Sanscrit Writing and Language. 125 



has strangely been laid hold of as a mark of its great antiquity ; but leads, as I 

 conceive, to quite another result, and chiefly serves to show its artificial origin. 



It is unnecessary to go farther into particulars under this head ; many others 

 probably will occur to the Sanscrit scholar, bearing the same way ; but a 

 sufficient number, I apprehend, has already been adduced to establish, beyond all 

 doubt, the fact that the language in question owes the original production of a 

 great part of its structure, not to causes naturally operating on the human mind, 

 but altogether to artificial contrivance. Now what conceivable motive, except 

 that which I have suggested, could have influenced men to take the trouble of 

 artificially framing this most troublesome and complicated in its frame-work of 

 all languages ? Upon the whole, then, there are three properties of the San- 

 scrit tongue to which I have endeavoured chiefly to direct attention; 1. the 

 subtilty of its grammar ; 2. the infusion into it of Greek and Latin as well as of 

 German ; 3. its artificial formation. But with those properties the view which 

 I have submitted to the reader is not merely compatible upon general principles, 

 but its congruity with them is sustained and borne out by the historic evidence 

 of analogous cases ; while on the other hand, the opinion which has hitherto pre- 

 vailed on the subject is wholly irreconcileable with every one of the three. 



The statement which I wish to place before the Royal Irish Academy 

 respecting the nature, age, and origin of the Sanscrit, both writing and language, 

 is now concluded, as far as it depends on the immediate investigation of the sub- 

 ject in question. But as considerations drawn from astronomical science lend a 

 great accession of strength to my argument, — not only in showing that the 

 authority of the Brahmans, which is entirely opposed to my representation, is 

 entitled to no sort of attention, but also in other ways ; — I think it right to avail 

 myself briefly of the collateral support which I can thence derive ; for which 

 purpose I shall chiefly refer to two articles of J. Bentley, Esq., inserted in the 

 sixth and eighth volumes of the Asiatic Researches. These articles are well 

 worth reading on their own account, and afford a happy illustration of the force 

 with which mathematical skill may be sometimes brought to bear upon subjects 

 that are not purely of a scientific nature ; but my description of them, confined 

 as it must be within narrow limits, and destitute of the explanatory aid which 

 examples of calculations actually worked supply, will, I fear, convey but a very 



