Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/178



Chhāndasa, i.e.,  the   Vedic language of old, has been spoken of in these lectures, by implication generally, as the source-head from which the Indian Aryan speeches of all times and of all provinces have evolved. I am aware, some noted European names are associated with theories, which run counter to this proposition or assumption; but as those theories rest wholly upon the authority of noted names, and not on facts which can be handled and discussed, no one can possibly combat them: facts, I have adduced before, I adduce presently in this lecture, and I shall have to adduce in subsequent lectures, should all be considered together, to test the correctness of my proposition. I have stated in some detail, of the influence of the speakers of non-Aryan tongues, to explain various deviations from the norm; I shall try to show in this, as well as in another subsequent lecture, how in a prākṛta or natural way, many Prākṛtas or provincial vernaculars arose from Chhāndasa, and how the ever-progressing Prākṛita speeches went on modifying and being in turn modified by the literary language of curious genesis, which has come to be designated as Sanskrit. It will be seen, how failing to notice the influence of a mixed people, in the matter of formation of the Prākṛta speeches, and how failing to observe the influence, which could not but be exercised by the living vernaculars, upon an  artificially set-up literary language, some philologists (Dr. C. C. Ullenbeck, whose words I presently quote, is one of them) have asserted that "the Sanskrit dialect of middle country