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 goldsmiths, and even out-caste Mahars, besides some women, including slave—girls and repentant prostitutes.

"The struggle between the claims of the classical sanskrit and the vernaculars is thus an old conﬂict, the issues in which were decided in favour of the living languages long ago, and whatever scholars and antiquarians may urge to the contrary, there can only be one answer to the question—the answer which was given by the saints and prophets when they laid Sanskrit aside as useless for their work, and spent all their energies in the cultivation and growth of their mother tongue. It may be said that the growth of the modern vernaculars is solely the result of the labours of these saints and that the provinces which showed most decided tendencies in the way of reform, also showed the most healthy development of their vernacular literature."

Sir George Grierson says:—"Desi Marathi is simply the standard form of the languages spoken in its purity round Poona.… Marathi has a copious literature of great popularity. The poets wrote in the true vernacular of the country and used a vocabulary mostly composed of honest tadbhavas … The earlestearliest [sic] writers whose works have come down to us are Namdeva and Dhyanoba, who flourished at the