Page:Monier Monier-Williams - Indian Wisdom.djvu/33

 means to an end, came to be treated by Indian Pandits as the end itself, and was subtilized into an intricate science, fenced around by a bristling barrier of technicalities. The language, too, elaborated paripassu with the grammar, rejected the natural name of Hindu-!, or ' the speech of the Hindus,' and adopted an artificial designation, viz. Sanskrifa,' the perfectly constructed speech' (sii/// = m>v, run, kritn =facli/s,' formed'), to denote its complete severance from vulgar purposes, and its exclusive dedication to religion and literature ; while the name Prdkrila—which may mean 'the original" as well as 'the derived'1 speech—was assigned to the common dialect. This of itself is a remarkable circumstance ; for, although a similar kind of separation has happened in Europe, yet we do not find that Latin and Greek ceased to be called Latin and Greek when they became the language of the learned, any more than we have at present distinct names for the common dialect and literary language of modern nations.

The Sanskrit dramas afford a notable specimen of this linguistic elaboration on the one side, and disintegration on the other (see p. 469). The two forms of speech thus evolved may be compared to two children of the same parent—the one, called Sanskrit, refined by every appliance of art; the other, called Prakrit, allowed to run more or less wild.

The present spoken languages of India—Bengali, Uriya or Oriya (of Odra-desa Orissa), MarathI, Gujarati, Panjabi, and Hindi', with its modifications—represent Prakrit2 in its later stages of decom-

1 By Hindi I mean the speech of the Hindus as represented by the Preni Sagar, and the Ramayana of Tulasi Das. According to Dr. Fitz- Edward Hall, the Prem Sagar does not furnish a model of the most classical Hindi. There is certainly a modern literary Hindi which borrows largely from pure Sanskrit, and another which is so mixed with Arabic and Persian words as to receive another name, Hindustani (p. xxxi, note). Besides Hindi and Hindustani and the languages above named, there are SindhI, Kasmlri, Nepalese, Assamese, Pushtu (of Afghanistan), Sinhalese (of Ceylon), Burmese, the five Dravidian (xxx, 2), and the half Dravidian Brahu-i. See Mr. Beanies' valuable Comparative Grammar.

2 The various kinds of Prakrit introduced into the Sanskrit dramas (the two principal forms of which—Maharashtri and S'auraseni—are explained by Vararuci in his grammar, the Prakrita-prakdsa, edited by Professor E. B. Cowell) represent the last stage of development in the direction of the modern vernaculars. The earlier form of the ancient spoken language, called Pali or Mayadlu, has a grammar and extensive litera ture of its own, the stud}' of which will be greatly facilitated by the Dictionary of Mr. H. C. Childers. Pali was introduced into Ceylon by Buddhist missionaries from Magadha when Buddhism began to sprea'i, and is now the sacred language of Ceylon and Burmnh, in which all their Buddhist literature is written. Singularly enough, it found a kindred dialect established iu Ceylon, which had developed into the present Sinhalese. Pali is closely connected with, and was probably preceded by the language of the Rock Inscriptions of the second and third centuries B.c. The language of the Gathas, as found in the Lalita-vistara (sec p. 55, note i) of the Northern Buddhists of Nepal, is thought by some to be a still earlier form of the popular language; so that four separate stages of Prakrit, using that term generally for the spoken languages of the people which preceded the modern vernaculars, can be traced: I. the Gathas; 2. the Inscriptions; 3. the Pali; 4. the Prakrit of the plays. (Professor E. B. (Jewell's edition of Colebrooke's Essays, II. 21.)