | puttāō | puttādō |
| Gen. | putrasya | puttassa | puttaho, | puttassa | puttassa, | puttaśśa |
| puttaha | puttāha | |||||
| Loc. | putrē | puttē | putti, | puttē, | puttē, | puttē, |
| *putrasmin | puttammi | puttammi | puttammi, | |||
| puttahī | puttāhiṁ | |||||
| Plural: | ||||||
| Nom. | putrās | puttā | putta | putta | puttā | puttā |
| Acc. | putrān | puttē | puttē | puttē | puttē, | puttē |
| putta | puttā | puttā | ||||
| Instr. | *putrēbhis | puttēhiṁ | puttahī | puttēhim′ | puttēhiṁ | puttēhiṁ |
| Abl. | putrēbhyas | puttāhiṁ-tō | puttahū | puttāhiṁ-tō | puttēhiṁ-tō | puttāhiṁ-tō |
| Gen. | putrāṇām | puttāṇaṁ | puttahā | puttāṇaṁ | puttāṇaṁ | puttāṇaṁ, |
| puttāhā | ||||||
| Loc. | putrēsu | puttēsu(ṁ) | puttahī | puttēsu | puttēsu | puttēśu(ṁ) |
All the Skr. pronouns appear in Pr., but often in extremely abraded shapes. It would, for instance, be difficult to recognize the Skr. tvām in the Ap. paï. There is also a most luxuriant growth of by-forms, the genitive plural of the pronoun of the second person being, e.g., represented by no less than twenty-five different words in M. alone. We also find forms which have no original in classical Skr. Thus, in that language, the pronoun sa-, he, is only used in the nominative singular of two genders, but occurs also in other cases in Pr.
Conjugation.—The Pr. verb shows even more decay than does the noun. With a few isolated exceptions, all trace of the second, or consonantal, conjugation of Skr. has disappeared, and (much as has happened in the case of nouns) all verbs are now conjugated after the analogy of the a-conjugation. This a-conjugation, on the other hand, falls into two classes, the first being the a-conjugation proper, and the second the ē-conjugation, in which the ē represents the aya of the Skr. 10th class and of causal and denominative verbs. The ātmanēpada voice of Skr. has practically disappeared in the Midland, and even in the Outer languages it is not common. The present participle is the only form which has everywhere survived. The other forms are supplied by the parasmaipada. All the past tenses (imperfect, perfect and aorists) have fallen into disuse, leaving only a few sporadic remains, their place being supplied, as in the case of the tertiary vernaculars, by the participles, with or without auxiliary verbs. The present tense of the verb substantive has survived from Skr., but it is usual to employ atthi ( = Skr. asti) for both numbers and all persons of the present, and āsī ( = āsīt) for both numbers and all persons of the past. It is interesting to note that the latter has survived in the modern Panjabi sī, was, in which language it is universally, but wrongly, described as a feminine. Another verb substantive (Skr. √ bhū) has also survived, generally in the form hōi or huvaï for bhavati. In AMg. and M. we also have bhavaï pretty frequently, and the same form also occurs, but less often, in Ś. and Mg. Its usual past participle is hūa- or Mg. hūda-, Ś. bhūda-. The forms are given here as they are important when the history of the Tertiary Prakrits comes under consideration. These two verbs substantive make periphrastic tenses with other participles, and, in the case of the past participles and gerundives of transitive verbs (both of which are passive in signification), the agent or subject is put into the instrumental case, the participle being used either personally or impersonally, as in the tertiary languages. Thus, tēṇa girivarō diṭṭho, by him a mountain was seen, i.e. he saw a mountain; tēṇa paḍivannaṁ, it was acknowledged by him, he acknowledged. The gerundive, or future passive participle, is also used impersonally in the case of intransitive verbs, as in dūraṁ gantavvaṁ, it is to be gone far, we must go far.
Besides the participles, the infinitive and the indeclinable participle (gerund) have also survived. So also the passive voice, conjugated in the same tenses as the active, and generally with parasmaipada terminations. The causal has been already mentioned. There are also numerous denominative verbs (many of them onomatopoeic), and a good supply of examples of frequentative and desiderative bases, mostly formed, with the necessary phonetic modifications, as in Skr. The present participle in the parasmaipada ends in -anta- (-enta-), declined according to the a-declension, and in the ātmanēpada in -māna-. The termination -(i)ta- of the Skr. past participle passive has survived under the form -ia-. Many direct representatives of Skr. participles in -ta- (without the i) and -na- also appear. Thus, Skr. dṛṣṭta, Pr. diṭṭha, seen; Skr. lagna-, Pr. lagga-, attached. As usual there is a tendency to simplification, and the termination ia is commonly added to the Pr. present base, instead of following Skr. analogy. Thus, not only have we tatta- formed directly from the Skr. tapta-, but we have also tavia- from the Pr. present stem tav-aï ( = Skr. tapati), he is hot. All the three forms of the future passive participle or gerundive, in -tavya-, -anīya- and -ya-, have survived. The infinitive has survived, not only with the form corresponding to the classical Sanskrit termination -tum, but also with several old Vedic forms. The same is the case with the gerund, in which both the classical forms in -tvā and -(t)ya have survived, but with the loss of the distinctive use which obtained in Sanskrit. Besides these there are also survivals of Vedic forms, and even of Primary Prakrit forms not found in the Veda. The passive is generally formed by adding -jja or, in Ś. and Mg., -īa-, to the root or, more often, to the present stem. Thus, M. pucchïjjaï or Ś. pucchīadi, he is being asked.
The following are therefore the only tenses which are fully conjugated in Pr.: the present, the imperative, the future and the optative. Except in Ap., the personal terminations in general correspond to the Skr. ones, but in Ap. there are some forms which probably go back to unrecorded Primary Prakrits and have not as yet been explained. As an example we take the conjugation of the base puccha-, ask (Skr. pr̥cchati), in the present tense.
| Skr. | Ś. | Ap. | M. | AMg. | Mg. | |
| Sing. | ||||||
| 1. | pr̥cchāmi | pucchāmi | pucchaū̃ | pucchāmi | pucchāmi | puscāmi |
| 2. | pr̥cchasi | pucchasi | pucchasi or -hi | pucchasi | pucchasi | puścasi |
| 3. | pr̥cchati | pucchadi | pucchaï | pucchaï | pucchaï | puścadi |
| Plur. | ||||||
| 1. | pr̥cchāmas | pucchāmō | pucchahū̃ | pucchāmō | pucchāmō | puścāmō |
| 2. | pr̥cchatha | pucchadha | pucchahu | pucchaha | pucchaha | puścadha |
| 3. | pr̥cchanti | pucchanti | pucchahī | pucchanti | pucchanti | puścanti |
The imperative similarly follows the Skr. imperative. The Ś. second person singular is generally puccha, while the Outer languages often have a form corresponding to pucchēhi. The base of the optative is generally formed by adding -ejja- in the Outer languages and -ēa- in Ś.; thus, Ś. pucchēaṁ, others pucchejjāmi, &c., may I ask. The Skr. future termination -isya- is represented by -issa- or -ihi-; thus, pucchissāmi or pucchihimi, I shall ask.
Prakrit Literature.—The great mass of Prakrit literature is devoted to the Jaina religion, and, so far as it is known, is Literature. described under the head of Jains. Here it is sufficient to state that the oldest Jaina sūtras were in Ardhamāgadhī, while the non-canonical books of the Śvētāmbara sect were in a form of Māhārāṣṭri, and the canon of the Digambaras appears to have been in a form of Śaurasēnī. Besides these religious works, Prakrit also appears in secular literature. In artificial lyric poetry it is pre-eminent. The most admired work is the Sattasaī (Saptaśaptikā), compiled at some time between the 3rd and 7th centuries A.D. by Hāla. The grace and poetry of this collection, in which art most happily succeeds in concealing art, has rarely been exceeded in literature of its kind. It has had numerous imitators, both in Sanskrit and in the modern vernaculars, the most famous of which is the Satsaī of Bihārī Lāl'(17th century A.D.). Hāla's work is important, not only on its own account, but also as showing the existence of a large Prakrit literature at the time when it was compiled. Most of this is now lost. There are some scholars (including the present writer) who believe that Sanskrit literature owes more than is generally admitted to works in the vernacular, and that even the Mahābhārata first took its form as a folk-epic in an early Prakrit, and was subsequently translated into Sanskrit, in which language it was further manipulated, added to, and received its final shape. In literary Prakrit we have two important specimens of formal
