. 



>AXI>KM ASIANS. 



SANSKRIT LANi:l'A<;i-: AND LITERATURE. 



2*0 



[SAXDEXAN, ROBKRT, in Bio.. lnv.| 

 [GLASS MAXi-fAct 



8AX1>K.MAN 

 MUVKIi. 



il'INAIMNK. I'^H.-XO,?) An alkaloid, found in the 

 S^nfitimana C<ta<l<ntit, but only partially investigated. It is a yellow 

 insipid powoVr, insoluble in water, but very soluble in alcohol. It 

 neutralist* mid:. pvrfm-th, forming ml salts, u! ' 'Me m watu 



and i 



. ilKl>UIM...r SAXHKI'KIX ' T""-"^?), the great co... 

 the Jew*, which conauted of seventy-one or seventy-two members, and 

 decided the most important cause*, both ecclesiastical and civil. The 

 name is a corruption by the TalmudisU of the Greek crWSpior (a 

 .iwiri'/l. The rabbis attempt to find the origin of the Sanhedrim in 

 UM seventy elders who were appointed by Moses to assist him in his 

 judicial duties (Xumb. xi. 16); but thi* council was evidently tern p.. 

 rary, and w hear nothing of it in the subsequent history of the Jews. 

 (MOM, in Biou. Div. ; Micbaolis 'On the Laws of Moses,' M 

 The exact time of the institution of the Sanhedrim is unknown ; but 

 there U no lossnn to suppose that it was earlier than the time of the 

 Jfcuxabee*. Thrre can however be little doubt that the Sanhedrim 

 was an imitation of the seventy elden of Hoses. The first mention of 

 the Sanhedrim U in the time of Hyrcanus II., when Herod was tried 

 before it (Joseph., ' Anti.i.,' xiv. !, s. 3, 4.) 



The Sanhedrim had a president (tT^T or N s tT3\ who was generally 

 the high-priest, a vice-president (/T3 '3S ] <t l) who rat on the right 



of the president, and, according to some, a second vice-president 

 . who sat on his left. The other members were : 1, Chief 

 PriaU, who are often mentioned in the New Testament and in 

 Joeephua, and who were partly ex-high-priests and partly the heads of 

 the twenty-four classes of priests. 2. Elden ; that is, the princes of 

 tribe* and heads of families. 8. Seriba, or men of learning. All 

 chief priests were members of the Sanhedrim, but of elders and scribe* 

 only so many were admitted into it as were required to fill up vacancies. 

 (Matt. xxvi. 57, 59; xxvii. 3, 12,20,41; Mark viii. 31 ; xi. 27; xiv. 

 43,53; xv. 1; AcU iv. 5; v. Ul. 27.) The Talmudists say that the 

 tribunal had iu secretaries and apparitors. Both Pharisees and 

 Sadduceee were found in it. (AcU v. 17, 21, 34 ; xxiii. 6.) 



The Sanhedrim met at Jerusalem, and, according to the Talmudists, 

 in a chamber within the precincU of the Temple, called (iazitlt , in 

 which also their archives were kept ; but, according to Josephus (' Bell. 

 Jml.,' v. 4, 2 ; vi. (5, 3), in a room on the east side of Mount Zion, not 

 far from the Temple. In coses of emergency, as in the trial of Christ, 

 they met in the high-priest's house. 



The causes brought before this tribunal were either appeal 

 the inferior courts, or matters which were thought of sufficient import- 

 ance to come before them in the first instance : for example, the 

 question whether a person was a false prophet (Luke xiii. 33), and 

 matters which effected the whole state, a whole tribe, or the high- 

 priest. The accused was brought before the tribunal, and witnesses 

 were required to appear to support the charge. Kiiher capital or 

 minor punis ^rht be inflicted by the Sanhedrim ; but under 



the Roman government iU power was so far restricted that a capital 

 sentence required the confirmation of the Roman governor, who was 

 also charged with iU execution. The stoning of Stephen was not done 

 in accordance with the sentence of the Sanhedrim, but in a riot ; and 

 the execution of James and others by the high-priest Ananias (A.D. 64) 

 took place in the absence of the I toman procurator, and is admitted by 

 the Jews themselves to have been an illegal act. 



Besides the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, there were inferior courts in 

 each town of Judiea, consisting of twenty-three members, to which 

 the same name is sometimes applied. From these courts an appeal 

 could be made to the Sanhedrim. 



(Jabn, Arc/,-!:/, llil.l.. th. ii., 1>. ii., 186; Calmet's J>!H: 

 Lighti ' rliurli, ' Syncdrinm.') 



M .1 AK. a word primarily signifying a standard, is also applied to 

 a military division, the subdivision of an eyalet, into which the whole 

 Turkish empire is divided : iu this sense, it signifies, as 111110)1 as is 

 congregated under one standard. The commander of such a division 

 styled Sanjak, Sanjak Bey, or simply Bey, and the supreme general 

 of all the Sanjaks of a province is styled the Beglcrbey (commander of 

 commanders). The vvord is found under the forms Songiac and 

 Seadschack, the 1'rench and German modes of rendering the Turkish 

 word. 



MAXKIiYA. [SANI.KKIT LANM-ACIE AND LfmiATini .] 



IT i.A.\c;r.\i;i: AND I.ITI;I;ATU:K. /,/,. v op. 



The Sanskrit u a branch of the Indo (Jenuanic family of languages. 

 Of all those language* it U that which approaches nearest to the 

 primitive type; and by the originality, purity, and abundance of iU 

 form*, is peculiarly calculated to throw light on the obscure laws of 

 the formation of language. Being also possessed of a rich literature, 

 and the whole of iu materials having been fully trenU.il of by native 

 grammarians, it was no sooner introduced to the learned of Knrope 

 than it gave rise to a new philological scien. . om|rativc 



grammar, and led to the conclusion that the an .11, the 



Armenian, the Greek, and thu Latin, formed but one language with the 

 German, the Lottie, the Slavonian, and even the Celtic, each . 

 languages affording the most extraordinary illustrations of the others. 



The Sanskrit was introduced inio India when the lli.ilnninic.il race 



-I powesrion of tin- country (A. W. von 1 >e 1 Origine 



idoiw,' in the 'Trans. Roy. _', 405, &c. ; 



I'hr. I.-UWCH, ' Indische Alterthumskiind. M. Miiller, 



'History of An.-ietr Sanskrit ''. p. I-i; and having 



driien out the languae,. "f th of India, which arc now only 



s|M>kcn in the Southern lleciMf nanse, and, 



djli-ilv in the Vindhya mountains, 



lor example, the t Joiids and Khondu (Liuuvn,!. 1. i., 366, fl'.; .M. Mtiller, 

 Ontli. .. n ..f the Turanian l.:o, 169, ff. ; li.Cal.l- 



\vcll. ' Com|wir. (iramniar of the Dravidian I.nn^u.i^es,' IS.'iti, p. 8, ff.), 

 has spread over tlic extensive tract of country l-i \M en (lie Himalayas, 

 the Indus, and the Kistna. Within these limits it hat. had a history of 

 its own, and has passed through various changes. It appears in its most 

 form in the Ved;iw, about the 15th century before Christ, and 

 in that state la very nearly related to the /.end, the ancient language 

 of Persia, ami contains many forms and words which have become 

 obsolete. The classical Sanskrit, on ,<\, having 



fixed, has, for about 3000 years, partly as a living language and partly 

 as a learned one, retained the same structure, with the mere exception 

 of difference in style, and a few archaisms, which only occur in the 

 most ancient works. 



Prutrit dialect*. Out of the Sanskrit, however, even in compara- 

 tively early times, dialects arose, which gradually became still faith, i- 

 removed from the original and from each other ; and from these 

 dialects those of the languages now spoken in India are derived, which 

 do not belong to the aboriginal language- I above. Tin re i 



a law, however, which pervades the whole of tl .hat is, 



ivc languages, as they are called by the Indian grammarians, in 

 contradistinction to the K'n.4 ./ -iin. or that language which is regularly 

 and grammatically constructed (A. Weber. Vorlesuiigi'ii iiber mdisehe 

 Literaturgeschichte/ 1852, p. 168) ; and it is worthy of retnark.tli.it 

 this law is precisely the same a 'idiiij,' to which the Romance 



language, the Italian, the Spanish, and the French, have grown out. of 

 the Latin. There is the same softening, the same assimilation, and the 

 same exclusion of the harsher sounds, the same weakening of the 

 form-, the same substitution of particles for cases, and the same 

 periphrastic conjugations. 



The oldest of these dialects, and that which deviates least from the 

 Sanskrit, is the Pdli, which haa become the sacred language of the 

 southern branch of the Buddhists, who, when they abrogated the 

 institution of castes, required a language which, at least for works not 

 strictly scientific, should not be exclusively understood by the pri\ 

 classes. Having originally been carried by the Buddhist* 

 Northern India to Ceylon, the Pali has continued to exist in that 

 island, as well as in Burmah, Siam, and Kamboja, and pos.s. 

 copious literature. (Burnouf and Lassen, ' Essai sur le Pali,' Paris. 

 1826; Clough, 'Pali Grammar,' Colombo, 1824; 'Journ. < 

 P.ranch !!. As. Soc.,' 1847, No. 3, p. 189, ff. ; Pallegoix, 'Gramm. 

 Thai,' Bangkok, 1850, p. 181, ff.) Different from the Pali is 



hich appears only in tli 



of the Buddhist literature of Nepal (' Journ. As. Soc. of Bengal.' xxiii. 

 Lalita Vistara,' cd. by Haje.ndralal Mittra, Calc. 1853, ff.) The 

 . e which, in a peculiar sense, in called Prakrit, properly Ma/n't- 

 \for its local origin is to be sought in the country of the 

 Mahrattas), differs little from the Pali; it is used by the Jains. The 

 Md'itidhi and the the former originally. spoken in ! 



and the hitter on the banks of the Jumna, are only a Ii ttle i 

 removed from the Sanskrit. (Lassen, ' Institutiones Linguae Pracri- 

 ticic,' Bonn, 1 838 ; J.Muir,' Original Sanskrit Texts,' voL ii., p. 1 

 where the different opinions on the origin of the Prakrits are set 

 and examined.) In addition to these there are numerous more i 

 dialects, among which we shall only distinguish the Vrajabhash 

 Bhakha), on account of the excellence of its poetical literature, 

 being the parent of the Hindu 



The formation of the Prakrita languages out of the Sanskrit : 

 naturally from the character of the parent tongue, and this tendency 

 is inanife.-ted even in tin 1 earlied i the Sanskrit. This 



appears, to take a single instance, in the substitution of the ch and / 

 (the Italian << and <//) for the original k and ;/ (just as the Italiai 

 is formed from ,"/). In like manner, it was perfecUy consistent with 

 of the classical Sanskrit to adopt the verbal forms of the 

 Prakrit, and to retain them together with the legitimate and 

 forms, which is a proof that the two languages must ha, 



for a I. 



The Pali appear* a a jierfectly-fornied language in the Buddhist 

 works e, which we cannot fix at a later date than the 



Ith century before Chri.-t i .Lassen, ' Ind. Alt.,' ii. 489; .Muir. 1. I. 

 Io7); and the Magadh! dialect has been found distinctly recorded, in 

 the. middle of the 3rd century before Christ, in the in cripi.ions of 

 King A-oka. whii-l. deciphered by the late Mr. .1. i 



( Jour. Asiat. Soc. Beng.,' 1837, pp. .".'in, 7!i f. :iti3), whose tran.-.. 



:bsc.|iiently revised by Prof. il. II. Wilson (Mourn. I!. 



i. xii., p. 158 -ll'il, ami vol. xvi., p. 867, 

 portion of them were lastly examined by M. I-,', liiirnouf (' Lt ' 



nine Loi/ Paris, .VJ TM1), whose researches on the 



whole question may be considered as conclusive (Lassen, ' Ind. Alt.' ii. 

 p. 215-22'J). A Prakrit language likewise appears on the coins of the 



