
General characteristics



Middle Indo-Aryan includes the dialects of inscriptions from the 3rd century BCE to the 4th century CE as well as various literary languages. Apabhraṃśa dialects represent the latest stage of Middle Indo-Aryan development. Though all Middle Indo-Aryan languages are included under the name Prākrit, it is customary to speak of the Prākrits as excluding Apabhraṃśa.







Characteristics of Old Indo-Aryan texts












Grammatical modifications












Phonological modifications






Classical Sanskrit







Characteristics of Middle Indo-Aryan

The Sanskrit word prākṛta, whence the term Prākrit, is a derivative from prakṛti- ‘original, nature.’ Grammarians of the Prākrits generally consider the original from which these derive to be the Sanskrit language as described by grammarians going back to Pāṇini. Most modern scholars consider prākṛta to refer to the “natural” languages, the vernaculars, as opposed to Sanskrit, the polished language of the elite (śiṣṭa). This viewpoint is mentioned also by an earlier commentator, Nami Sādhu (11th century), and there is linguistic evidence in its favour. Some forms in the Prākrits are found in Vedic but not in Classical Sanskrit. As Classical Sanskrit is not directly derivable from any single Vedic dialect, so the Prākrits cannot be said to derive directly from Classical Sanskrit.



The earliest inscriptional Middle Indo-Aryan is that of the Aśokan inscriptions (3rd century BCE). These are more or less full translations from original edicts issued in the language of the east (from the capital Pāṭaliputra in Magadha, near modern Patna in Bihār) into the languages of the areas of Aśoka’s kingdom. There are other Prākrit inscriptions up to the 4th century CE. Literary Prākrits other than Pāli were also used in independent works and in dramas along with Sanskrit.

According to Prākrit grammarians, as well as theoreticians of poetics such as Daṇḍin (c. 6th–7th century), Mahārāṣṭrī (‘[speech form] from the Mahārāshtra country’) is the Prākrit par excellence. It is the language of kāvyas (poetic works) such as the Rāvaṇavaha (“The Slaying of Rāvaṇa”; also called Setubandha, “The Building of the Bridge [to Laṅkā]”) from no later than the 6th century CE. Mahārāṣṭrī is also the language of lyrics in Rājaśekhara’s Karpūramañjarī (named after its heroine, Karpūramañjarī, c. 9th–10th century), the only extant drama written completely in Prākrit, and of verses recited by women in the classical drama of Kālidāsa (3rd–4th century) and his successors, though not earlier. Śaurasenī is the literary dialect used for conversation between higher personages other than the king and his captains in the drama, while other dialects are used by lower personages.

The language of the early Jaina canon, the final version of which was made in the 5th or 6th century CE, is called Ardhamāgadhī (‘half Māgadhī’); Jainas also used another literary dialect, called Jaina Māhārāṣṭrī by modern scholars, in noncanonical works. The oldest poetic work in this language is Vimala Sūri’s Paumacariya (a Jain Rāmāyaṇa, c. 3rd century), a Jain Rāmāyaṇa. Of other Prākrit dialects mentioned by grammarians and poeticists, Paiśācī (or Bhūtabhāṣā, both meaning ‘language of demons’) is noteworthy; it is said to be the language of the original Bṛhatkathā of Guṇāḍhya, source of the Sanskrit book of stories Kathāsaritsāgara (“Ocean of Rivers of Tales”).

Buddhist works were also written in a language that has been called Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. Among these works is the Mahāvastu (“Great Story”), the core of which is thought to date from the 2nd century BCE. This language is a Middle Indo-Aryan dialect of indeterminate origin and steadily became more Sanskritized in prose sections of later works. The view once maintained—that Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit represents the result of translations from Middle Indic into imperfect Sanskrit—has been refuted on the basis of comparable linguistic features found in inscriptions.

The most advanced stage of Middle Indo-Aryan, Apabhraṃśa, was also used as a literary language. That there was literary creation in Apabhraṃśa by the 6th century is clear from an inscription of King Dharasena II of Valabhī, in which he praises his father as being adept in Sanskrit, Prākrit, and Apabhraṃśa composition. Moreover, in the fourth act of Kālidāsa’s drama Vikramorvaśīya (“Urvaśi Won Through Valour”), Apabhraṃśa is used. Because Kālidāsa probably lived in the 3rd or 4th century, literary composition in Apabhraṃśa is earlier than Dharasena’s time, although not all scholars accept that these passages are legitimate. There is a great deal of later literature, all poetry, in Apabhraṃśa, for the most part Jaina works—e.g., Paumacariu of Svayambhū (8th–9th century; “The Life of Pauma” [Pauma is an epithet of Rāmā]) of Svayambhū, Harivaṃśapurāṇa (10th century; “Genealogy of Hari [Vishnu]”) of Puṣpadanta (10th century), and Sanatkumāracariu of Haribhadra (12th century).

Phonological modifications

Middle Indo-Aryan is generally characterized by the reduction of the complexities seen in Old Indo-Aryan. The vowel system was reduced by the merger of (and ) sounds with other vowels and the change of the diphthongs ai and au to the monophthongs e and o—e.g., Pāli accha- ‘bear’ (Sanskrit ṛkṣa-), iṇa- ‘debt’ (Sanskrit ṛṇa-), uju- ‘straight’ (Sanskrit ṛju-), pucchati ‘asks’ (Sanskrit pṛcchati), mettī- ‘friendship’ (Sanskrit maitrī-), orasa- ‘legitimate’ (Sanskrit aurasa-). Moreover, -aya- and -ava- commonly contracted to -e- and -o-; e.g., Pāli jeti ‘conquers’ (Sanskrit jayati), odhi- ‘limit’ (Sanskrit avadhi-).

Final consonants were deleted, with the exception of -m, which developed to an -ṃ sound (traditionally pronounced as ŋ, a sound like that of the ng in sing) before which a vowel was shortened (Pāli bhāriyaṃ ‘wife’; Sanskrit bhāryām). Together with the trend toward replacing variable consonant stems by unchanging stems in -a-, this change had serious consequences for the grammar. Consonant stems steadily disappeared and were transformed to stems ending in vowels; e.g., Sanskrit śarad- ‘autumn,’ sarit- ‘stream,’ and sarpis- ‘butter’ correspond with Pāli sarada-, saritā, and sappi-.

Consonant clusters were also modified in Middle Indo-Aryan—e.g., Pāli khetta- ‘field’ (Sanskrit kṣetra-), Pāli dakkhiṇa- ‘right, south’ (Sanskrit dakṣiṇa), aggi- ‘fire’ (Sanskrit agni-), puṇṇa- ‘full’ (Sanskrit pūrṇa), and taṇhā- ‘thirst’ (Sanskrit ṭṛṣṇā-). The shortening of vowels before modified consonant clusters led to the use of short ĕ and ŏ sounds, which were unknown in Old Indo-Aryan except in particular Vedic recitations—e.g., Pāli sĕmha- ‘phlegm’ (Sanskrit śleṣman-), ŏṭṭha- ‘lip’ (Sanskrit oṣṭha-).

The above phenomena are not restricted to Pāli; they are pan-Middle Indo-Aryan. Differences between Pāli and Aśokan on the one hand and other Prākrits on the other include the retention of voiceless stops (i.e., p, t, k) between vowels in Pāli and Aśokan dialects; other Middle Indo-Aryan dialects modify them. The extreme development appears in literary Māhārāṣṭrī, in which unaspirated stops (pronounced without an accompanying audible puff of breath) other than retroflexes (ṭ, ḍ) and labials (p, b) were deleted, aspirated stops (pronounced with an audible puff of breath) were replaced by h, retroflexes (pronounced by curling the tongue upward toward the hard palate) became voiced, and labials were replaced by v—e.g., loa- ‘world’ (Sanskrit loka-), loaṇa- ‘eye’ (Sanskrit locana-), sāhā- ‘branch’ (Sanskrit śākhā-), paḍhai ‘recites, reads’ (Sanskrit paṭhati), and savaha- ‘oath, curse’ (Sanskrit śapatha-).

Essentially on the same level are the dialects of Jaina texts, but in these a y glide noted by grammarians occurs when a consonant is elided: vayaṇa- ‘face’ (Sanskrit vadana-); sayala- ‘whole’ (Sanskrit sakala-). In Śaurasenī, on the other hand, voiceless stops (e.g., p, t, k) between vowels are voiced (e.g., become b, d, g, respectively)—e.g., ido ‘hence,’ tadhā ‘thus,’ with voiced -d- and -dh- for voiceless -t- and -th- (Sanskrit itaḥ, tathā). Though Pāli and Aśokan are at an earlier level of development with respect to these changes, they share with the rest of the Middle Indo-Aryan dialects the replacement of voiced aspirated sounds between vowels by h: lahu- ‘light, unimportant’ from laghu-, dahati ‘gives’ (Sanskrit dadhāti). Similarly, they share the change of ty-, dy-, dhy- to c-, j-, jh- and, comparably, of intervocalic clusters -ty-, -dy-, -dhy- to -cc-, -jj-, -jjh-: Pāli cajati ‘lets loose’ (Sanskrit tyajati), Pāli jotati ‘shines’ (Sanskrit dyotate), Pāli jhāyati ‘meditates, thinks about’ (Sanskrit dhyāyati), Pāli paticca ‘originating’ (Sanskrit pratītya), Pāli ajja ‘today’ (Sanskrit adya), Pāli majjha- ‘middle’ (Sanskrit madhya-). Pāli and Aśokan, however, retain an initial y-, changed to j- in most other Prākrits—e.g., the pronoun ya- (feminine yā-), opposed to ja-.

The deletion of stop consonants noted above resulted in vowel sequences within words that were unknown to Old Indo-Aryan. Similarly, the extent of sandhi modification was restricted in Middle Indo-Aryan. The Middle Indo-Aryan vowels ī and ū do not change to y and v before dissimilar vowels in compounds—e.g., Māhārāṣṭrī rattīandhaa- ‘dark of night’ (Sanskrit rātryandhaka-). In addition, the first of two contiguous vowels in different words is subject to deletion—e.g., Pāli manas’icchasi (from manasā icchasi) ‘you wish in your mind.’



Grammatical modifications

In its grammatical system, Middle Indo-Aryan also reduced complexities. The dual number no longer exists as a separate category; corresponding to Sanskrit dvābhyām ‘by two,’ Prākrit has dohi(ṃ) (Pāli dvīhi), with the ending -hi(ṃ) equivalent to the instrumental plural -bhis of Old Indo-Aryan. Among other changes is the replacement of the dative case by the genitive except in particular usages—e.g., the use of forms corresponding to the Old Indo-Aryan dative to denote a purpose.

In Middle Indo-Aryan, nominal and pronominal forms are no longer strictly segregated; e.g., Aśokan vijitamhi ‘in the kingdom’ (also vijite) has a pronominal ending -mhi that derives phonetically from Old Indo-Aryan -smin.

In the verb system, the contrast between active (3rd sing. -ti) and mediopassive (3rd sing. -te) endings was obliterated. Further, the Old Indo-Aryan distinction between aorist, imperfect, and perfect forms was eliminated. With few exceptions, the sigmatic aorist (an aorist form with s) provides the only productive finite preterite forms of early Middle Indo-Aryan—e.g., Aśokan ni-kkhamisu ‘they set out’ (Sanskrit nir-a-kramiṣur). In later Prākrits verbally inflected preterites were generally eliminated, except in Ardhamāgadhī; in their place was used the past participle. For example, in Śaurasenī devi uva-visa, mahārāo vi ā-ado ‘sit down, my queen, the king also has arrived,’ the past participle ā-ado (Sanskrit ā-gataḥ) agrees with mahā-rāo ‘king’ (Sanskrit mahā-rājaḥ) in number and gender. If the verb is transitive, the participle agrees with the direct object, and the agent is denoted by an instrumental form: in Jaina Māhārāṣṭrī, teṇa vi savvaṃ siṭṭhaṃ ‘he has told everything,’ teṇa ‘by him’ refers to the agent, and siṭṭhaṃ ‘told’ (Sanskrit śiṣṭam) agrees with the neuter singular form savvaṃ (Sanskrit sarvam). When no object is denoted, the verb is in the neuter singular. Old Indo-Aryan used both the participial construction and the finite verb; thus, Prākrit so vi teṇa samaṃ gao ‘he also went with him’ could correspond with Sanskrit so’pi tena saha gataḥ or so’pi tena sahāgamat (saha agamat). The Middle Indo-Aryan development eliminated the latter construction.

Alternations of the Sanskrit type as-mi, s-mas were eliminated in Middle Indo-Aryan; the predominant type of present tense was formed from an unchanging vowel stem, as in Pāli e-ti, e-nti ‘go(es).’

Nominal forms of the verb system are of the same types as Old Indo-Aryan—e.g., the Pāli future passive participle (gerundive) kātabba- (Sanskrit kartavya-) ‘to be done,’ Śaurasenī karaṇia-; Ardhamāgadhī, Jaina Māhārāṣṭrī, and Māhārāṣṭrī karaṇijja- ‘to be done.’ The infinitive is commonly formed on the present tense stem, not on the root as in Old Indo-Aryan. Thus, Pāli pappotum is formed on the present pappoti; Sanskrit prāptum contains āptum, formed on the root āp, not on the present stem āp-no- (3rd sing. present indicative prāpnoti).

Some grammatical features show dialectal variation; e.g., the Aśokan dative singular form is -āya in the western dialects (Girnār atthāya ‘for the purpose of’) but -āye in the east (Kālsī, Dhauli aṭṭhāye).


As noted above, the most advanced development of Middle Indo-Aryan is seen in Apabhraṃśa. Sound changes that are typical of Apabhraṃśa include the replacement of the vowel sound a by u in final syllables; e.g., karahu ‘you all do, make,’ corresponds with karaha (karadha) in other Prākrits. From stems in -aya- develop forms in -aü and nasalized -aũ (nasalization is here indicated by a tilde [~]): bhaḍāraü ‘honoured one, king’ (Prākrit bhaṭṭārayo), haũ ‘I’ (Aśokan hakaṃ). Nasalization also appears in environments in which earlier m occurred between vowels—e.g., gāũ ‘village’ (from an earlier base gāma-, Sanskrit grāma-).

Numerous other sound changes are evident, among them the development of -s(s)- between vowels into h: tahŏ ‘of him’ (Prākrit tassa, Sanskrit tasya); hohinti ‘will be’ (compare Pāli hossati [3rd sing.]).

Apabhraṃśa contractions, such as -aya- changing to -aü and -iya to , foreshadow New Indo-Aryan, in which the development was extended—e.g., Apabhraṃśa pāṇiü ‘water’ (Old Indo-Aryan pāniyam), Gujarati pāṇī, Hindi pānī.

In other points Apabhraṃśa also presaged New Indo-Aryan. Contracted forms are reflected in the New Indo-Aryan opposition of masculine, neuter, and feminine nouns—thus, Apabhraṃśa -aü, -aũ, -ī, Gujarati -o, -ũ, -ī (gayo, gayũ, gaī ‘went’), Hindi -ā, -ī (gayā, gaī). The case system of Apabhraṃśa is also at a more advanced level of disintegration than that of earlier Middle Indo-Aryan, with the instrumental and locative plurals being identical in form (-ahĩ or -ehĩ for -a- stems) and instrumental singular forms also being used as locatives.

In the Apabhraṃśa verb system, present tense stems in -a predominate. Apabhraṃśa verb endings differ from those of other Prākrits. Particularly interesting is the third person plural type karahĩ ‘they do,’ which coexists with karanti. The form karahĩ, corresponding to the third person singular karaï ‘he does,’ is formed on the model of the pair karaũ (1st person singular, ‘I do’) and karahũ (1st person plural, ‘we do’). Here again Apabhraṃśa comes close to New Indo-Aryan. Moreover, Apabhraṃśa has some causative formations that do not occur elsewhere in Middle Indo-Aryan but are known from New Indo-Aryan—e.g., bham-āḍ-a-i ‘causes to turn,’ Gujarati bhamāṛe che ‘causes to turn around,’ and pais-ār-a-i ‘causes to enter,’ Gujarati pɛsāre che ‘causes to enter, to penetrate.’


The Apabhraṃśa gerundive in -iv(v)a or -ev(v)a can be used as an infinitive—e.g., pi-eva-e laggā ‘began to drink.’ This is the Gujarati construction pi-vā lāgyo ‘began to drink,’ in which pi-vā is an inflected form of pi-vũ—that is, a verbal noun corresponding etymologically to the Apabhraṃśa gerundive.

Influences on Old and Middle Indo-Aryan


The literary languages borrowed words and suffixes from earlier languages. There are Prākritisms (i.e., forms of earlier Prākrits) in Apabhraṃśa—e.g., the genitive singular ending -ssa instead of -hŏ and 2nd person plural verb forms terminating in -ha instead of -hu. All the literary Prākrits had recourse to Sanskrit as a source for borrowing words. Words that were incorporated into the Prākrits from Sanskrit with no change in form are called saṃskṛta-sama ‘identical with the Sanskrit (form)’ or tat-sama ‘identical with that’ and are contrasted with words termed saṃskṛta-bhava (tad-bhava) ‘whose origin is in Sanskrit’ (literally, ‘located in Sanskrit’)—that is, words that the grammarians can derive from Sanskrit by using certain rules. Another class of words, called deśya (or deśī) ‘belonging to the area, country,’ includes items that the grammarians cannot derive easily from Sanskrit and that are supposed to have been in use in particular areas from early times.

Many or most of the deśya words are indeed derivable from earlier Indo-Aryan, but some are of Dravidian origin—e.g., akka ‘sister’ (Telugu akka), attā ‘father’s sister’ (Telugu atta), appa ‘father’ (Telugu appa), ūra ‘village’ (Telugu uru), pulli ‘tiger’ (Telugu puli). Whether borrowing from Dravidian occurred in prehistoric times and is reflected in the Ṛgveda remains a source of scholarly debate.

Another object of debate is whether any borrowing that might have taken place at such an early time would have occurred in a situation where Dravidians were a substrate group that transferred features from their speech to that of superiors whose language they used, or in a situation of equality, so that bilinguals affected each other’s languages. Such borrowing definitely took place in later Sanskrit. It is not always certain that borrowing proceeded from Dravidian to Indo-Aryan, however, because Dravidian languages freely borrowed from Indo-Aryan. Thus, some scholars claim that Sanskrit kaṭu ‘sharp, pungent’ is from Dravidian, but others claim that it is a Middle Indo-Aryan form deriving from an earlier *kṛt-u ‘cutting’ (root kṛt; an asterisk [*] preceding a form indicates that it is not attested but has been reconstructed as a hypothetical form).

Whatever the judgment on any individual word, it is clear that Indo-Aryan did borrow from Dravidian, and this phenomenon is important in considering a group of sounds that sets Indo-Aryan apart from the rest of Indo-European—the cacuminal, or retroflex, stops. The influence of Dravidian may be considered as contributing to the extension of these sounds beyond their limited occurrence in inherited Indo-European items such as nīḍa ‘nest’ (from Proto-Indo-Aryan *nizḍa-, Proto-Indo-European *ni-sd-o-), mīḍha- ‘reward’ (from Proto-Indo-European *misdho-), stīr-ṇa- ‘spread out’ (from Proto-Indo-European *stṝ-no-), dviṭ ‘hating’ (nominative singular, from earlier *dviṣ-s), where retroflex consonants developed by regular phonetic developments from inherited Indo-European terms.


In the 7th century CE, the philosopher Kumārila mentioned not only Dravidian but also Persian and Greek as sources of foreign words. Such borrowing can be traced back to early times. In the 6th century BCE the Achaemenid emperor Darius I counted Gandhāra as a province of his kingdom, and Alexander the Great penetrated into northern India in the 4th century BCE. From Iranian come words such as that meaning ‘inscription, writing, script’; in the northwest inscriptions of Aśoka the word is dipi (Old Persian dipi), and Sanskrit has lipi-, the form in other Aśokan versions and in Pāli. Also from Persian is Sanskrit kṣatrapa- ‘satrap’—Old Persian xšassa-pāvan-. Of Greek origin are such mathematical and astronomical terms as Sanskrit kendra ‘centre’ (Greek kéntron), jāmitra ‘diameter’ (diámetron), and horā ‘hour’ (hṓra). Yavana ‘foreigner,’ originally the Greek word for Ionian, is known from as early as the time of Pāṇini. Later, Arabic words such as taślī ‘trigon’ came into Sanskrit.