PRAKRIT(präkrta, “common,” as contrasted with saryskrta, u perfect ”) is the term applied to the vernacular languages of India derived from Sanskrit. In the Sanskrit drama all except the highest male characters speak Prakrit. Prakrit grammar was written in the Hindu scientific style—on the lines of Pänini—by Vararuci, one of the “nine gems” of Vikramäditya’s court, and by Hemacandra; these grammarians distinguish at least four different kinds of Prakrit, the relations and localization of which are by no means clear. The word Prakrit is sometimes used of all the still spoken Aryan vernaculars of India. See Sanskrit.