Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c30.11

v2.c30.11

² Mr. Marsden, at an early period of his researches into Hindu literature, shares the merit of discovering with Sir W. Jones that the Malayan language, disseminated throughout the Archipelago, and extending from Madagascar to Easter Island, a space of 200 degs. of longitude, is indebted to the Sanskrit for a considerable number of its terms, and that the intercourse which effected this was many centuries previous to their conversion to the Muhammadan religion. He is inclined to think that the point of communication was from Gujarat. The legends of these islanders also abound with allusions to the Mahabharata and Ramayana. (See Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. p. 226, second edition.) [EB, xvii. 475 ff.]