SANSKRIT LANGUAGE 



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SANSKRIT LANGUAGE 



1917 disaster rebuilding plans were again 

 started. 



As the capital of the most densely populated 

 republic of Central America (see SALVADOR), 

 San Salvador was an important business and 

 railway center. It had three banks and a num- 

 ber of manufacturing establishments, and car- 

 ried on a thriving trade in coffee, tobacco, rub- 

 ber, sugar and other agricultural products. The 

 city was one of the most attractive in Central 

 America, with picturesque adobe houses, in a 

 setting of luxuriant growths of fruit trees and 

 palms, spacious parks and tropical gardens. 

 Among the many fine buildings were the na- 

 tional palace, where the legislature held its 

 sessions, a handsome university building, the 

 chamber of commerce, the Roman Catholic 

 Cathedral and an astronomical observatory. 

 The city maintained several hospitals and a 

 number of charitable institutions. At the time 

 of the last disaster its population was estimated 

 to be 75,000. Though the people were rendered 

 homeless, it was reported there were few lives 

 lost. 



SAN'SKRIT LANGUAGE AND LITERA- 

 TURE. Sanskrit was the sacred and literary 

 language of ancient India. It is divided into 

 two periods, Old Sanskrit, called Vedic Sanskrit 

 or simply Vedic, in which the Vedas were writ- 



SPECIMEN OF SANSKRIT 

 Translation: (a) Two crows dwell In the tree; 

 (5) The god speaks; (c) Why does the son not 

 remember the father? 



ten, and classical Sanskrit, the literary remains 

 of which are chiefly on subjects other than re- 

 ligious. The time of the introduction of San- 

 >knf into India cannot be even approximately 

 known, but 1500 B.C. is the date generally 

 assigned. For a period, uncertain in its length, 

 it was the common speech of the people as well 

 as the literary language, but by the first or sec- 

 ond century B.C. it had become merely classical, 

 a means of communication, both written 

 spoken, between the learned, but entirely dis- 

 carded as a language of the people. In 

 more or less artificial and classical form it exists 

 to-day. 



Its Position of Importance. Sanskrit may not 



be dismissed by the student of languages with 



a careless word simply because it has no present 



1 existence. Since it came to the knowledge 



of Europeans in the latter half of the eight- 



eenth century it has exercised a profound in- 

 fluence on the scholarship of the world. Com- 

 parative philology, comparative mythology and 

 comparative religion are the direct outgrowth 

 of its study. For Sanskrit, by the very fact 

 that it has survived through so many centuries 

 as a merely formal speech, has not been subject 

 to the constant changes which creep into the 

 common speech of a people, and consequently 

 preserves in purer form than any other of the 

 Indo-European languages the characteristics of 

 the common stock from which these all sprang. 

 The real understanding of the development of 

 such important languages as Greek, Latin, Eng- 

 lish and German has been made possible, 

 therefore, largely by the possession of Sanskrit 

 as a means of comparison. 



Developed a Great Literature. Interest in 

 Sanskrit is not due entirely to its linguistic 

 value, for it possesses a literature well worthy 

 of study for its own sake. In a wider sense 

 this literature includes the Vedas, the sacred 

 Hindu books which constitute the oldest work 

 in any Indo-European language. Sanskrit lit- 

 erature proper, as distinguished from the Vedic, 

 is entirely secular, as stated above, and its 

 greatest monuments are the epics known as the 

 Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Other epics 

 less noteworthy than these exist, together with 

 lyric and didactic poetry, narratives, and even 

 dramas. Though the Hindus claim a great 

 antiquity for their drama, there seems no real 

 reason for placing its beginnings before tin- 

 fifth or sixth century of the Christian Era. Nor 

 is it possible to state that it was entirely a 

 product of that country, many scholars seeing 

 in it distinct traces of Greek influence. In 

 general, the themes are taken from Hindu leg- 

 end or history, and the characters are types 

 rather than individuals. 



Most interesting of all to students, however, 

 are the beast-fables and fairy talcs, for in these 

 is evident a very close connection with such 

 narratives in European languages. India seems 

 to have been one of the earliest homes of the 

 fable, and practically every fable motif winch 

 is found in European fables exists in some form 

 in Sanskrit literature. Many of these Hindu 

 tales are built on the story-wit hm->tory plan 

 which the Arabian Nights has made familiar. 

 Some of the stories of that famous book ; 

 be traced to their source in the tales of India, 

 and many of the legends and tales of medieval 

 Europe are of the same origin. A.MC c. 



Consult Perry's Sanskrit Primer; Reed's Hindu 

 Literature, or the Ancient Books of India. 



