Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/80

58 mountaineers, is clear from some statements in the Vājasaneyi (XXX, 16, etc.) and in other later Saṁhitas. These hilly people have been mentioned however in Manu (X, 44) as Vrātya Kṣatriyas. We get in the Brāhmaṇa literature, in connection with the story of Asamāti, that the Kirāta priests, who knew charms came into prominence in the Aryan society. I cannot say if the dark yellow colour of skin ascribed to the Kṣatriyas in the Kāṭhaka (কাঠক) Saṁhitā, has anything to do with Kirāta (কিরাত) inter-mixture. The Kirāta cult of magical charms and mystic mantras being universal in Northern India, a special influence of the Kirātas in Bengal cannot be formulated.

It is true that in Eastern as well as in Northern Bengal, direct Mongolian influence can be formulated from some known facts of history. It is also true that the inability to articulate ড় and ঢ় occurs in some eastern districts only, but not in Northern Bengal. The consonants of চ class, however, are made very much palatal in Eastern Bengal, unlike what the Mongolians do, while these consonants are made semi-dentals or rather pronounced by almost closing the teeth, in Central Bengal. This question, however, will be discussed in a subsequent lecture.

It is really very curious, that some peculiarities which are doubtless due to Dravidian influence, have been sought to be explained by some eminent philologists by a cause other than the real one. Such an eminent scholar as Sir Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar considers such changes in the oldest known Prākṛta, as ধম্মো for ধর্ম, সঙ্কপ্পো for সঙ্কল্প, সিলোক for শ্লোক, etc., to be due to the natural vocal tendencies of the Aryan speakers themselves. Explanation for these changes was not sought anywhere outside the mouth of the speakers, as the influence of the Dravidians who now reside far away from the limits of Northern India, could not be thought of forty years ago, when the Wilson