RECENT PROGRESS OF SANSKRIT STUDIES. 261 



were composed, the Indian people were dwelling in the north-western part of 

 India, the Punjab, while the later literature enables us to trace their gradual 

 progress from that position onward to the east and south. 



Sanskrit is found in its oldest known form in the Rigveda, the hymns of 

 which are with good reason conjectured to have been composed during a period 

 not less than from 1200 to 1400 years b.c. The language, as it is exhibited to us 

 in these hymns, is characterised by Mr Colebrooke (Essays, i. 309) as " a 

 rustic and irregular dialect ; " and differs in its grammatical forms from the later 

 Sanskrit (as it existed in its ultimate development above two thousand years 

 ago) much more than Homeric does from Attic Greek. In the Brahmanas, the 

 class of works which follow next in order of time after the Vedic hymns, but 

 which are removed from the oldest of them by an interval of several centuries, 

 we find that the language has changed, and approaches considerably nearer to 

 the later Sanskrit. At the period when the hymns were composed, there is no 

 doubt that Sanskrit was a spoken idiom.* For, first, it is inconceivable that in 



* In the present state of pliilological science, the speculations of Dugald Stewart on the origin 

 of the Sanskrit language are not likely to meet with many defenders ; but as the views of this eminent 

 philosopher must always possess a certain interest in the country where he so long flourished, 

 and attained so high and well deserved a reputation, I shall briefly allude to his theory on this 

 subject. His supposition is (see Sir W. Hamilton's coll. ed. of his works, vol. iv. pp. 77-115; 

 and vol. i. pp. 425-427) that "in consequence of the intercourse between Greece and India, 

 arising from Alexander's conquests, the Bramins were led to invent their sacred language," for the 

 purpose of expressing the new ideas which they had received, and of concealing " from the other 

 Indian castes their philosophical doctrines, when they were at variance with the commonly received 

 opinions" (p. 83). He thinks that "with the Greek language before them as a model, and their 

 own language as their principal raw material," they could have no difficulty in " manufacturing a 

 different idiom, borrowing from the Greek the same, or nearly the same system, in the flexions of 

 nouns, and conjugations of verbs, and thus disguising, by new terminations and a new syntax, their 

 native dialect. If Psalmanazar was able to create, without any assistance, a language of whicii 

 not a single word had a previous existence but in his own fancy, it does not," Stewart proceeds, 

 " seem a very bold hypothesis, that an order of men, amply supplied with a stock of words applicable 

 to all matters connected with the common business' of life, might, without much expense of time and 

 ingenuity, bring to systematic perfection an artificial language of their own, having for their guide 

 the richest and most regular tongue that ever was spoken on earth ; a tongue, too, abounding in 

 whatever absti'act and technical words their vernacular speech was incompetent to furnish" (p. 84). 

 He also explains that although he had supposed " the first rude draught of the Sanskrit to have been 

 formed soon after Alexander's invasion had introduced the learned in India to an acquaintance with 

 the Greek language and philosophy, this supposition was not meant to exclude other languages from 

 having conti'ibuted their share to its subsequent enrichment. The long commercial intercourse of 

 the Romans with India, both by sea and land, accovmts sufficiently," he considers, " for any affinity 

 which may subsist between Sanskrit and Latin." The arguments by which Stewart endeavours to 

 sustain this theory may be consulted by the reader for himself. The whole discussion furnishes a 

 curious illustration of the mistakes into which acute and ingenious men may be betrayed when they 

 attempt to theorize upon subjects with the details of which they are imperfectly acquainted, and at 

 a period when the principles which ought to govern the investigation have not been sufficiently de- 

 veloped or recognised. It appears from a note of his editor, p. 115, that Mr Stewart subsequently 

 elaborated his speculations on Sanskrit in a treatise which he left in manuscript, but which Sir W. 

 Hamilton did not think it right to publish, as the hypothesis, however ingeniously supported, was 

 contrary to the " harmonious opinion now entertained by those best qualified to judge," and beset 

 with many " difficulties appearing insuperable." Stewart's views have been discussed by the late 

 Professor H. H. Wilson, in a paper which is to be reprinted in the new edition of his works now in 



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