Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/260

238 Northern Bengal. Huen Tsiang records in the 7th century A. D., that the then short-statured people of Assam, who had no faith in Buddha and who were worshippers of Devas, spoke a dialect which was a little different from Māgadhi. The difference that existed in those days between the speeches of Bengal and Assam, was no doubt due to what the Chinese traveller has sug­gested in a short sentence: in the first place, the then short-statured people of Assam differed ethnically from the people of Bengal, and in the second place, because of non-adherence to the Buddhistic faith on the part of the people of Assam, the culture of Magadha could not flow freely into that country. That in later times religious differences disappeared, and for some time during the rule of the so-called Pāla Rajas, Assam came directly under the influence of Bengal, are too well known to be repeated here. We may notice, that in many particulars Assamese agrees with the provincial dialect of Rangpur, which retains nothing but the old Bengali forms; we shall also see from examples which will be adduced in the next lecture, that many grammatical forms of old Bengal which were once abbreviated on the soil of Bengal itself, are current, in Assamese. Another fact need be pointed out. We shall presently see that the main stream of Oriya language flowed into Orissa, through Bengal. It is a striking phenomenon that there are some linguistic peculiarities, wherein Oriya agrees with Assamese, and differs from Bengali. This phenomenon can only be explained by this, that Bengal as a progressive country has altered the early forms, while the archaic forms have been retained in Orissa and Assam. We can safely hold, that the Māgadhi language, as was once fashioned and modified on the soil of Bengal, got into Assam to take a fresh root there to develop into a new language under the influence of a language altogether