Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c9.s3.10

c9.s3.10

What has been said above would show that the name Gauḍa was specially applied to the literary style and script of Eastern India and that Gauḍa in these cases indicates the East Indian countries generally. In this connection, attention may be invited to the language of the *caryā* songs assigned by linguists to the period between the tenth and twelfth centuries A.D. They no doubt offer the earliest stage of the East Indian dialect just emerged from the Apabhraṁśa stage. But there is a great controversy among scholars as regards the closeness of the language of the *caryās* with the different dialects now spoken in Eastern India such as Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, Maithili and Eastern Hindi. Linguisticians whose mother-tongue is any of the above languages have tried to prove the special affinity of the *caryā* dialect with their mother-tongue. Thus H. P. Sastri, S. K. Chatterji, P. C. Bagchi, S. K. Sen and other Bengali scholars believe that the *caryās* are written in old Bengali. K. L. Barua and other Assamese writers regard the language of the *caryās* as old Assamese which they call Kāmarūpī. J. K. Misra and others from Mithila take the *caryā* language to be old Maithili. There are also similar claims on behalf of Oriya and Eastern Hindi.¹ We are however inclined to believe that the characteristics of the *caryā* language may be easily traced in all the languages now spoken in Eastern India because it was the language of Eastern India generally. The authors of the songs may be attributed to particular areas and their compositions may exhibit in some cases certain regional peculiarities; but it will hardly be correct for the matter of that to regard the language of the songs to be any one of those that later developed in the areas in question especially in view of the fact that the modern languages of Eastern India have a good deal in common amongst them. It is very probable that, in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries A.D., the difference among these languages was not as remarkable as in modern times and that the literary language of the *caryās* was easily understood in different parts of Eastern India. The proper name for the *caryā* language should therefore be Gauḍī or East Indian and not old Bengali, Assamese, Maithili, Oriya or Eastern Hindi. We may then have a Gauḍa language besides a Gauḍa style of Sanskrit composition and a Gauḍa alphabet. East Indian linguists of particular areas may successfully trace affinities of their mother-tongue with the *caryā* language; but they should better not regard it as the origin exclusively of their mother-tongue.²