Paishachi

 ( Indo-aryan Languages ) 

Paishachi or Paisaci () is a largely unattested literary language of the middle kingdoms of India mentioned in Prakrit and Sanskrit grammars of antiquity. It is generally grouped with the Prakrits, with which it shares some linguistic similarities, but is still not considered a spoken Prakrit by the grammarians because it was purely a literary language, and because of its archaicism.

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Identity The etymology of the name suggests that it is spoken by pishacha, (Demon). In works of Sanskrit poetics such as Daṇḍin's Kavyadarsha, it is also known by the name of , an epithet which can be interpreted either as a "dead language" (i.e. with no surviving speakers), or as "a language spoken by the dead" (i.e. ghouls or ghosts), the former interpretation being more realistic and the latter being the more fanciful. Evidence which lends support to the former interpretation is that literature in Paiśācī is fragmentary and extremely rare but may have been once common.

The Siddha-Hema-Śabdanuśāśana, a grammar treatise written by Rev. Acharya Hemachandraacharya, includes six languages: Sanskrit, the "standard" Prakrit (virtually Maharashtri Prakrit), Shauraseni, Magahi, Paiśācī, the otherwise-unattested Cūlikāpaiśācī and Apabhraṃśa (virtually Gurjar Apabhraṃśa, prevalent in the area of Gujarat and Rajasthan at that time and the precursor of Gujarati language).

The 13th-century Tibetan historian Buton Rinchen Drub wrote that the early Buddhist schools were separated by choice of sacred language: the Mahāsāṃghikas used Prakrit, the Sarvastivada used Sanskrit, the Sthaviravādins used Paiśācī, and the Saṃmitīya used Apabhraṃśa.Yao, Zhihua. The Buddhist Theory of Self-Cognition. 2012. p. 9

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Literature The most widely known work, although lost, attributed to be in Paiśācī is the Brihatkatha (literally "Big Story"), a large collection of stories in verse, attributed to Gunadhya. It is known through its adaptations in Sanskrit as the Kathasaritsagara in the 11th century by Somadeva, and also from the Bṛhatkathā by Kshemendra. Both Somadeva and Kshemendra were from Kashmir where the Bṛhatkathā was said to be popular.

Talking of its existence, Pollock writes: There is one chapter (chapter 10) dedicated to Paisachi Prakrit in Prakrita Prakasha, a grammar book of Prakrit languages attributed to Vararuchi. In this work, it is mentioned that the base of Paisachi is Shauraseni language. It further goes on to mention 10 rules of transforming the base text to Paisachi. These are mostly rules of substitution of letters -

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See also

• Pali

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