Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/29

Rh the credit of having polished the Vedic language, called this language by the name "Chhāndasa" and described what is now called Sanskrit by the term "Laukika-Bhāṣā" (or current language). Grierson could not but have noticed the matter in Pānini's book, but he has not attempted to explain it. The great oriental scholar must also have noticed in Pānini's Grammar that the Chhāndasa language was an object of reverential study, and nobody could even dare to handle it with a view to reform it. There are stringent rules that under no circumstances the Vedic form should be deviated from; it has been stated that to do so will be to commit sin. I should not discuss the point at any further length, for later on I shall have to deal with the character of the Vedic language in an independent lecture. The reasons why the Classical Sanskrit varied from the Vedic language will be discussed in its proper place. I have only suggested here that the history of a language involves the history of the people speaking it, and as such we cannot trace it by philological research alone.

If we exclude the recently acquired district of Darjeeling from the political map of Bengal, the entire indigenous population of the Presidency of Bengal will be found to be wholly Bengali-speaking. The district of Sylhet to the north of the Chittagong Division and the district of Manbhum to the west of the Burdwan Division, though falling outside the Presidency of Bengal, are but Bengali-speaking tracts and nearly three million souls live in those two districts. By eliminating the exotic elements from the Bengali-speaking areas indicated above, we get a population of not less than fifty million that has Bengali for its mother-tongue. It is quite an interesting history how Bengali was evolved, and how it became the dominating