1864.] 



On the origin of the Rindwi Language, 



493 



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 Eoman Catholic clergy. It 

 is the people whom As oka wished to address, and accordingly adapt- 

 ed his language to the capacity and the idiom of his hearers." And if 

 these arguments be admitted, and similar arguments have already led 

 Dr. Max Miiller, Mr. Muir and others to admit, that the Pali was 

 the vernacular of India from Dhauli in Cuttack to Kapur-di-giri in 

 the Yusafzai country in the time of As'oka, and for some time before 

 and after it. 



Ascending upwards to the time of the first great convocation of the 

 Buddhist clergy, soon after the death of S'akya Sinha, we come across 

 a kind of corrupt Sanskrita called the Gdthd, which was used for bal- 

 lads and improvisations by the scalds and bards of that period. For 

 reasons which I have already submitted to this Society in my paper 

 on the G-atha dialect, I take that language to be the first stage in the 

 transition of the Sanskrita into the Prakrita, and the vernacular of 

 Brahmanic India in the fifth and sixth centuries before the Christian 

 era.* For the purposes of the present enquiry we need not proceed 

 further. We have the G-atha proceeding directly from the Sanskrita 

 and forming the vernacular of India in the sixth century, B, C. ; the 

 Pali following it in the third, and the Prakrita in its different forms of 

 Magadhi, Sauraseni, Mahratti, Pais'achi, &c. in the first century of 

 that era. How long the last flourished we know not, nor have we any 

 information as to the transitions it underwent, or the dialect or dialects, 

 which succeeded it. But passing over a period of about a thousand 

 years, we come to the Hindvi in the tenth century, and the question 

 hence arises, Is the Hindvi a produce of the Prakrita, or a different 

 and distinct language which has succeeded it ? Muir, De Tassy, and 

 the G-erman philologers generally, maintain the former position ; while 

 Crawford, Latham, Dr. Anderson of Bombay and others assume the 

 latter. They all agree that no less than 90 per cent, of the vocables 

 of the Hindvi are Sanskrita; and if the affinity of its roots were 

 alone to decide the question of its affiliation, there could be no doubt 

 as to its claims to a Prakritic, and necessarily a Sanskritic origin. 

 But, since a language is to be judged more by its formal than by 



* Dr. J. Muir has adopted this opinion in his Scmshrit Extracts, Vol. II. p. 

 124 et seq. ' v 



