The synthetic declension of Sanskrit and Prakrit has been preserved in Marathi more completely than in any other Indo-Aryan language. While Maharastri Prakrit, like all others, passed through the Apabhramsa stage in the course of its development, the conservative character of the language retained even in that stage some of the old pure Maharastri forms. In the article PRAKRIT we have seen how there gradually arose a laxity in distinguishing the cases. In Maharastri the Sanskrit dative fell into almost entire disuse, the genitive being used in its place, while in Apabhramsa the case terminations become worn down to -_hu_, -_ho_, -_hi_, -_hi_ and -_ha_, of which -_hi_ and -_hi_ were employed for several cases, both singular and plural. There was also a marked tendency for these terminations to become confused, so that in the earliest stages of most of the modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars we find -_hi_ freely employed for any oblique case of the singular, and -_hi_ for any oblique case of the plural. Another feature of Prakrit was the simplification of the complicated declensional system of Sanskrit by assimilating it in all cases to the declension of _a_-bases, corresponding to the first and second declensions in Latin. In the formation of the plural the Prakrit declensions are very closely followed by Marathi. We shall confine our remarks to _a_-bases, which may be either weak or strong forms, and of which the feminine ends sometimes in _a_, and sometimes in _i_. In Prakrit the nom. plur. of these nouns ends masc. _a_, fem. _ao_, _io_, neut. _aim_. We thus get the following:--