160 On Ancient Sanskrit Numerals. [No. 2, 
in the different parts of his dominions. In the North West the three 
sibilants, the 7 above and below compound consonants, the neglect 
of the long and short vowels, and other dialectic peculiarities, rode 
rough-shod over the original as devised by him and his ministers and 
apostles in his palace, and recorded in Allahabad and Delhi; while at 
Dhauli nothing has been able to prevent the letter 7 entirely super- 
seding the letter 7 of the edicts. Had the language under notice been, as 
supposed by Mr. Bayley, a “ quasi religious” or a “sacred dialect,” it 
would have been found identically the same in all parts of India, for the 
characters used in the Delhi, Allahabad, Dhauli and Junagar records 
are the same, and if uniformity had been sought, it could have been 
most easily secured. But popularity was evidently what was most - 
desiderated, and therefore concessions were freely made in favour of the 
vernaculars of the different provinces at the expense of uniformity. 
Unless this be admitted, it would be impossible to explain why the word 
RLajdé of Delhi, written in the same characters, should in Cuttack change 
into Ldjd. Had the language been a sacred one intended for the 
clergy only, no such concession would ever have been required. The 
Sanskrita of the Brahmanic priesthood is alike everywhere, and 
so is the Latin of the Roman Catholic clergy. It is the people 
whom As/oka wished to address, and accordingly adapted his lan- 
guage to the capacity and the idiom of his hearers. The differences 
which have resulted from this concession to the genius loci of lan- 
guage have been pointed out at some length by Prinsep ;* and they have 
confirmed the opinion of Wilson,t Thomas,t Lassen§ and others that 
the Pali of the edicts was the vernacular of India at the time of As’oka, 
and that the peculiarities under notice are the dialectic differences of 
the different provinces where they occur. By that vernacular it is 
of course meant to be the language of writing and of the higher or- 
ders of the gentry, and in the same sense in which the language of 
the Parliamentary speeches and of the leaders of the Times news- 
paper would be called the vernacular of England. The common 
people no doubt spoke dialects of very different degrees of purity in 
much the same way as we notice dialectic differences in almost the 
different streets of London from the back slums of St. Giles to 
Belgravia. All who could read and write could understand the 
* Ante VII. p. 220 et 279. 
+ Journal, Royal Asiatic Society, XII. p. 236. 
{ Thomas’s Prinsep, II. p. 44. 
§ Essai sur le Pali, p. 15, et Institutiones Lingus Prakritice, p. 60, 
