Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit

Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (BHS) is a modern linguistic category applied to the language used in a class of Indian Buddhist texts, such as the Perfection of Wisdom sutras. BHS is classified as a Middle Indo-Aryan language. It is sometimes called "Buddhist Sanskrit" or "Mixed Sanskrit".

Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit writings emerged after the codification in the 4th century BCE of Classical Sanskrit by the scholar Pāṇini. His standardized version of the language that had evolved from the ancient Vedic came to be known as "Sanskrit", meaning "refined", "completely formed", "put together", or "constructed".

Prior to this, Buddhist teachings are not known to have generally been recorded in the language of the Brahmanical elites. At the time of the Buddha, instruction in this language was restricted to members of the dvija castes. While Gautama Buddha was probably familiar with what is now called Sanskrit, his teachings were apparently first promulgated in local languages. At one point he ruled against translating his teachings into Vedic, saying that to do so would be foolish—Vedic was by that time an archaic and obsolete language.

After Pāṇini's work, Sanskrit became the pre-eminent language for literature and philosophy in India. Buddhist monks began to adapt the language they used to it while remaining under the influence of a linguistic tradition stemming from the proto-canonical Prakrit of the early oral tradition. While there are widely differing theories regarding the relationship of this language to Pali, it is certain that Pāli is much closer to this language than Sanskrit is.

According to K. R. Norman, Pāli could also be considered a form of BHS. However, Franklin Edgerton states that Pāli is in essence a Prakrit.

In many places where BHS differs from Sanskrit it is closer to, or identical with, Pāli. However, most extant BHS works were originally written in BHS, rather than being reworkings or translations of already existing works in Pāli or other languages. However, earlier works, mostly from the Mahāsāṃghika school, use a form of "mixed Sanskrit" in which the original Prakrit has been incompletely Sanskritised, with the phonetic forms being changed to the Sanskrit versions, but the grammar of Prakrit being retained. For instance, Prakrit bhikkhussa, the possessive singular of bhikkhu (monk, cognate with Sanskrit bhikṣu) is converted not to bhikṣoḥ as in Sanskrit but mechanically changed to bhikṣusya.

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