Shauraseni Prakrit

Shauraseni Prakrit (Sanskrit: शौरसेनी प्राकृत, Śaurasenī Prākṛta) was a Middle Indo-Aryan language and a Dramatic Prakrit. Shauraseni was the chief language used in drama in northern medieval India. Most of the material in this language originates from the 3rd to 10th centuries, though it was probably a spoken vernacular around the 2nd century BCE in the ancient state of Surasena. Among the Prakrits, Shauraseni is said to be the one most closely related to Classical Sanskrit in that it "is derived from the Old Indo-Aryan of the Madhyadeśa on which Classical Sanskrit was mainly based."[1]^:3–4 Its descendants include the languages of the Hindi Belt, the Central Zone of modern Indo-Aryan or Hindi languages, the standard registers of the Hindustani language based on the Delhi dialect.[2]

Jain acharyas belonging to the Digambara sect wrote in Shauraseni. The Ṣaṭkhaṅḍāgama and the Kāsāyapahuḍa are two major Jain epics in Shauraseni.