Gandhari language

Gāndhārī is an Indo-Aryan Prakrit language found mainly in texts dated between the 3rd century BCE and 4th century CE in the region of Gandhāra, located in present day Pakistan's Potohar region. The language was heavily used by the former Buddhist cultures of Central Asia and has been found as far away as eastern China, in inscriptions at Luoyang and Anyang.

Gandhari
Kharosthi: 𐨒𐨢𐨪𐨁 Brahmi: 𑀕𑀸𑀦𑁆𑀥𑀸𑀭𑀻
Region	Gandhāra
Era	ca. 300 BCE to 100 CE
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Gandhari
Writing system	Kharoṣṭhī
Language codes
ISO 639-3	pgd
Glottolog	gand1259

Incomplete birchbark manuscript of the Dhammapada in Gandhari language and Kharoṣṭhī script acquired by the Dutreuil de Rhins mission (1891–1894) in Central Asia. End of the 1st century to 3rd century. Bibliothèque nationale de France

Gandhari served as an official language of the Kushan Empire and various central Asian kingdoms, including Khotan and Shanshan.^[1] It appears on coins, inscriptions and texts, notably the Gandhāran Buddhist texts. It is notable among the Prakrits for having some archaic phonology, for its relative isolation and independence, for being partially within the influence of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean and for its use of the Kharoṣṭhī script, compared to Brahmic scripts used by other Prakrits.

Description

Gāndhārī is an early Middle Indo-Aryan language – a Prakrit – with unique features that distinguish it from all other known Prakrits. Phonetically, it maintained all three Old Indo-Aryan sibilants – s, ś and ṣ – as distinct sounds where they fell together as [s] in other Prakrits, a change that is considered one of the earliest Middle Indo-Aryan shifts.^[2] Gāndhārī also preserves certain Old Indo-Aryan consonant clusters, mostly those involving v and r.^[3] In addition, intervocalic Old Indo-Aryan th and dh are written early on with a special letter (noted by scholars as an underlined s, [s]), which later is used interchangeably with s, suggesting an early change to a sound, likely the voiced dental fricative ð, and a later shift to z and then a plain s.^[4]

The Middle Prakrits typically weakened th to dh, which later shifted to h.^[5] Kharoṣṭhī does not render the distinction between short and long vowels, so the details of that feature are not known.^[6]

Linguistic evidence links some groups of the Dardic languages with Gandhari.^[7][8][9] The Kohistani languages, now all being displaced from their original homelands, were once more widespread in the region and most likely descend from the ancient dialects of the region of Gandhara.^[10][11] The last to disappear was Tirahi, still spoken some years ago in a few villages in the vicinity of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, by descendants of migrants expelled from Tirah by the Afridi Pashtuns in the 19th century.^[12] Georg Morgenstierne claimed that Tirahi is "probably the remnant of a dialect group extending from Tirah through the Peshawar district into Swat and Dir".^[13] Nowadays, it must be entirely extinct and the region is now dominated by Iranian languages brought in by later migrants, such as Pashto.^[12] Among the modern day Indo-Aryan languages still spoken today, Torwali shows the closest linguistic affinity possible to Niya, a dialect of Gāndhārī.^[11][14]

Phonology

In general terms, Gāndhārī is a Middle Prakrit, a term for middle-stage Middle Indo-Aryan languages. It only begins to show the characteristics of the Late Prakrits in the 1st century of the Common Era.^[15] The Middle Prakrit phonetic features are the weakening of intervocalic consonants: degemination and voicing, such as the shift of OIA *k to g. The most rapid loss was the dentals, which started to disappear completely even before the late period as with *t > ∅ as in *pitar > piu; in contrast, retroflex consonants were never lost.^[16] There is also evidence of the loss of a distinction between aspirates and plain stops as well, which is unusual in the Indo-Aryan languages.^[17]

In Central Asian Gāndhārī, there is often confusion in writing nasals with homorganic stops;^[18] it is unclear if this might represent assimilation of the stop or the appearance of prenasalized consonants to the phonetic inventory.

Grammar

Gāndhārī grammar is difficult to analyse; endings were eroded not only by the loss of final consonants and cluster simplification of all Prakrits but also by the apparent weakening of final vowels "'to the point that they were no longer differentiated'".^[19] Nonetheless, there was still at least a rudimentary system of grammatical case.^[20] Verbal forms are highly restricted in usage due to the primary usage of longer texts to translations of religious documents and the narrative nature of the sutras but seem to parallel changes in other Prakrits.^[21]

Lexicon

The lexicon of Gāndhārī is also limited by its textual usage; it is still possible to determine unusual forms, such as Gāndhārī forms that show commonalities with forms in modern Indo-Aryan languages of the area, notably some groups of the Dardic languages. An example is the word for sister, which is a descendant of Old Indo-Aryan svasṛ- as in the Dardic languages, whereas all the Indo-Aryan languages have replaced that term with reflexes of bhaginī.^[22]

Rediscovery and history

Initial identification of a distinct language occurred through study of one of the Buddhist āgamas, the Dīrghāgama, which had been translated into Chinese by Buddhayaśas (Chinese: 佛陀耶舍) and Zhu Fonian (Chinese: 竺佛念).

The now dominant hypothesis on the propagation of Buddhism in Central Asia goes back to 1932 when E. Waldschmidt remarked that the names quoted in the Chinese Dīrghāgama (T. 1), which had been translated by the avowedly Dharmaguptaka monk Buddhayaśas (who also translated the Dharmaguptakavinaya), were not rendered from Sanskrit, but from a then undetermined Prākrit also found in the Khotan Dharmapada. In 1946, Bailey identified this Prākrit, which he named Gāndhārī, as corresponding to the language of most Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions from Northwestern India.^{[citation needed]}

Since this time, a consensus has grown in scholarship which sees the first wave of Buddhist missionary work as associated with Gāndhārī and the Kharoṣṭhī script, and tentatively with the Dharmaguptaka sect.^{[citation needed]}

Available evidence also indicates that the first Buddhist missions to Khotan were carried out by the Dharmaguptaka sect, and used a Kharoṣṭhī-written Gāndhārī.^{[citation needed]} However, there is evidence that other sects and traditions of Buddhism also used Gāndhārī, and evidence that the Dharmaguptaka sect also used Sanskrit at times.

It is true that most manuscripts in Gāndhārī belong to the Dharmaguptakas, but virtually all schools — inclusive Mahāyāna — used some Gāndhārī. Von Hinüber (1982b and 1983) has pointed out incompletely Sanskritised Gāndhārī words in works heretofore ascribed to the Sarvāstivādins and drew the conclusion that either the sectarian attribution had to be revised, or the tacit dogma "Gāndhārī equals Dharmaguptaka" is wrong. Conversely, Dharmaguptakas also resorted to Sanskrit.^[23]

Starting in the first century of the common era, there was a large trend toward a type of Gāndhārī which was heavily Sanskritized.^[23]

Buddhist manuscripts in Gāndhāri

Until 1994, the only Gāndhāri manuscript available to the scholars was a birch bark manuscript of a Buddhist text, the Dharmapāda, discovered at Kohmāri Mazār near Hotan in Xinjiang in 1893 CE. From 1994 on, a large number of fragmentary manuscripts of Buddhist texts, seventy-seven altogether,^[24] were discovered in eastern Afghanistan and Western Pakistan. These include:^[25]

• 29 fragments of birch-bark scrolls of British Library collection consisting of parts of the Dharmapada, Anavatapta Gāthā, the Rhinoceros Sūtra, Sangitiparyaya and a collection of sutras from the Ekottara Āgama.
• 129 fragments of palm leaf folios of Schøyen Collection, 27 fragments of palm-leaf folios of Hirayama collection and 18 fragments of palm leaf folios of Hayashidera collection consisting of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra and the Bhadrakalpikā Sūtra.
• 24 birch-bark scrolls of Senior collection consists of mostly different sutras and the Anavatapta Gāthā.
• 8 fragments of a single birch-bark scroll and 2 small fragments of another scroll of University of Washington collection consisting of probably an Abhidharma text or other scholastic commentaries.

Translations from Gāndhāri

Mahayana Buddhist Pure Land sūtras were brought from Gandhāra to China as early as 147 CE, when the Kushan monk Lokakṣema began translating the first Buddhist sutras into Chinese.^[26][27] The earliest of these translations show evidence of having been translated from Gāndhārī.^[28] It is also known that manuscripts in the Kharoṣṭhī script existed in China during this period.^[29]

References

1. Salomon, Richard (2007). "Gāndhārī in the Worlds of India, Iran, and Central Asia". Bulletin of the Asia Institute. 21: 179–192. ISSN 0890-4464.
2. Masica 1993, p. 169.
3. Salomon, Allchin & Barnard 1999, p. 110.
4. Salomon, Allchin & Barnard 1999, p. 121.
5. Masica 1993, p. 180.
6. Salomon, Allchin & Barnard 1999, p. 124.
7. Dani, Ahmad Hasan (2001). History of Northern Areas of Pakistan: Upto 2000 A.D. Sang-e-Meel Publications. pp. 64–67. ISBN 978-969-35-1231-1.
8. Saxena, Anju (2011-05-12). Himalayan Languages: Past and Present. Walter de Gruyter. p. 35. ISBN 978-3-11-089887-3.
9. Liljegren, Henrik (2016-02-26). A grammar of Palula. Language Science Press. pp. 13–14. ISBN 978-3-946234-31-9. Palula belongs to a group of Indo-Aryan (IA) languages spoken in the Hindukush region that are often referred to as "Dardic" languages... It has been and is still disputed to what extent this primarily geographically defined grouping has any real classificatory validity... On the one hand, Strand suggests that the term should be discarded altogether, holding that there is no justification whatsoever for any such grouping (in addition to the term itself having a problematic history of use), and prefers to make a finer classification of these languages into smaller genealogical groups directly under the IA heading, a classification we shall return to shortly... Zoller identifies the Dardic languages as the modern successors of the Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) language Gandhari (also Gandhari Prakrit), but along with Bashir, Zoller concludes that the family tree model alone will not explain all the historical developments.
10. Cacopardo, Alberto M.; Cacopardo, Augusto S. (2001). Gates of Peristan: History, Religion and Society in the Hindu Kush. IsIAO. p. 253. ISBN 978-88-6323-149-6. ...This leads us to the conclusion that the ancient dialects of the Peshawar District, the country between Tirah and Swât, must have belonged to the Tirahi-Kohistani type, and that the westernmost Dardic language, Pashai, which probably had its ancient centre in Laghmân, has enjoyed a comparatively independent position since early times". …Today the Kohistâni languages descendent from the ancient dialects that developed in these valleys have all been displaced from their original homelands, as described below.
11. Burrow, T. (1936). "The Dialectical Position of the Niya Prakrit". Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. 8 (2/3): 419–435. ISSN 1356-1898. JSTOR 608051. ... It might be going too far to say that Torwali is the direct lineal descendant of the Niya Prakrit, but there is no doubt that out of all the modern languages it shows the closest resemblance to it. A glance at the map in the Linguistic Survey of India shows that the area at present covered by "Kohistani" is the nearest to that area round Peshawar, where, as stated above, there is most reason to believe was the original home of the Niya Prakrit. That conclusion, which was reached for other reasons, is thus confirmed by the distribution of the modern dialects.
12. Dani, Ahmad Hasan (2001). History of Northern Areas of Pakistan: Upto 2000 A.D. Sang-e-Meel Publications. p. 65. ISBN 978-969-35-1231-1. In the Peshawar district, there does not remain any Indian dialect continuing this old Gandhari. The last to disappear was Tirahi, still spoken some years ago in Afghanistan, in the vicinity of Jalalabad, by descendants of migrants expelled from Tirah by the Afridis in the 19th century. Nowadays, it must be entirely extinct and in the NWFP are only to be found modern Iranian languages brought in by later immigrants (Baluch, Pashto) or Indian languages brought in by the paramount political power (Urdu, Panjabi) or by Hindu traders (Hindko).
13. Jain, Danesh; Cardona, George (2007-07-26). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge. p. 991. ISBN 978-1-135-79710-2.
14. Salomon, Richard (1998-12-10). Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages. Oxford University Press. p. 79. ISBN 978-0-19-535666-3.
15. Salomon, Allchin & Barnard 1999, p. 125.
16. Salomon, Allchin & Barnard 1999, p. 125-6.
17. Salomon, Allchin & Barnard 1999, p. 127.
18. Salomon, Allchin & Barnard 1999, p. 129.
19. Salomon, Allchin & Barnard 1999, p. 130.
20. Salomon, Allchin & Barnard 1999, p. 132.
21. Salomon, Allchin & Barnard 1999, p. 133.
22. Salomon, Allchin & Barnard 1999, p. 134.
23. Heirman & Bumbacher 2007, p. 99.
24. http://ebmp.org/ 2014-09-11 at the Wayback Machine The Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project
25. "Gāndhārī language" at Encyclopædia Iranica
26. Lancaster & Park 1979, p. 24.
27. Lancaster, Lewis R. "The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue". www.acmuller.net. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
28. Mukherjee 1996, p. 15.
29. Nakamura 1987, p. 205.

Bibliography

• Heirman, Ann; Bumbacher, Stephan Peter (2007). The Spread of Buddhism. Brill. ISBN 978-90-474-2006-4.
• "Gāndhārī language" at Encyclopædia Iranica
• Lancaster, Lewis R.; Park, Sung-bae (1979). The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-03159-3.
• Lancaster, Lewis R. "The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue". www.acmuller.net. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
• Mukherjee, B. N. (1996). India in Early Central Asia: A Survey of Indian Scripts, Languages, and Literatures in Central Asia of the First Millennium A.D. Harman Publishing House. ISBN 978-81-85151-98-4.
• Nakamura, Hajime (1987). Indian Buddhism: A Survey with Bibliographical Notes. Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 978-81-208-0272-8.
• Masica, Colin (1993). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-29944-2.
• Salomon, Richard (2008), "Gāndhārī language", Encyclopædia Iranica, Encyclopædia Iranica
• Salomon, Richard; Allchin, Raymond; Barnard, Mark (1999). Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments. University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-97769-0.
• Salomon, Richard (2006). Patrick Olivelle (ed.). Between the Empires : Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE. Oxford University Press USA. ISBN 978-0-19-977507-1.

Further reading

• Gandhari.org Complete Corpus, Catalog, Bibliography and Dictionary of Gāndhārī texts
• Gippert, Jost. "TITUS Texts: Gandhari Dharmapada: Frame". titus.uni-frankfurt.de.

See also

• Pre-Islamic scripts in Afghanistan