History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c41.s26.3

v3.c41.s26.3

We showed in Vol. II (p. 3) how the second sub-period of Hindu Mediæval History (800-1000 A. D.) was characterised by the rise of the modern vernaculars of India under the combined influence of political and religious causes. Buddhism being supplanted and Hinduism coming to be reconstructed, the study of Sanskrit was resorted to with greater energy and the new philosophy of Śankara especially had to be explained to the people in their own language. The Apabhrańśa languages, therefore, throughout Aryan India underwent change by the use of Sanskrit loan-words in their original or Tatsama form and Sanskrit and new conjugational and inflexional forms also were introduced from Sanskrit. Even the Non-Aryan languages assumed new forms by the use of pure Sanskrit words and acquired new grace (Vol. II p. 168). Thus the modern Sanskrit-born vernaculars were evolved in the preceding sub-period, viz. Bengali, Hindi Eastern and Western (Rajastāni), Panjabi, Gujarathi, and Marati; as also the modern Non-Aryan vernaculars Kanarese, Telugu, Tamil and Malyalam. In the present sub-period we find all these languages so far developed as to give rise to literature as classical as that in Sanskrit. And it is curious to note that in each of the provinces of these languages different forms of the alphabet also grew out of the same old Sanskrit Devanāgarī alphabet as evidenced by Al-Beruni. He enumerates the different alphabets of India as follows (Vol. I p. 173): "The most generally known alphabet is called Siddha Mātrīkā used in Kashmir and Vārāṇasī. These are the high schools of Hindu sciences. The same writing is used in Madhyadeśa, the country round Kanauj also called Āryāvarta". This is the Eastern Hindi script. "In Mālwa there is another alphabet called Nāgar which differs from the above only in shape. Then comes the alphabet known as Ardhanāgarī as it is compounded of the above two. It is used in Bhatia and some parts of Sind. (This is a verification of our view in the geographical chapter that Bhatia town and province (p. 173), was to the north of Sind, a part of the Panjab to the west of the Jhelum). This is probably themodern Panjabi script. Other alphabets are Malaivari used in Southern India on the seacoast; the Saindhava used in Almeansūra; the Karnāta used in Karnātadeśa ‘whence those troops come which in the armies are known as Kannara’, the Andhri used in Andhradeśa the Dirwari (DrāvidI) used in Dirwardeśa; the Lāri used in Lāradeśa; the Gauri used in Pūrvadeśa by the Buddhists.”