50 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Feb. 



proves this most incontestably : the sharpness and harshness and the 

 peculiar distinctions and combination of sounds of the Vedic dialect are 

 nowhere to be met with in the Sanskrit of the time of Buddha, and 

 the Sanskrit of Buddha's time was not what it became in the time of 

 Kalidasa. It underwent many changes, and most of those changes 

 were dictated by a desire to rub off the asperities of the Vedic 

 language for the sake of euphony. 



Now, a priori, it would be expected that an alphabet designed for 

 the earlier Sanskrit, or the language as current in the Arianian pro- 

 vinces, would be richer in letters than in one got up in the time 

 of Buddha, for a great deal more stress was laid on minor distinctions 

 of pronunciation in the pre- Vedic and the Vedic, than in later ages ; 

 and when the first idea of alphabetic writing is once formed, no nation 

 can be believed to be so slow as not to be able to design a sufficient 

 number of letters to meet all their requirements. The Bactrian is 

 avowedly not so full. Its vowels are few and imperfect, and consonants 

 deficient ; and it could not therefore have been originally used for a 

 language most remarkable for its long and short vowels, to which it 

 attached so much importance. 



Again, it was unknown in the history of language, that a nation, 

 themselves conquerors, voluntarily gave up an alphabet with which 

 their religion was most intimately associated for many centuries, and 

 adopted an alphabet from a conquered people, because of "its su- 

 perior fitness." No amount of superiority can have any influence in such 

 cases. But he knew not what the superiority was in the case of the 

 Pali. It was not one of easy writing, for the flowing Bactrian has, in 

 that respect, great advantages over the angular Pali ; nor of fulness, 

 for it is avowed that it had no aspirates at all, before the Brahmins 

 adopted it. But were it otherwise, still he doubted if such adoption 

 were possible, after a language had been associated with a particular 

 form of writing for a long time. The English vocalic system was 

 imperfect in many respects, and some of its letters were obliged to do 

 duty for half a dozen sounds, and yet it was not to be for a moment 

 supposed that it would ever be replaced by the most perfect 

 system of writing that is current in the world, the Sanskrit. Besides 

 the Sanskrit was a dead language in the time of Asoka, and had 

 been replaced by the Pali which dropped the aspirates and some of 



