Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/209

Rh and our বাশ is exactly the instrument which is used by the carpenters. (15) শিম্বল—its synonym শাল্‌মলী is in use in Sanskrit, while our শিমুল comes directly from শিম্বল through the medium of Pāli. (16) স্কম্ভ (not স্তম্ভ which is a sepa­rate word, and from which we have got থাম a pillar) has its অপভ্রংশ form খাম্বা or খাম in Bengali; it signifies a prop and so is closely related to স্তম্ভ in meaning.

I speak of a few other words in this connection, though to illustrate a different phenomenon. The words গাত্র (limb), দাত্র (knife), etc., of the Vedic, were formed with the suffix ত্র, and as such the words গা and দা, as original words, may be supposed to have existed in an once-existing dialect. Coming through Sanskrit, 'গাত্র' has been reduced to গতর্ in some vernaculars, but গা and দা seem to have come to us like the words just set forth in the above list, through some provincial dialects, of which no trace can now be obtained. As not altogether irrelevant, I cite the history of another word here. The word 'কপাল' indicating skull or skull-bone, though of pure Vedic origin, was regarded as unfit to be uttered by the holy people (at least in Patanjali's time), on account of its gruesome association; the euphemistic term ভগাল was recommended for substitution. We know, however, that the fate of কপাল was not doomed in Sanskrit, but it is curious that this euphemistic word ভগাল had the ill-luck of earning for itself the very unpleasant idea, which it was intended to dispel; the slightly-changed form of ভগাল as ভাগাড় denotes in Bengali, the place where dead animals are allowed to rot and the bones of the animals bleach in the sun.

From the cumulative evidence it is rather clear that the literary Vedic speech stood in a close relationship with many provincial dialects, some of which at least continued through all ages, to live to be transformed into later vernaculars, and that the Classical Sanskrit,