A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v1: Volume 1

A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v1

Language: English

v1.c1 Front matter — 29 parts
v1.c2 Preface — 12 parts
v1.c3 Errata et Corrigenda — 29 parts
v1.c4 Chapter I. Introduction — 341 parts
v1.c5 Chapter II — 393 parts
v1.c6 Chapter III — 460 parts
v1.c7 Chapter IV — 1,255 parts

Volume 1

Front matter

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HINDI, PANJABI, SINDHI, GUJARATI, MARATHI, ORIYA, AND BANGALI.

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BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE, FELLOW OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, THE GERMAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY, ETC., ETC.

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THESE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE STUDIES THERE BEGUN

Preface

It is with much hesitation, and with a deep sense of its many imperfections, that I now lay this volume before the public. Begun in 1866, it has for more than five years occupied my leisure hours; and if it should be remarked, as in justice it might, that the result is somewhat meagre for so long a period of preparation, I would reply that the duties of a magistrate and collector in Bengal are not only onerous, but so multifarious, and often so urgent, that he is never safe from interruption at any hour of the day or night. On an average, two hours a day has been the utmost time that I could devote to my amusements or private pursuits of any kind. Constant journeys, repeated attacks of sickness, and the "mollis inertia" inseparable from the climate during at least six months of the year, must also be taken into consideration. It may be asked, why under these circumstances I undertook the task at all? To this I answer, that to a hardworked brain change of labour is often a greater relaxation than absolute idleness, and that having always been a student of languages from my childhood, I had adopted this form of amusement in preference to any other, and had collected and grouped together many examples of the most salient peculiarities in the languages which I heard spoken round me long before any idea of writing a book entered my head.

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It was, I think, in 1865 that I first saw Dr. Caldwell's Grammar of the Dravidian Languages, and it immediately occurred to me that a similar book was much wanted for the Aryan group. It was evident that no scholar in Europe could do the work, because the written productions in the modern vernaculars and the few dictionaries and grammars procurable are not only frequently quite wrong and utterly misleading, but are also very defective, so that no one could merely from books get a firm and certain grasp of all these languages. It is necessary to be able to speak all or most of them, and to live among the people and hear them talking daily. When, therefore, I turned to scholars in India, it did not appear that any of them contemplated undertaking such a task. Then I thought that it would be well for me to try; if I could not make a perfect book, I could at any rate gather together and set forth in order the main rules, and could give copious examples and illustrations, so that, while waiting for some Bopp or Grimm to arise, students might have a handbook of some sort to guide them, and might no longer be misled by the astoundingly false etymologies which occur in the ordinary grammars and dictionaries. I have, therefore, not called this book by any mock-modest title, such as "an introduction," or "contributions to," or "notes on," or anything of the kind, because I have done my best to cover the whole ground of the subject; and whether I have done well or ill, the book was meant to be a Comparative Grammar, and I have called it so accordingly.

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A residence of upwards of twelve years in India, during which I have held official posts in the Panjab, Bihar, Bengal, and Orissa, and have made long visits to various parts of Hindustan Proper (the North-western Provinces), has rendered me familiar with Panjabi, Hindi, Bengali, and Oriya, all of which, at different times, I have had to speak, read, and write. The western languages, Marathi, Sindhi, and Gujarati, I only know from books and from such information as I have obtained from kind correspondents in Bombay, among whom my thanks are specially due to Mr. Flynn, translator to the High Court, whose notes have been of great value to me, and whose knowledge of the languages of his Presidency is both accurate and profound.

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A great difficulty has been the want of good books of reference. Living in this remote wilderness, I had only such books as my own scanty library contains; my best book has been the peasant in the fields, from whose lips I have often learnt more than I could find in dictionaries or grammars.

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Such as it is, then, volume the first is now about to make its voyage home to be printed,

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“Parve, nec invideo, sine me liber ibis in urbem.”

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I dismiss it with the hope that it may prove useful to those for whom it is intended.

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My learned friend, Dr. R. Rost, Librarian of the India Office, has kindly undertaken to give this volume the benefit of his superintendence while passing through the press, thus conferring an inestimable favour, not only on the author, but on the public, by preventing the book from being disfigured by errors of printing; for all other errors I must remain responsible.

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This volume contains only the Phonetics of the group. A second volume, on the noun and pronoun, is already on the stocks, but I cannot say when it will be ready for the press. I hope, if life and health are spared, to complete the work by a third volume, containing the verb and particles; but our official work seems to get heavier, and leisure to be more unattainable, day by day. My progress is therefore of necessity slow and uncertain, and many years must elapse before my task is finished.

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JOHN BEAMES.

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BALASORE, ORISSA, September, 1871.

Note

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A LIST of the works which I have consulted is here inserted. Although, as I have said before, I have had comparatively little help from books, yet it is due to those living authors from whom I have derived any assistance to acknowledge the same.

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Bopp: *Comparative Grammar.* I used the French edition by Bréal. Paris, 1866. Grimm: *Deutsche Grammatik.* Grimm: *Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache.* Trumpp: *Das Sindhi im Vergleich zum Prákrit.* Journal of German Oriental Society, vol. xv., p. 690. Trumpp: *Die Stammbildung des Sindhi.* *Ibid*, vol. xvi., p. 177. Two most valuable essays. I have taken some examples from them, but most of those which are identical with Dr. Trumpp's I had already collected for myself before I became acquainted with his works. Weber: *Ueber ein Fragment der Bhágavatí.* Transactions of Royal Academy of Sciences, Berlin, vol. i., 1865; vol. ii., 1866. Weber: *Saptaçatakam.* Leipzig, 1870. My thanks are due to the learned author for the immense benefit I have derived from the study of these two important treatises. Cowell: *The Prákrita Prakáśa of Vararuchi.* This admirable edition of the leading work on Prakrit has been the basis of the present volume.

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Bopp's *Glossarium Comparativum*, Westergaard's *Radices Sanskritica*, Benfey's *Sanskrit Dictionary* (I could not get Böhtlingk and Roth's), Monier Williams's *English and Sanskrit Dictionary*, Muir's *Sanskrit Texts*, vol. ii., and numerous articles scattered through the pages of the Journals of the various Asiatic Societies, have also been constantly referred to.

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It is unnecessary to specify the dictionaries and grammars of the modern vernaculars. They are those in ordinary use, and for the most part very bad and defective, except Molesworth's splendid work and Shamacharan Sirkar's very complete and useful Bengali grammar.

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BOOK I., ON SOUNDS.

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CHAPTER I.—INTRODUCTION.

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PAGE § 1. Sanskrit the parent of the seven languages . . 1 § 2. First exception, elements Aryan, but not Sanskritic—the Prakrits . . . . . . 3 § 3. Second exception, elements neither Sanskritic nor Aryan 9 § 4. Elementary division of the seven languages,—Tatsama, Tadbhava, Deśaja . . . . . 11 § 5. Early and late Tadbhavas . . . . 13 § 6. The accent . . . . . . 17 § 7. Absence of data during nine centuries . . . 21 § 8. Proportion of words of the three classes in each language 28 § 9. Digression on the Hindi . . . . . 31 § 10. Proportion of words resumed . . . . 34 § 11. Quantity of Arabic and Persian words in each language . 39 §§ 12-14. Inflectional systems of the seven languages,—question of non-Aryan influence . . . . 41 § 15. Stages of development in the present day . . 48 § 16. The character . . . . . 54 § 17. Panjâbi . . . . . . 56 § 18. Bangâli . . . . . . 62 § 19. Oriyâ . . . . . . 62

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§ 20. Pronunciation, अ . . . . . . . 66 § 21. The other vowels . . . . . . . 69 § 22. Consonants . . . . . . . . 70 § 23. Semivowels . . . . . . . . 73 § 24. Sibilants . . . . . . . . 75 § 25. Nasals . . . . . . . . 78 § 26. Compound consonants,—peculiarities of Bangâlî . . 79 § 27. Peculiarities of Sindhi . . . . . . 80 § 28. Literature . . . . . . . . 82 § 29. Dialects . . . . . . . . 96 § 30. General remarks on chronological sequence of the various languages, and their probable future fate . . . . 108 Table of Indian alphabets . . . . . . 122

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§ 31. (1) Characteristics of Sanskrit vowel system . . . 124
(2) Vocalism of races bordering on India . . . 127 § 32. Change of अ to इ . . . . . . . 129 § 33. Change of अ to उ . . . . . . . 132 § 34. Retrospective influence of इ and उ . . . . 134 § 35. Change of अ to ए . . . . . . . 137 § 36. अ into ओ . . . . . . . . 143 § 37. इ into अ . . . . . . . . 145 § 38. इ into उ . . . . . . . . 146 § 39. उ into अ and इ . . . . . . . 146 § 40. Changes of quantity—shortening . . . . 147 § 41. Ditto—lengthening . . . . . . 152 § 42. Guṇa and Vṛiddhi . . . . . . 156 § 43. ऋ and its changes . . . . . . 159 § 44. Other vowel changes . . . . . . 167 § 45. Insertion or diæresis . . . . . . 170 § 46. Elision . . . . . . . . 175 § 47. Vowels in hiatus . . . . . . 184

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CHAPTER II.—ON VOWEL CHANGES.

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CHAPTER III.—CHANGES OF SINGLE CONSONANTS.

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§ 48. General remarks—positional and organic changes . . 189 § 49. Positional changes—initial consonants . . 190 § 50. Ditto—medial consonants . . 194 § 51. (1) Retention . . 195 § 52. (2) Softening of tenues to mediæ . . 198 § 53. (3) Elision . . 200 § 54. Laws of the three processes . . 204 § 55. Final consonants . . 207 § 56. Organic changes—gutturals . . 209 § 57. Relation of palatals to linguals . . 210 § 58. Marathi substitution of sibilants for palatals . . 218 § 59. Connexion between cerebrals and dentals . . 219 § 60. Further transition of cerebrals into *l* and *ḷ* . . 238 § 61. Modifications and changes of semivowels; (1) य . . 247 § 62. *Id.*, (2) य . . 248 § 63. *Id.*, (3) र . . 250 § 64. *Id.*, (4) व . . 251 § 65. The nasals . . 253 § 66. The sibilants . . 257 § 67. ह . . 262 §§ 68, 69. The aspirates . . 263 § 70. Visarga and anuswâra . . 274 § 71. Inversion of words . . 275

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§ 72. Ancient and modern articulation . . 277 § 73. The nexus—its three classes . . 281 § 74. The strong nexus . . 283 § 75. Saptan and its derivatives . . 287 § 76. *Ud* in composition . . 293 § 77. The mixed nexus . . 294 § 78. Nasals in a mixed nexus . . 295

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CHAPTER IV.—CHANGES OF COMPOUND CONSONANTS.

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§ 79. Treatment of म . . . . . . . 302 § 80. The sibilants in a mixed nexus . . . . 304 § 81. Treatment of च . . . . . . . 309 § 82. Sibilants in combination with dental and cerebral strong letters . . . . . . . 313 § 83. Semivowels in a mixed nexus—र and ल . . 318 § 84. Id.,—य and व . . . . . . . 324 § 85. य, र, and व in combination with dentals . . 325 § 86. The weak nexus . . . . . . . 339 § 87. Nasal with nasal . . . . . . . 340 § 88. Nasal with semivowel . . . . . . 341 § 89. Nasal with sibilant . . . . . . . 346 § 90. Semivowel with semivowel . . . . . 348 § 91. Semivowel with sibilant . . . . . . 353 § 92. ह in combination with other weak letters . . 358 § 93. Relative strength of the weak letters . . . 359

Errata et Corrigenda

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Page 12, line 3, omit the semicolon after "pronunciation."

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Page 14, line 25, for *facinus* read *factiones*.

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Page 20, line 13, dele semicolon, insert comma.

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Page 20, line 19, the second *á* in *churáná*, *bajáná*, etc., not to be in italics.

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Page 20, line 3 from bottom of page, for *áya* write *áya*.

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Page 25, line 18, for *bascanda* read *bascauda*.

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Page 36, note, line from bottom, for *Dalál* write *Dulál*.

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Page 85, line 11, for *(their)* read *(its)*.

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Page 89, line 17, for *Kabir and other* read *the early Vaishnava*.

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Page 96, line 28, for *Bhagulpúr* read *Bhagalpur*.

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Page 112, line 12, for *mon* read *mont*.

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Page 112, line 13, for *tis, ti, tem, te*, read *is, i, em, e*.

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Page 112, line 3 from bottom, for *eo, ad*, read *eo ad* (dele comma).

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Page 130, line 2 from bottom, for *shore* read *shove*.

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Page 138, line 26, for भागिनी read भगिनी.

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Page 139, line 22, for रेत read रेट.

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Page 142, line 25, for खाइया read खाइया (*kh*).

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Page 142, line 25, for रबेये read खेये (*kh*).

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Page 142, line 29, for आये read एग्ये (*egye*).

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Page 146, line 7, for शिघ read सिह (*singh*).

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Page 147, lines 13, 14, dele the " after *rain* and the " before *blood*.

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Page 153, line 14, for *faces;* read *faces,* (comma for semicolon).

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Page 153, line 15, for *matter,* read *matter;* (semicolon for comma).

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Page 162, lines 5, 6, for *ultá, pultá* read *ultá-pultá*, and so in all the couples of words which follow, as *ás-pás*, etc.

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Page 176, line 9, for S. भिज read भिजणु.

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Page 182, line 19, dele दिवाला; } दिवाला is from दीपावली, and is

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Page 182, line 20, dele दीपआलय; } not a case in point.

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Page 184, line 2, for संन read संग. Page 187, line 7, for with read into. Page 199, line 8, for कटि read कीट. Page 199, line 15, for G. वड read वट. Page 201, line 4, for atyrijuka read atirijuka. Page 201, line 22, for नउलो read मउलो. Page 204, line 13, for rochetho read rochetha. Page 210, line 22, for कप, कंप read कूप, कूप. Page 211, line 17, for derivative read derivatives. Page 214, line 22, for टप्पाल read तप्पाल. Page 215, line 3 from bottom, for वृत read वृत; (semicolon for full stop). Page 215, line 3 from bottom, the words The व is still preserved in B. बेट should be in parenthesis. Page 223, line 4, for court did to the read day did of being. Page 225, last line, and page 226, line 1, for peas read pease. Page 229, line 7, for thrashing read threshing. Page 231, lines 20, 22, for Brinjaries read Brinjaras. (The former is not wrong, but is less correct than the latter.) Page 234, line 2, for द्वि read द्वि (dvi). Page 237, line 25, for ठेठरा read ठठेरा. Page 240, line 2, for खेलता read खेलना (khelná). Page 243, last line but one, for ताल read पाल. Page 244, line 6, for B. read M. Page 250, line 26, after identical put a semicolon. Page 250, line 27, after द dele semicolon, put a comma. Page 273, line 8, for नहाग read महाग. Page 285, last line but one, for सनो read खनो. Page 316, line 6, for डपविष्ट read उपविष्ट. Page 322, last line but one, for पम्ब read परब.

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MODERN ARYAN LANGUAGES OF INDIA.

Chapter I. Introduction

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CONTENTS.—§ 1. SANSKRIT THE PARENT OF THE SEVEN LANGUAGES.—§ 2. FIRST EXCEPTION, ELEMENTS ARYAN, BUT NOT SANSKRITIC—THE PRAKRITS.—§ 3. SECOND EXCEPTION, ELEMENTS NEITHER SANSKRITIC NOR ARYAN.—§ 4. ELEMENTARY DIVISION OF THE SEVEN LANGUAGES. TATSAMA, TADBJAVA, DESAJA.—§ 5. EARLY AND LATE TADBJAVAS.—§ 6. THE ACCENT.—§ 7. ABSENCE OF DATA DURING NINE CENTURIES.—§ 8. PROPORTION OF WORDS OF THE THREE CLASSES IN EACH LANGUAGE.—§ 9. DIGRESSION ON THE HINDI.—§ 10. PROPORTION OF WORDS RESUMED.—§ 11. QUANTITY OF ARABIC AND PERSIAN WORDS IN EACH LANGUAGE.—§§ 12-14. INFLECTIONAL SYSTEMS OF THE SEVEN LANGUAGES,—QUESTION OF NON-ARYAN INFLUENCE.—§ 15. STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT IN THE PRESENT DAY.—§ 16. THE CHARACTER.—§ 17. PANJABI.—§ 18. BENGALI.—§ 19. ORIYA.—§ 20. PRONUNCIATION, अ.—§ 21. THE OTHER VOWELS.—§ 22. CONSONANTS.—§ 23. SEMI-VOWELS.—§ 24. SIBILANTS.—§ 25. NASALS.—§ 26. COMPOUND CONSONANTS—PECULIARITIES OF BENGALI.—§ 27. PECULIARITIES OF SINDHI.—§ 28. LITERATURE.—§ 29. DIALECTS.—§ 30. GENERAL REMARKS ON CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF THE VARIOUS LANGUAGES, AND THEIR PROBABLE FUTURE FATE.—TABLE OF INDIAN ALPHABETS.

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§ 1. On analyzing the vocabulary of the seven languages which form the subject of this work, we observe at the outset that a large number of words are common to them all. In all, with slight modifications, *ho* means be; *kar*, do; *á*, come; *já*, go; *khá*, eat; *pí*, drink; *mar*, die; *már*, strike; *sun*, hear; *dekh*, see; and among nouns a still greater number is found

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with but minor differences in each member of the group. Inasmuch as it is also clear that all of these numerous words are found in Sanskrit, we are justified in accepting so far the native opinion that Sanskrit is the parent of the whole family. By the term Sanskrit is meant that language in which the whole of the religious, legendary, and philosophical literature of the Aryan Indians is written, from the ancient hymns of the Vedas down to the latest treatises on ceremonies or metaphysics. That this language was once the living mother-tongue of the Aryan tribes may safely be conceded; that it was ever spoken in the form in which it has been handed down by Brahmanical authors, may as safely be denied. If then the word Sanskrit be, as in strictness it should be, applied only to the written language, the statement that Sanskrit is the parent of the modern vernaculars must be greatly modified, and we should have to substitute the term Middle-Aryan to indicate the spoken language of the contemporaries of Vâlmîki and Vyâsa, the reputed authors of the two great Indian epics, Râmâyana and Mahâbhârata. To do this would, however, be to draw too fine a distinction, and might lead to confusion. We shall, therefore, use the word Sanskrit; but in order to make perfectly clear the sense in which it is used, and the exact relation which Sanskrit, both written and spoken, bears to the other languages, whether contemporaneous or subsequent to it, some further explanation is necessary.

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Let it then be granted as a fact sufficiently proved in the following pages that the spoken Sanskrit is the fountain from which the languages of Aryan India originally sprung; the principal portion of their vocabulary and the whole of their inflectional system being derived from this source. Whatever may be the opinions held as to the subsequent influences which they underwent, no doubt can fairly be cast on this fundamental proposition. Sanskrit is to the Hindi and its brethren, what Latin is to Italian and Spanish.

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The next point, however, is that, even to a casual observer, it is clear that the seven languages as they stand at present contain materials not derived from Sanskrit, just as Italian and French, without ceasing to be modern dialects of Latin, contain many words of Teutonic origin. These materials may be classed under two heads. First, those which are Aryan, though not Sanskritic. Secondly, those which are neither Sanskritic nor Aryan, but something else. What this something else is, remains to be seen; it is, in fact, the great puzzle of the whole inquiry: it is the mathematician's *x*, an unknown quantity.

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§ 2. First, then, we have to explain what is meant by the term, "Aryan, though not Sanskritic." It may be accepted as a well-established fact, that the Aryan race entered India not all at once, nor in one body, but in successive waves of immigration. The tribes of which the nation was composed must therefore have spoken many dialects of the common speech. I say "must," because it is contrary to all experience, and to all the discoveries hitherto made in the science of language, to suppose otherwise. All the races of the great Indo-European family, whether they migrated into India, Persia, or Europe, have been found, however far back they can be traced, to have spoken numerous dialects of a common language; but this common language itself only existed as one homogeneous speech, spoken without any differences of pronunciation or accent by the whole race, at a time far anterior to the earliest date to which they can be followed. Indeed, so much is this the case, that writers of high repute have not hesitated to declare that no such homogeneous speech ever existed at all; that, in fact, there never was one original Iranian, or one original Celtic or German language. I am inclined to give in my adhesion to this view, holding that the idea of one common language is the creation of modern times, and the effect of the spread

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of literature.¹ But leaving this on one side, the most probable hypothesis is, that the Aryans from the earliest times spoke many dialects, all closely akin, all having the same family likeness and tendencies common to all, perhaps in every case mutually intelligible, but still distinct and co-existent. One only of these dialects, however, became at an early period the vehicle of religious sentiment, and the hymns called the Vedas were transmitted orally for centuries, in all probability with the strictest accuracy. After a time the Brahmans consciously and intentionally set themselves to the task of constructing a sacred language, by preserving and reducing to rule the grammatical elements of this Vedic tongue. We cannot tell whether in carrying out this task they availed themselves of the stores of one dialect alone: probably they did not; but with that rare power of analysis for which they have ever been distinguished, they seized on the salient features of Aryan speech as contained in all the dialects, and moulded them into one harmonious whole; thus, for the first time in their history, giving to the Aryan tribes one common language, designed to be used as the instrument for expressing thoughts of such a nature as should be deemed worthy of preservation to all time.²

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¹ It is strenuously denied by many that Sanskrit ever had any dialects, but it seems to me that their arguments refer only to the written language. In Vedic, or even pre-Vedic, times it is probable that dialects existed, though of course there is nothing that can be called proof of this supposition.

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² I have explained my views more concisely in another place as follows: "It is a highly probable theory that the old Aryan, like all other languages, began to be modified in the mouths of the people as early as the Vedic period, and that the Brahmans at a subsequent date, in order to prevent the further degeneration of their language, polished, elaborated, and stiffened it into the classical Sanskrit. We cannot, however, suppose that they brought any new material into the language, but simply that they reduced to rule what was till then vague and irregular, that they extended to the whole of the language euphonic laws which had previously been only of partial application, and so forth; all the while, however, only working on already existing materials."—From a paper on the Treatment of the Nexus, Journ. Royal Asiatic Society, vol. v., p. 151.

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All this was anterior to the introduction of the art of writing; but when that art was introduced, it was largely used by the Brahmans for the reproduction of works in the sacred Sanskrit, that is, the purified quintessence and fullest development of the principles of Aryan speech.

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But though Sanskrit had, by the labours of Pânini and others, become an historical fact, so that now at length there existed a standard, and purists might condemn, as in fact they did, all departures from it as vulgar errors and corruptions, it is beyond a doubt that the local dialects continued to live on. Sanskrit was not intended for the people; it was not to be endured that the holy language, offspring of the gods, should be defiled by issuing from plebeian lips; it kept its place apart, as the appropriate speech of pure Brahmans and mighty kings. But the local dialects held their own; they were anterior to Sanskrit, contemporary with it, and they finally survived it. Nevertheless, Sanskrit is older than the dialects. This sounds like a paradox, but it is true in two senses: first, that as the ages rolled on the vulgar dialects developed into new forms ("corrupted" is the common way of putting it), whereas Sanskrit remained fixed and fossilized for ever, so that now, if we wish to find the earliest extant form of any Aryan word, we must, in the great majority of instances, look for it not in the writings in the popular dialects which have come down to us, but in Sanskrit; and secondly, that although Pânini lived in an age when the early Aryan dialects had already undergone much change from their pristine condition, yet among the Brahmans for whom alone he laboured there existed a traditional memory of the ancient, and then obsolete, form of many words. They would remember these archaic forms, because their religious and professional duties required them constantly to recite formulæ of great antiquity, and of such sacredness that every letter in them was supposed to be a divinity in itself, and which had consequently been handed down from primeval times absolutely unchanged. In teaching his pupils the true principles of speech, Pânini would naturally use these archaic words in preference to the corruptions current around him, and thus the language which he to a certain extent created was in great part a resuscitation of antiquated terms, and thus literally older than the popular dialects which in point of time preceded its creation.¹

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¹ Many words occur in the Vedas in a Prakrit rather than a Sanskrit form. I quote at second-hand a remark of Weber's which summarizes the whole matter neatly: "The principal laws of Prakrit speech, viz., assimilation, hiatus, and a fondness for cerebrals and aspirates, are prominent in the Vedas, of which the following are examples; kuṭa = kṛita; kâṭa = karta; geha = griha; guggulu = gungulu; vivittyai = vivishṭyai; kṛikalâsa = kṛikadâśu; puroḍâśa = puroḷâśa (comp. das'ru = lacryma); paḍbhiḥ = padbhiḥ; kshullaka = kshudraka; etc."—Muir's *Sanskrit Texts*, vol. ii., p. 139. (1st Edition.)

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Still there are words, and those not a few, which can be traced back to the Prakrits, as these popular forms of speech are called, though no signs of them exist in Sanskrit, and this is especially the case where two words of like meaning were current in the mouths of the people; one of which, from the accident of its being a popular form of some word in use in the Vedas, or from some other cause, was selected for refined and scholarly use, while the other was branded as vulgar, rejected, and left for the service of the masses. This class of words it is which I have classed as Aryan, though not Sanskritic.

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To complete this branch of the subject, it is next necessary to describe briefly the position and relations of the Prakrits.

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The Prakrit dialects are theoretically supposed to be those forms of the speech of the Aryans which were commonly used by the masses. In the earliest records we have, they are grouped under five heads, representing the local peculiarities of five provinces. First is the "lingua præcipua," or Mahârâshtrî, spoken in the country round the ancient city of Ujjayini, or Avanti, in Malwa. How far this language extended is not clear, but it may be assumed roughly to have included the south of Rajputana, and a considerable portion of the present northern Maratha country. Next the Saurasenî, spoken in Surasena, in modern times the country round Mathura. Thirdly, the Mâgadhî, the vernacular of Behar. Fourthly, the Paiśâchî or dialect of the Piśâchas, whose exact locality is not defined. And fifthly, the Apabhrańśa, or "corrupt" dialect, which is perhaps to be found in Sindh and western Rajputana. That this division is artificial, and a mere grouping together of a mass of local dialects, is apparent from the fact that no two writers agree in their arrangement, and the total number of Prakrits is by some authors put as high as twenty or twenty-two. Be this as it may, it is sufficient for our present purpose to note that these dialects were numerous, and that they were in most cases designated by the name of the province where they were spoken. In the Sanskrit dramas, however, a still more artificial distinction prevails, a different dialect being attributed to each class of characters. Thus kings and Brahmans speak Sanskrit, ladies of high rank Maharashtri, servants, soldiers, buffoons, and the like use one or other of the inferior dialects. That this custom represents any state of things that ever existed is highly improbable. The ordinary business of life could not have been carried on amidst such a Babel of conflicting tongues. Perhaps the best solution of the difficulty is to suppose that the play-writers mimicked the local peculiarities of the various provinces, and as in India in the present day great men fill their palaces with servants drawn from all parts of the country, so it may have been then. A Bengali Zemindar employs men from the Panjab and Hindustan as guards and doorkeepers; his palanqueen-bearers come from Orissa, his coachmen and water-carriers from Northern Bengal, and so on. Similarly an ancient Indian king drew, we may suppose, his soldiers from one province, his porters and attendants from another, his dancers and buffoons from a third.

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These all when assembled at the capital would doubtless strike out some common language by which they could communicate with each other, just as in the present day Urdu is used all over India.¹ But just as this Urdu is spoken incorrectly by those whose mother-tongue it is not, so that the Bengali corrupts it by an admixture of Bengali words and forms, and speaks it with a strong Bengali accent; so in ancient times these servants and artificers, collected from all corners of a vast empire, would speak the common lingua franca each with his own country twang; and the Prakrit of the plays would appear to be an exaggerated representation, or caricature, of these provincial brogues.

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¹ It is a characteristic peculiarity of India, arising from want of means of communication, that trades and professions are still confined to particular localities; one town produces swords, and nothing else; another is entirely devoted to silk-weaving, and no other town but that one presumes to rival it.

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But there are works of a more serious character to which we can refer for a solution of the problem of the real nature of the Prakrits. In the sixth century before Christ there arose in Behar the great reformer Sakyamuni, surnamed Buddha, or "the wise," who founded a religion which for ten centuries drove Brahmanism into obscurity, and was the prevailing creed of almost all India. The religious works of the Buddhist faith, which are extremely numerous and voluminous, have been the means of preserving to us the Magadhi Prakrit of those days. Buddhism was imported into Ceylon in 307 B.C., and the Magadhi dialect under the name of Pali has become the sacred language of that island.²

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² It must however be stated that there are reasons for doubting whether the Pali of Ceylon is really the same as the Magadhi. Some authors are inclined to doubt this, and state that the Pali corresponds more closely with forms of Prakrit spoken in Western India. It matters little or nothing to the present inquiry whether this be so or not. We are only indirectly concerned with Prakrit in this work. It is sufficient to say that the Pandits of Ceylon use the words Pali and Magadhi as convertible terms. Pali in fact means only "writing."

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Similarly another religious sect, the Jains, have used the Maharashtri Prakrit as the medium for expressing the tenets of their belief. There are also some poems in other Prakrit dialects.

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Without going into details, which would be out of place here, it may be stated in a general way that the scenic Prakrit and that of the poems differ from Sanskrit more particularly in the omission of single consonants, and that this omission is carried to such an extent as to render one half or more of the words used unintelligible and unrecognizable; whereas in the religious works this practice, although it exists, is not allowed to run to such an extreme. As this subject will be reverted to further on, it need not be more than touched on here. It may be added that all the Prakrits are, like the Sanskrit, synthetical or inflectional languages.¹

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¹ Lest it should be objected that this description of the Prakrits is too brief and scanty, I must remind the reader again that our business is with the modern languages only, and that the subject of Prakrit, though frequently introduced for the sake of completing the range of view, is after all quite secondary throughout.

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§ 3. Next comes the class of words described as neither Sanskritic nor Aryan, but *x*. It is known that on entering India the Aryans found that country occupied by races of a different family from their own. With these races they waged a long and chequered warfare, gradually pushing on after each fresh victory, till at the end of many centuries they obtained possession of the greater part of the territories they now enjoy. Through these long ages, periods of peace alternated with those of war, and the contact between the two races may have been as often friendly as hostile. The Aryans exercised a powerful influence upon their opponents, and we cannot doubt but that they themselves were also, but in a less degree, subject to some influence from them. There are consequently to be found even in Sanskrit some words which have a very un-Aryan look, and the number of such words is much greater still in the modern languages, and there exists therefore a temptation to attribute to non-Aryan sources any words whose origin it is difficult to trace from Aryan beginnings.

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It may be as well here to point out certain simple and almost obvious limitations to the application of the theory that the Aryans borrowed from their alien predecessors. Verbal resemblance is, unless supported by other arguments, the most unsafe of all grounds on which to base an induction in philology. Too many writers, in other respects meritorious, seem to proceed on Fluellen's process, "There is a river in Macedon, and there is also moreover a river in Monmouth, and there is salmons in both." A certain Tamil word contains a P, so does a certain Sanskrit word, and *ergo*, the latter is derived from the former! Now, I would urge that, in the first place, the Aryans were superior morally as well as physically to the aborigines, and probably therefore imparted to them more than they received from them. Moreover, the Aryans were in possession of a copious language before they came into India; they would therefore not be likely to borrow words of an ordinary usual description, such as names for their clothing, weapons, and utensils, or for their cattle and tools, or for the parts of their bodies, or for the various relations in which they stood to each other. The words they would be likely to borrow would be names for the new plants, animals, and natural objects which they had not seen in their former abodes, and even this necessity would be reduced by the tendency inherent in all races to invent descriptive names for new objects. Thus they called the elephant *hastin*, or the "beast with a hand," and *gaja*, or the "roarer"; the monkey *kapi*, or the "restless beast," and *vānara*, or the "forest-man"; the peacock *mayūra*, in imitation of its cry. A third limitation is afforded by geographical considerations. Which were the tribes whom the Aryans mixed with, either as friends or foes? Could the bulk of them have come into frequent and close contact with the Dravidians, and if so, when and how? These are questions which it is almost impossible to answer in the present state of our knowledge, but they are too important to be altogether set aside, and it may be therefore pointed out merely as a contribution to the subject, that the tribes driven out of the valley of the Ganges by the Aryans were almost certainly Kols to the south, and semi-Tibetans to the north. It is fair to look with suspicion on an etymology which takes us from Sanskrit to Tamil without exhibiting a connecting series of links through the intervening Kol tribes.

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If the above limitations are rigidly applied, they will narrow very much the area within which non-Aryan forms are possible in Sanskrit and its descendants, and will force us to have recourse to a far more extensive and careful research within the domain of Sanskrit itself than has hitherto been made, with a view to finding in that language the origin of modern words.

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§ 4. Having thus noticed the three classes of materials which have entered into the composition of the seven languages, I now proceed to examine the question as it were from the interior, in order to attain to a certain amount of precision in estimating the relative proportions of each of these three elements. For this purpose it will be convenient to use the familiar native divisions, which go to the root of the matter as far as their lights enable them. Words in any of these seven languages are divided into three classes.

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1. Tatsama तत्सम, or "the same as it" (i.e. Sanskrit).
2. Tadbhava तद्भव, or "of the nature of it."
3. Deśaja देशज, or "country-born."

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This division will be used throughout the following pages, and may be thus explained.

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Tatsamas are those words which are used in the modern languages in exactly the same form as they wear in Sanskrit, such as दर्शन, राजा, कवि. The only change which these words have undergone is that in pronunciation; the final ah, am, of the Sanskrit masculine and neuter are rejected, and we hear darshan, nimantran, for darśanam, nimantraṇam.

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Tadbhavas are those words which, though evidently derived from Sanskrit, have been considerably changed in the process, though not so much so as to obscure their origin. Such are H. आंख “eye,” from Skr. अक्षि; कोइल a “cuckoo,” Skr. कोकिल; गधा an “ass,” Skr. गर्दभ.

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Desajas are those words which cannot be derived from any Sanskrit word, and are therefore considered to have been borrowed from the aborigines of the country, or invented by the Aryans in post-Sanskritic times; such as पगडी a “turban,” डाब an “unripe cocoa-nut,” डोंगा a “canoe,” and the like.

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This classification supplies an additional method of arriving at a determination as to the proportion of these various elements in the seven languages. Tatsamas are all Sanskrit: even if the Sanskrit word were originally borrowed from non-Aryan sources, it has become, as far as the modern Aryans are concerned, pure and classical. Tadbhavas too are all Aryan, either Sanskritic or not; but there is so much to be said about these Tadbhavas later, that they may be passed over for the present as Aryan. We have then only Desajas left; and in considering them, it must be borne in mind that these seven languages have never been subjected to close scientific scrutiny: it is not yet known what are their laws and principles of derivation. A long string of writers, from Vararuchi downwards, have enunciated certain general rules which guide the transition of words from Sanskrit into Prakrit, but no step has been taken beyond this. Indian Pandits will not often waste their time on the vernaculars, and, if they do, are content to note such words as afford examples of any of the rules of Vararuchi or his successors, and to set down all words which cannot by the operation of these rules be at once transformed into Sanskrit as Deśaja. European scholars also have got no further than Prakrit, and seem to believe that the modern dialects are merely corruptions of Prakrit forms. It is therefore not presumptuous to say that further research, and a better acquaintance with the laws of development of these languages, will probably enable us ere long very much to diminish the number of these Desajas by tracing them back through newly discovered processes either to Sanskrit or Prakrit. Even as matters stand at present, if all the Tatsamas and all the Tadbhavas be Aryan, there is only a very small proportion left which can be non-Aryan.

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§ 5. Of the three classes into which all the languages have been divided in the preceding section, Tatsamas are the least interesting to the student. This class consists of pure Sanskrit words which had long been dead and buried, so to speak, when in comparatively recent times they were resuscitated and brought into use by learned men, partly to supply real wants, but still more to show off their own learning. They have not been current in the mouths of the people long enough since their new birth to have undergone any of those processes of change to which all really living words in every language are constantly subjected; and a great many of them, especially in Bengali and Oriya, are not likely ever to be used colloquially. They ought certainly to be excluded from dictionaries.

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It is to the Tadbhavas that we must turn if we would become acquainted with the secrets of the phonetic machinery of the Aryan Indians. Of these there are two sorts, so distinguished from one another that it is impossible to mistake them. The one class consists of those words which were in use in Prakrit, and in which the Prakrit processes have been carried one step further. The other contains words which apparently have not come through Prakrit, as they exhibit a more perfect form, and a nearer approach to the Sanskrit than the Prakrit form does. The problem which has to be explained is this, whence comes it that words in the modern languages preserve a greater degree of resemblance to Sanskrit or old Aryan, than the Prakrits do? How is it, for instance, that Hindi has *rât*, *râg*, *nâgarî*, *gaj*, for Sanskrit *râtri*, *râga*, *nâgarî*, *gaja*, where Prakrit has only *râi*, *râä*, *nâarî*, *gaä*? If these modern languages were regularly descended, in respect of such words as these, from Sanskrit through Prakrit, the letters which had been lost in the latter could never have been restored. The masses speak by ear, and by habit. Even in India, where people perhaps think more about the languages they speak than we do in Europe, the majority of speakers, after *râi* had been in use for several generations, would not be aware that the letters *tr* had dropped out; and even if they became aware of this fact, no one would go about to restore them. How many Englishmen know that a *g* has dropped out of such words as *say*, *day*, *nail*, *sail*, *rain*,¹ and how many, if they knew it, would care to make the innovation of putting them back again? In the Spanish of Cervantes, when Don Quixote, in one of his lofty flights, used the then rapidly obsolescent forms *fermosa*, *fazañas*, *facienda*, *amabades*, and the like, for the more usual *hermosa*, *hazañas*, *hacienda*, *amabais*, he is held up to ridicule, even though some of his hearers were educated men, and must have known the Latin *formosa*, *facinus*, *facienda*, *amabatis*.

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¹ Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, has *sagan*, *dæg*, *nagel*, *sægel*, *rægn*. Gothic *dags*, *nagls*. Modern High German *sagen*, *tag*, *nagel*, *segel*, *regen*.

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There is, it appears to me, only one way of accounting for the presence of words like *rât* and the rest in the modern languages, and that is, deliberate purpose on the part of some person or set of persons who had sufficient influence to effect what they desired. This set of persons can be no other than the Brahmans. In this instance history, usually so silent in ancient India, steps in to help us. We know that the Buddhists were finally extirpated by the Brahmans about the ninth or tenth century of our era, just before the dawn of modern Indian literature. Brahmanism then resumed its sway, and gradually crushed out the hostile sect, though they still lingered on in some parts of India for a long time. Sârang Dev, son of Bisal Dev, King of Ajmer, in the ninth century,¹ embraced Buddhism, but was argued back into the orthodox faith by the contemptuous remonstrances of his father, who urged that this नष्ट ग्यान, *nashṭa gyân*, or, as we should say, "exploded theory," was not a becoming religion for a Rajput prince.² At this time the

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¹ He ascended the throne Samvat 821.

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² The passage occurs in the first book of Chand, and the story is probably historical, though, as usual with Chand, mixed up with much that is extravagantly legendary. Sârang Dev's foster-brother, a bania, had been killed by a tiger while travelling through a forest, and the prince was so grieved that he turned Buddhist. The words are—

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अति दुचित भयी सारंग देव।
नित प्रति करै अरिहतं सेव।
बुध धम लियौ बांधे न तेग।
सुनि सवन राज मन भौ उदेग।
बुझाइ कुंवर सनमान कीन।
किहि काज तुमं इह धम्म लीन।
तुम छंडि सरम हम कहौ वत।
बानिक पुत्र हन तें दुचित।
इह नष्ट ग्यान सुनिये न कान।
पुरषातन भज्जै कित्ती हान।
तुम राज वसं राजनह संग।
मृगया सर खेलो बन दुरंग।
परमोध तजो बोधक पुराण।
रामायन सुनझ भारथ निदान॥

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"Very grieved was Sârang Dev, constantly he worships the Arhaut, he embraced Saiva form of Hinduism was being singularly mixed up with the newer and more attractive Vaishnava creed, and the Brahmans were rapidly resuming their long-lost sway over the popular mind. Now Buddhism had specially selected the vernaculars of the day as the vehicle for its teaching, and the Brahmans, in resusitating their religion, naturally brought back the sacred Sanskrit. In the passage above cited Bisal Dev exhorts his son to have the Ramayan, Mahabharat, and Purans read to him, and in the same poem the bard recites the names and number of verses of the eighteen Purans as a means of purifying the souls of his listeners. The public readings and recitations of Sanskrit works must have familiarized the minds of the masses with the ancient forms of words, and no doubt the Brahmans did their best to foster the use of these ancient forms, as they do at the present day, so that gradually a large class of words in their pure Sanskrit shape got into circulation. These words, when once more current, naturally began to undergo the influences which are always at work upon human speech, and developed by degrees into the forms in which we now have them. This process, once begun, has continued to the present day.

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The words resuscitated from Sanskrit in the post-Buddhistic period do not appear to have been changed according to the same general rules as those which prevailed in times when the Prakrits were spoken. In those earlier times the elision of single consonants in the middle of a word seems to have been almost universal, and even initial letters are sometimes rejected. But in the modern words a more manly and vigorous

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the religion of Budh, he binds not on his sword; hearing the news, the king's mind was distressed; he called the prince, and saluting him (said), Why have you embraced this religion, abandoning shame tell me, are you grieved at the death of the bania's son? Do not listen to this destroyed science, (by which) manliness flies away, fame is destroyed. You are of royal race, with kings hunt the deer in the far-stretching forest, abandon this delusion, be the Purans your guide, listen to the Ramayan and (Maha)bharat."—*Chand*, i., 72.

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pronunciation obtained, and these elisions are not so frequent. It is unadvisable here to anticipate remarks more properly belonging to Chapter III., and I content myself therefore with noting the fact.

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We have, then, a continuous succession of layers or strata of words, from those which have come down through the Prakrits, and which I call, for the sake of distinction, early Tadbhavas, to those which were revived from Sanskrit at the time of the reaction against Buddhism; and after these a constant series of words, to be called modern or late Tadbhavas, less and less removed from the pure Sanskrit form in proportion as the date of their revival is more and more recent; till at last we reach words which have only been dug up by Pandits in the present century, and have not yet had time to become changed in any way. Some of the early Tadbhavas have been exceedingly altered, so much so that all resemblance to Sanskrit has been lost, and the Pandits have therefore classed them together with non-Aryan words as Desaja.

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§ 6. It may now be asked, how do we distinguish between early and late Tadbhavas in cases where the word is not found in any Prakrit writer? To answer this, an analogy must be drawn from the Romance languages of Europe, whose relation to the Latin is so strikingly parallel to that which our seven languages bear to Sanskrit. It is not intended here to carry out the comparison to its fullest extent. Deeply interesting and fascinating as the task would be, this is not the place for it, nor are sufficient materials available. But it may be stated as a general proposition, that in the whole realm of linguistic science there exists no more remarkable similarity than that between the history of the development down to its minutest particulars of the

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Romance group of languages, the Provençal, Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and the indications, we cannot call it history, of the origin and growth of the Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, and Sindhi.¹

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¹ I have placed these four languages alone, because, down to the fifteenth century, the Panjabi and Gujarati are little more than dialects of the Hindi; and the Oriya, till the time of Upendra Bhanj and Dînkrishna Dâs, has no literary existence, and we cannot tell what the spoken language was like, because poets always wrote a language of their own, having no care to keep their works on the level of the spoken dialects. The poems of the earliest Bengali writers also present very few of the grammatical peculiarities of modern Bengali; they, like Chand, and even like much later writers, Tulsi Dâs and Bihâri Lâl, resemble the writings of the Troubadours and Trouvères, in which the old synthetical languages with their array of inflections have fallen into decadence and disuse, while the analytical system of modern time has not yet obtained its full development.

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It is observable in French that there are often two forms of the same word—one ancient, the other modern. The ancient word, though often very much corrupted, invariably retains the accent on the same syllable as in the Latin. And the reason of this is plain: in the days when those words were adopted into common use by the inhabitants of Gaul, they were taken, as it were, from the lips of the Romans themselves and accentuated naturally just as the Romans accentuated them. They became current colloquially long before they were written in many instances, and could not fail to be pronounced correctly. But the modern forms of these words were resuscitated by learned men from Latin authors where they occurred, just as the Pandits do and have done with Sanskrit words. In borrowing these words the savants of later times did not know how they were pronounced, and did not care; they merely cut off the Latin termination, and pronounced the word as seemed best to themselves; as the modern and mediæval French accent differ considerably in the place of their incidence from the Latin accent, the result is that in no case does the modern or scientific term bear the accent on the same syllable as in Latin.¹

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Linked texts (16)

Gāhāsattasaī — Hāla, Māhārāṣṭrī Prakrit
Prākṛtaprakāśa — Vararuci, Sanskrit
Jābāladarśanopaniṣad — Sanskrit
Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Veda — Sanskrit
Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
Purāṇa — Sanskrit
Viyāhapannatti — Sudharman, Ardhamāgadhī Prakrit
Kṣetra — Sanskrit
Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa — Vālmīki, Sanskrit
Kawi — Old Javanese
Bhūpālapaddhati — Bhoja, Sanskrit
Hastin
Kānyakubja
Ayodhyā (Sāketa)
Agra