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 medieval northern India. Most of the material in this language originates from the 3rd to 10th centuries, and represented a regional language variety with minor modifications to the same linguistic substratum as other Dramatic Prakrit varieties.^[1] It may be based on the spoken vernacular around the 2nd century BC 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 Indian Indo-Aryan dialect of the Madhyadeśa on which Classical Sanskrit was mainly based."^[2]: 3–4 Its descendants include the Punjabi, Western Hindi branch of the Central Indo-Aryan language family.^[3]