1862.] Remarks on the above by E. C. Bayley, Esg:. 185 



are yet words which, accepted even in the sense which he has taken, 

 ai'e certainly not pure Pali nor pure Sanscrit : — for example, the 

 word " Mahi Sachya" or " Mahi Sachha" in the 2nd and 3rd lines. 

 The form of the demonstrative pronoun " iya" and " imena" ap- 

 proaches too more nearly to the form prevailing in the Perso-Pali 

 of the Behistun inscription than to the Indo-Pali or Sanscrit. The 

 proper names which occur in the Wardak inscription, moreover, are 

 most of them certainly in no degree of a Sanscrit or Pali origin. 



While therefore fully admitting that a dialect of Pali forms the 

 groundwork of the language of the ordinary Ariano Pali inscriptions, 

 I would venture to demur to the assertion, that it differs only from 

 the ordinary Pali of India in " bearing a closer resemblance to the 

 Sanscrit." 



The arguments adduced in support of this assertion have at least 

 failed to prove it, and I may venture the rather to doubt its sound- 

 ness, as I know that on a careful examination of the Wardak inscrip- 

 tion, shortly before his death, the late Professor H. H. Wilson ex- 

 pressed a very opposite opinion. 



Indeed the antecedent circumstances of the ease are very much 

 against the probability of the language, at least of any territories 

 north of the Jhelum, being purely Pali, or Sanscritized Pali. 



Whatever the predominating element of the population may have 

 been, it certainly was not a purely Hindu population at any time 

 between 300 B. C. and 200 A. D., — the period to which most of the 

 inscriptions which have come down to us, may be pretty safely as- 

 signed. The Bactrian branch of the great Arian family, to which 

 most, if not all, of its subdivisions using the Semitic alphabets 

 may with some likelihood be attributed, leaned in their dialect, ac- 

 cording to Professor Haug, rather to that used by their Persian, than 

 to that of their Indian brethren. 



But what is of far more importance, during the five centuries 

 named, and very probably for many others antecedently, these pro- 

 vinces had been the highway by which hordes of invaders of every 

 class and stock had poured themselves upon India. 



Many of these were unquestionably of a Turanian stock, and it 

 is probable that of each successive army some portion settled itself on 

 the soil by the way. The only wonder is, that the Arian element 

 retained even so strong a position in the language as it evident- 



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