Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/319

 BUDDHISM AND BRAHMANISM 277 ism. The newer form of Buddhism had much in common with the older Hinduism, and the relation is so close that even an expert often feels a difficulty in deciding to which system a particular image should be assigned. Brahmanical Hinduism was the religion of the pan- dits, whose sacred language was Sanskrit, a highly artificial literary modification of the vernacular speech of the Panjab. As the influence of the pandits upon prince and peasant waxed greater in matters of religion and social observance, the use of their special vehicle of expression became more widely diffused, and gradu- ally superseded the vernacular in all documents of a formal or official character. In the third century B. c. Asoka had been content to address his commands to his people in language easy to be understood by the vulgar, but in the middle of the second century A. D. the western satrap Rudradaman felt that his achieve- ments could be adequately commemorated only in elab- orate Sanskrit. It is impossible to go more deeply into the subject in these pages, but it is certain that the revival of the Brahmanical religion was accom- panied by the diffusion and extension of Sanskrit, the sacred language of the Brahmans. Whatever may have been the causes, the fact is abundantly established that the restoration of the Brah- manical religion to popular favour, and the associated revival of the Sanskrit language, first became notice- able in the second century, were fostered by the western satraps during the third, and made a success by the Gupta emperors in the fourth century. These princes,