﻿202 ON THE SAXSCRIT 



profouncllv investigated by Hindu grammarians than 

 b} those ot any other nation, and they have com- 

 pleted a system of orthography which may be justly 

 termed euphonical. They require all compoi-nd 

 terms to be reduced to this standard, and Sanscrit 

 authors, it may be observed, del'ght in compounds 

 of inordinate length ; the whole sentence too, or 

 even whole periods, may, at the pleasure of the au- 

 thor, be combined like the elements of a singrle 

 word, and oQod writers gfenerallv do so. In com- 

 mon speech this could never have been practised. 

 None but well knov/n compounds would be used by 

 any speaker Mho m ished to be understood, and each 

 word would be distinctly articulated independently 

 of the terms which precede and follow it. Such in- 

 deed is the present practice of those who still speak 

 the Sanscrit lano^uao^e ; and thev deliver themselves 

 with such fluency as is sufiicient to prove that Sans- 

 crit may have been spoken in former times with as 

 much facility as the contemporary dialects of the 

 Greek language, or the more ;iJodern dialects of the 

 Arabic tongue. I shall take occasion again to al- 

 lude to this topick after explaining at large what 

 are, and by whom were coir.posed, those gramma- 

 tical institutes in whicfi the Sanscrit language is 

 framed, according to tl^.e author above quoted ; or 

 by which (for the meaning is ill conveyed by a li- 

 teral translation) words are correctly formed and 

 inflected. 



Paxi XI, the father of Sanscrit grammar, lived in so 

 remote an aii'e.thatlic ranks amonixthose ancientsao;es 

 whose fabulous history occupies a conspicuous place 

 in the Purdilas, or Indian theogonies*. The name 



is 



* Every Punhid trear« of five subjecr^ : the creation of the uni- 

 \'er?e, its progress, and rhe renovation of worlds ; the genealogy of 

 godi and heroes ; chronology, according to a fabulous system ; and 

 berolck. hiitop-, ccntaining ths achieveiuents of demi-gods and heroes. 



Since 



