Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s12.6

c12.s12.6

The assumption is quite allowable that by the time of the Buddha, the spoken Aryan language had deviated considerably from the Old Indo-Aryan norm as presented by the speech of the Rigveda, and had developed at least three distinct dialects—a Northern or North-Western, a Central, and an Eastern. This last was already fairly in the Middle Indo-Aryan or Prākṛit stage ; but the North-Western was conservative, and was regarded as the purest form of the Aryan speech, the well of Aryan undefiled—and it was exceedingly likely that in the Udicya as the nidus of the Aryan people in India there was the largest settled Aryan population, and consequently the language was better preserved ; the more Aryan speakers were penetrating further into the East, among masses of non-Aryans, the more they were getting to be smaller in numbers compared with the surrounding non-Aryans, and the Aryan language, in a non-Aryan environment that was growing stronger and stronger, was susceptible to a more rapid change and to change along new lines than the North-west.