Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/218

196 Pāli, which denotes a particular class of Prākṛta of the olden time, but I discuss the question to remove the wrong notions which this term, as well as the term prākṛta may generate, regarding the origin, position, and value of the obsolete speeches of India.

The Character of Pāli.—I have tried to show in the previous lecture, that if we look into the evidence furnished by a comparative study of the early and later forms of Vedic speech, and if again we compare the Vedic speech as a whole, with Classical Sanskrit, we are led to the conclusion, that the old Grammarians seized on the salient features of the Vedic speech, and moulded them into one harmonious whole, to create a hieratic language. I have moreover set forth some facts, which make it probable, that even when Chhāndasa continued to be a living literary language, some provincial vernaculars (though derived originally from Chhāndasa) co-existed with Chhāndasa as closely related dialects. One fact indeed can never be doubted, that when the priestly class was busy in reviving, or in maintaining the purity of the Chhāndasa speech, the Aryan people in general spoke one form or another of the Aryan speech, which must be designated as Prākṛta. How far Pāli is removed from a Prākṛta speech, which co-existed with, or succeeded immediately to the latest phase of the Chhāndasa speech, is perhaps impossible to determine now, but that the early Pāli may be regarded to be closely allied to Chhāndasa, is admitted by all scholars.

I have pointed out in the previous lecture, that by unmeaning retention of the dual forms and of the tense systems of Chhāndasa, Classical Sanskrit reveals its own artificial character, while the structure of the Pāli language, discloses a natural modification or change of the early Aryan language. To show that how in some other