View source for Gandhari language

{{Short description|Ancient Indo-Aryan language of Gāndhāra}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2025}}
{{Infobox language
| name             = Gandhari
| altname          = 
| nativename       = {{lang|pgd-Khar|𐨒𐨢𐨪𐨁}} ([[Kharosthi]])<br/>{{lang|pgd-Brah|𑀕𑀸𑀦𑁆𑀥𑀸𑀭𑀻}} ([[Brahmi]])
| region           = [[Gandhāra]]
| era              = ca. 300 BCE to 100 CE
| familycolor      = Indo-European
| fam2             = [[Indo-Iranian languages|Indo-Iranian]]
| fam3             = [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan]]
| fam4             = [[Dardic languages|Dardic]]?
| script           = [[Kharosthi|Kharoṣṭhī]]
| iso3             = pgd
| linglist         = pgd.html
| glotto           = gand1259
| states           = [[Pakistan]]
}}
[[File:Manuscrit BnF pali 715-A.jpg|thumb|Incomplete [[birchbark manuscript]] of the [[Dhammapada]] in Gandhari language and [[Kharosthi|Kharoṣṭhī]] script acquired by the [[Jules-Léon Dutreuil de Rhins|Dutreuil de Rhins]] mission (1891–1894) in Central Asia. End of the 1st century to 3rd century. [[Bibliothèque nationale de France]]]]
{{Buddhism}}{{Not to be confused|Gandhari (Mahabharata)|text=}}
'''Gāndhārī''' was an [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan]] [[Prakrit]] language found mainly in texts dated between the 3rd century BCE and 4th century CE in the region of [[Gandhāra (kingdom)|Gandhāra]], located in northwestern [[Pakistan]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gandhara {{!}} Buddhist Art, Greco-Buddhist, Taxila {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Gandhara |access-date=4 May 2025 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Naveed |first=Muhammad Bin |title=Gandhara Civilization |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Gandhara_Civilization/ |access-date=8 May 2025 |website=World History Encyclopedia |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Pakistan Showcases Its Ancient Gandhara Civilization |url=https://thediplomat.com/2023/07/pakistan-showcases-its-ancient-gandhara-civilization/ |access-date=8 May 2025 |website=thediplomat.com |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=1 August 2023 |title=Pakistan: Centre of Gandhara’s Cultural Diversity |url=https://dailytimes.com.pk/1118999/pakistan-centre-of-gandharas-cultural-diversity/ |access-date=8 May 2025 |website=Daily Times |language=en-US}}</ref> The language was heavily used by the former [[Central Asian Buddhism|Buddhist cultures of Central Asia]] and has been found as far away as eastern China, in inscriptions at [[Luoyang]] and [[Anyang]].

Gandhari served as an official language of the [[Kushan Empire]] and various central Asian kingdoms, including [[Kingdom of Khotan|Khotan]] and [[Shanshan]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Salomon |first=Richard|author-link=Richard G. Salomon (professor of Asian studies)|date=2007 |title=Gāndhārī in the Worlds of India, Iran, and Central Asia |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24049371 |journal=Bulletin of the Asia Institute |volume=21 |pages=179–192 |issn=0890-4464}}</ref> 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 Basin|Mediterranean]] and for its use of the [[Kharosthi|Kharoṣṭhī]] script, compared to [[Brahmic scripts]] used by other Prakrits.

Linguistic evidence links some groups of the [[Dardic languages]] with Gandhari.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dani |first=Ahmad Hasan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MOltAAAAMAAJ&q=gandhari |title=History of Northern Areas of Pakistan: Upto 2000 A.D. |date=2001 |publisher=Sang-e-Meel Publications |isbn=978-969-35-1231-1 |pages=64–67 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Saxena |first=Anju |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vTgv1ZYGZdoC&pg=PA35 |title=Himalayan Languages: Past and Present |date=12 May 2011 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-089887-3 |pages=35 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Liljegren |first=Henrik |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gRK1CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA14 |title=A grammar of Palula |date=26 February 2016 |publisher=Language Science Press |isbn=978-3-946234-31-9 |pages=13–14 |language=en |quote=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.}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Cacopardo |first1=Alberto M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ghFuAAAAMAAJ |title=Gates of Peristan: History, Religion and Society in the Hindu Kush |last2=Cacopardo |first2=Augusto S. |date=2001 |publisher=IsIAO |isbn=978-88-6323-149-6 |pages=253 |language=en |quote=...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.}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/608051|title=The Dialectical Position of the Niya Prakrit|date=1936|journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London|volume=8|issue=2/3|pages=419–435|issn=1356-1898|quote=... 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.|last=Burrow|first=T.|jstor=608051}}</ref> The last to disappear was [[Tirahi language|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.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Dani |first=Ahmad Hasan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MOltAAAAMAAJ |title=History of Northern Areas of Pakistan: Upto 2000 A.D. |date=2001 |publisher=Sang-e-Meel Publications |isbn=978-969-35-1231-1 |pages=65 |language=en |quote=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).}}</ref> [[Georg Morgenstierne]] claimed that Tirahi is "probably the remnant of a dialect group extending from Tirah through the [[Peshawar District|Peshawar district]] into [[Swat District|Swat]] and [[Dir District|Dir]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Jain |first1=Danesh |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iUHfBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT991 |title=The Indo-Aryan Languages |last2=Cardona |first2=George |date=26 July 2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-79710-2 |pages=991 |language=en}}</ref> Nowadays, it must be entirely extinct and the region is now dominated by [[Iranian languages]] brought in by later immigrations, such as [[Pashto]].<ref name=":2" /> Among the modern day Indo-Aryan languages still spoken today, [[Torwali language|Torwali]], another language within the Dardic subgroup, shows the closest linguistic affinity possible to ''Niya'', a dialect of Gāndhārī.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Salomon |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XYrG07qQDxkC&pg=PA79 |title=Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages |date=10 December 1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-535666-3 |pages=79 |language=en}}</ref>

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 [[sibilant]]s – 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.{{sfn|Masica|1993|p=169}} Gāndhārī also preserves certain Old Indo-Aryan consonant clusters, mostly those involving v and r.{{sfn|Salomon|Allchin|Barnard|1999|p=110}} In addition, intervocalic Old Indo-Aryan th and dh are written early on with a special letter (noted by scholars as an underlined s, [<u>s</u>]), 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.{{sfn|Salomon|Allchin|Barnard|1999|p=121}}

The Middle Prakrits typically weakened th to dh, which later shifted to h.{{sfn|Masica|1993|p=180}} Kharoṣṭhī does not render the distinction between short and long vowels, so the details of that feature are not known.{{sfn|Salomon|Allchin|Barnard|1999|p=124}}

== Rediscovery and history ==
Initial identification of a distinct language occurred through study of one of the [[Āgama (Buddhism)|Buddhist āgama]]s, the ''Dīrghāgama'', which had been translated into [[Chinese language|Chinese]] by Buddhayaśas ({{zh|c=佛陀耶舍}}) and Zhu Fonian ({{zh|c=竺佛念}}).

{{Blockquote|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 [[Kingdom of Khotan|Khotan]] ''[[Dharmapada]]''. In 1946, Bailey identified this Prākrit, which he named Gāndhārī, as corresponding to the language of most Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions from Northwestern India.{{sfn|Heirman|Bumbacher|2007|p=97}}}}

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|reason=The previous citation, to Bumbacher 2008, p.97, is incorrect, the book has nothing by this author at this page|date=April 2020}}

Available evidence also indicates that the first Buddhist missions to Khotan were carried out by the Dharmaguptaka sect, and used a Kharoṣṭhī-written Gāndhārī.{{sfn|Heirman|Bumbacher|2007|p=98}}
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.

{{Blockquote|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 [[Sarvastivada|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.{{sfn|Heirman|Bumbacher|2007|p=99}}}}

Starting in the first century of the common era, there was a large trend toward a type of Gāndhārī which was heavily Sanskritized.{{sfn|Heirman|Bumbacher|2007|p=99}}

==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.{{sfn|Salomon|Allchin|Barnard|1999|p=125}} 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 consonant]]s were never lost.{{sfn|Salomon|Allchin|Barnard|1999|p=125-6}} 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]].{{sfn|Salomon|Allchin|Barnard|1999|p=127}}

In Central Asian Gāndhārī, there is often confusion in writing nasals with homorganic stops;{{sfn|Salomon|Allchin|Barnard|1999|p=129}} it is unclear if this might represent assimilation of the stop or the appearance of [[prenasalized consonant]]s 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'".{{sfn|Salomon|Allchin|Barnard|1999|p=130}} Nonetheless, there was still at least a rudimentary system of [[grammatical case]].{{sfn|Salomon|Allchin|Barnard|1999|p=132}} 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.{{sfn|Salomon|Allchin|Barnard|1999|p=133}}

== 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''.{{sfn|Salomon|Allchin|Barnard|1999|p=134}}

==Buddhist manuscripts in Gāndhāri==
Until 1994, the only Gāndhāri manuscript available to the scholars was a [[birch bark manuscript]] of a Buddhist text, the ''[[Dhammapada|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,<ref>http://ebmp.org/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140911211001/http://ebmp.org/ |date=11 September 2014 }} The Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project</ref> were discovered in eastern Afghanistan and Western Pakistan. These include:<ref>{{iranica|GĀNDHĀRĪ-LANGUAGE|Gāndhārī language}}</ref>

* 29 fragments of birch-bark scrolls of British Library collection consisting of parts of the ''Dharmapada'', ''[[Anavatapta]] Gāthā'', the ''[[Rhinoceros Sutra|Rhinoceros Sūtra]]'', ''[[Sangitiparyaya]]'' and a collection of sutras from the ''[[Ekottara Agama|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 [[Buddhist texts#Pure Land Sūtras|Pure Land sūtras]] were brought from Gandhāra to [[China]] as early as 147 CE, when the [[Kushan Empire|Kushan]] monk [[Lokaksema (Buddhist monk)|Lokakṣema]] began translating the first Buddhist sutras into Chinese.{{sfn|Lancaster|Park|1979|p=24}}<ref>{{cite web|last1=Lancaster|first1=Lewis R.|title=The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue|url=http://www.acmuller.net/descriptive_catalogue/files/k0024.html|website=www.acmuller.net|access-date=4 September 2017}}</ref> The earliest of these translations show evidence of having been translated from Gāndhārī.{{sfn|Mukherjee|1996|p=15}} It is also known that manuscripts in the Kharoṣṭhī script existed in China during this period.{{sfn|Nakamura|1987|p=205}}

==See also==
*[[Pre-Islamic scripts in Afghanistan]]

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

===Bibliography===
* {{cite book|last1=Heirman|first1=Ann|last2=Bumbacher|first2=Stephan Peter|title=The Spread of Buddhism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NuOvCQAAQBAJ|year=2007|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-474-2006-4}}
* {{iranica|GĀNDHĀRĪ-LANGUAGE|Gāndhārī language}}
* {{cite book|last1=Lancaster|first1=Lewis R.|author-link1=Lewis R. Lancaster|last2=Park|first2=Sung-bae|author-link2=Sung-bae Park|title=The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fx1grPgzHEMC&pg=PA15|year=1979|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-03159-3}}
* {{cite web|last1=Lancaster|first1=Lewis R.|title=The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue|url=http://www.acmuller.net/descriptive_catalogue/files/k0024.html|website=www.acmuller.net|access-date=4 September 2017}}
* {{cite book|last=Mukherjee|first=B. N.|author-link=B. N. Mukherjee|title=India in Early Central Asia: A Survey of Indian Scripts, Languages, and Literatures in Central Asia of the First Millennium A.D.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HltjAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA15|year=1996|publisher=Harman Publishing House|isbn=978-81-85151-98-4}}
* {{cite book|last=Nakamura|first=Hajime|author-link=Hajime Nakamura|title=Indian Buddhism: A Survey with Bibliographical Notes|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w0A7y4TCeVQC&pg=PA205|year=1987|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|isbn=978-81-208-0272-8}}
* {{cite book|last=Masica|first=Colin|author-link=Colin Masica|title=The Indo-Aryan Languages|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J3RSHWePhXwC|year=1993|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-29944-2}}
* {{Citation| last  = Salomon| first = Richard| contribution = Gāndhārī language| title = Encyclopædia Iranica| publisher = Encyclopædia Iranica | date = 2008 | contribution-url = http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/gandhari-language}}
* {{cite book|last1=Salomon|first1=Richard|last2=Allchin|first2=Raymond|author-link2=Raymond Allchin|last3=Barnard|first3=Mark|title=Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dm8aXSwL0OgC|year=1999|publisher=University of Washington Press|isbn=978-0-295-97769-0}}
* {{cite book|last=Salomon|first=Richard|editor=Patrick Olivelle|editor-link=Patrick Olivelle|title=Between the Empires : Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=efaOR_-YsIcC|year=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press USA|isbn=978-0-19-977507-1}}

==Further reading==
*[https://gandhari.org Gandhari.org] Complete Corpus, Catalog, Bibliography and Dictionary of Gāndhārī texts
* {{cite web|last1=Gippert|first1=Jost|title=TITUS Texts: Gandhari Dharmapada: Frame|url=http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/etcs/ind/mind/gandhpkt/dhpgpkt/dhpgp.htm|website=titus.uni-frankfurt.de}}

{{Old and Middle Indo-Aryan}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gandhari Language}}
[[Category:Indo-Aryan languages]]
[[Category:Buddhism in Afghanistan]]
[[Category:Buddhism in Pakistan]]
[[Category:Prakrit languages]]