326 
REPORT—1847. 
Latin, were only to be considered as written in a language which hadbeai 
derived and put together (sanskrita) artificially by learned priests, but tk 
this language itself had never been the language of a people living on tht 
same soil with a different religion before the rwe of Christianity, itwiniil 
still be tjuestiooable whether, even in the supjKJsed absence of nil butofwl 
evidence., n philosophical view of the nature df language would admit suti i 
theory. This however is exactly our case in India. P^i—whie)4by 
ness aud melodiousiioss of its phonic system, and the simplified develojunat 
of its grammatical forms, staiidn to Sanscrit in the same relation in vliiii 
Italian stands to Latin,—is given out by many as the old language of Indit 
The most ancient uwcrlptioiis are in l^li, and it is the language of sgw« 
numlwr of religious books containing the doctrine of Buddha. If othiv huh 
of the same religion are %vritteu in Sanscrit, this Sanscrit shows evident tnw< 
of nil artilicial development, just as the Latin of the fourth and fiilh centun 
shows that it is no more the language spoken bythe great mass of tbepeojif' 
but Old)' employed as a learned and sacred language. Xow, admitting 
for argument sake, that all other internal proofs were wanting of theClirifiiu 
doctrine having been addressed to people who had been living for cenfuri'* 
on the soil of Italy, having their own heathenish religion and their owo oil 
language, I think that the very fact that some of our religious boob w 
written In an evidently learned language, while others arc written in s speh* 
language, tlin whole graitmmr of wJtich gets organically intelligible only bj* 
refurcTice to that learned language, would go far enough to prove tlistib 
learned idiom was at the time of cai'ly ChrUtimiity a dead or dying langu^, 
and must iheroforo have been a living one ninny centuries before* 
then goml fortune should have presorved to us the books written in 
Ennius and Plautus,—in a language full of bfr- 
of individuality and organic Irregularity, which is as far from the 
^tic Jjtttiu as the language of l^Iautua from the Latin of schoolboy*; 
r i* i» exactly the case in India, when we sub^* 
V^a for Ennius and Pnrdna for then, I think, a sound pbW 
ot language w ould not hesitate for a moment to admit the precedeuceo*.* 
old Latin as well as of the Sancrit, merely on the ground of evidence 
m tlie language itself. 
Although, therefore, I admit that some questions mav sUU be tuj- 
ansu ered and some doubts to be removed coneerniug the relation of Hu*' 
ism fo Hrahmim^m and of Pall to Sanscrit, yet I think that by the 1^ 
^caK'hea ot Indian scholars like Wilson, Burnouf and Lassen, 
Mtal.hsliod that the Rrahminiea] people have brought ot an early 
light of eivihaation into the plains of India; that their language was tli«^ 
p^eof the nation though varying in different popular dialects; that 
religion constituted the groundwork of the Indian wo«*hip. though 
by local trathtions; that their laws and manners formed the social tia- 
the Indian world, tliough often in struggle with heterogeneous elemenu- 
Rut nevmhch.ss new efforts have been made to prove, on the^ 
ground of language, that the present nations of India aic to he 
M nltogether free and emancipated from Brahminical influence, ^ 
K.T spirit of a nation, and if the spirit of a Uugu*!^ 
rniilft iL system, it would certainly be a startling f»rt, i 
auasfOfi nr *r*'i^* ’i ^ ^'hole grammatical system of the 
have iriwJ f ** nothing to do with Sanserif grammar. 
losists j’ for their base the opinions of comparaUve |p*o 
ti<m in whole system of'declension and conji^ 
on in Rengah and the other Indian dialects is unexplainable by ibe 
