in the triple Inscriptions of the Persians, &c. 259 
investigation ; and I consider it a fortunate circumstance that he commenced 
operations with the first kind of cuneiform writing, in which his researches have 
proved really useful, before wasting much of his time and labour on the project 
of extracting alphabetic designations from the other two kinds,—a project which 
I expect to be able to show, with respect to one at least, if not to both of them, 
is utterly chimerical and hopeless. 
2. Although the Sanscrit is very generally held to be older than the language 
of the Persian inscriptions in the first kind of cuneiform writing, yet, I apprehend, 
it can be proved to be of later formation, even through the admissions of those 
who maintain the opposite opinion. It is now, I believe, on all sides allowed that 
the Zend,—which appears to be a corrupt dialect and early derivative of the 
sacred tongue of the Brahmans,—approaches, in point of grammar, nearer than 
modern Sanscrit to the language of Darius, transmitted to us in the above- 
mentioned legends; and also that the dialect of the Vedas, which is yet more 
ancient, comes in this respect still nearer to it than does the Zend; or, in other 
words, it is virtually conceded that the older the form of the Sanscrit is to which 
we look, the more closely its grammar is found to agree with that of the language 
in question. Hence, I submit, it may be fairly inferred, not only that this latter 
tongue is the elder of the two, but also that it is the main foundation on which 
the grammatical structure of the former one has been erected. 
3. The detection of the groundwork of the Sanscrit, now at length arrived 
at, powerfully corroborates the proofs brought forward in the second part of my 
Treatise ‘‘on the ancient Orthography of the Jews,” in support of the view there 
given of the cause and mode of the formation of this dialect. For, why should 
the Brahmans have resorted to a foreign language, or any modification thereof, as 
a medium of communication ? It was not forced upon them by an invasion of 
foreigners ; if it had, it would have been more generally diffused, and not con- 
fined, as it was at first, to the priesthood, or, as it still is, to the educated classes 
of society in India ; neither was it adopted for the purpose of conveying the reli- 
gious tenets of Zoroaster,—the Hindu priests never yielded admission to those 
tenets. How else, then, can the introduction of a modified form of the oldest 
Persian dialect that was at the time accessible, be so naturally accounted for, as 
by the position I have elsewhere maintained, upon various grounds, that the 
Brahmans, in imitation of the ancient priests of Egypt, formed, for the purpose 
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