Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/375

Rh power, copiousness, refinement, and flexibility. “Any number of new terms,” says Mr. Hodgson, applying to the Indian Pracrits a remark made by Sir respecting German, “any number of new terms, as clear to the mind and as little startling to the ear as the oldest works in the languages, may be introduced into Hindi and Bengali from Sanscrit, owing to the peculiar genius of the latter, with much more facility than we can introduce new terms into English; nor does the task of introducing such new terms into the Indian vernacular imply or exact more than the most ordinary skill or labor on the part of the conductors of education so long as they disconnect not themselves wholly from Indian literature.”

Fourth.—The Sanscrit language is the common medium of communication between the learned in the different countries and provinces inhabited by the Hindu race, however differing from each other in dialect, manners, and customs. A Hindu educated in the learning, peculiar to his faith and nation, need not be, and is not, a stranger in any of them, although possessing no personal acquaintance, and although ignorant of the dialect of the country or province to which he may have proceeded. This is found to be a great practical convenience in the performance of the numerous pilgrimages which piety or superstition enjoins. By the same means also the learned productions of one province or country in time become the common property of all the learned throughout India. In the Bengal schools of learning young men, both from the western and southern provinces of India, are found pursuing their studies, and Bengalis, after finishing their studies in Bengal, often proceed into the western provinces for the purpose of acquiring those branches of learning which are not usually cultivated here. Sanscrit, without the secrecy, has thus all the advantages of the masonic sign and countersign. It is a pass-word to the hearts and understandings of the learned throughout India. In consequence of this established mutual interchange of knowledge, if any improvement can be introduced into the system of instruction in the schools of learning of Bengal and Behar, we may hope that it will gradually work its way among the entire learned body throughout the country.

Fifth.—All the learning, divine and human, of the Hindus, is contained in the Sanscrit language. Religion, philosophy, law, literature, and medicine; all the learning that enters into the daily practices of their faith and is connected with the etablishedestablished [sic] customs of their race, their productions of taste and imagination, and the results of their experience of life and manners, all are found in the Sanscrit language, and in that only as their source and repository. Doctrine, opinion, and practice; the duties of the present life and the hopes of the future; the controversies of sects and the feuds of families, are ultimately determinable by authorities