“Language of the Snakes” available for download or purchase

One of our blog members, Andrew Ollett, has recently published Language of the Snakes: Prakrit, Sanskrit, and the Language Order of Premodern India with University of California Press. Not only are congratulations in order for the book, but on his choosing a publishing manner which allows free downloads (The book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution + Noncommercial + NoDerivatives 4.0). If you aren’t a Kindle or iPad reader, and prefer to have a paper copy instead (or in addition), you can purchase a hard copy through the link above. About the book:

Language of the Snakes traces the history of the Prakrit language as a literary phenomenon, starting from its cultivation in courts of the Deccan in the first centuries of the common era. Although little studied today, Prakrit was an important vector of the kāvya movement and once joined Sanskrit at the apex of classical Indian literary culture. The opposition between Prakrit and Sanskrit was at the center of an enduring “language order” in India, a set of ways of thinking about, naming, classifying, representing, and ultimately using languages. As a language of classical literature that nevertheless retained its associations with more demotic language practices, Prakrit both embodies major cultural tensions—between high and low, transregional and regional, cosmopolitan and vernacular—and provides a unique perspective onto the history of literature and culture in South Asia.