Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c12.7

c12.7

We will next proceed to consider the views that have been put forth, opposed to the conclusions we have arrived at, as regards the relation between Sanskrit and the Prâkṛits, and endeavour to determine that relation more definitely than we have done. Professor Weber believes that in the Vedic times there were several dialects, and that by a fusion of these a common language called the Sanskrit was formed, while at the same time the dialects ran on their course and formed the Prâkṛits. He says, "I incline to the opinion of those, who deny that the Sanskrit Bhâshâ, properly so called, was ever the common spoken language of the whole Aryan people, and assign it to the learned alone. Just as our modern High German, arising out of the ancient dialects of the Germans, reduced what was common to all to universal rules and laws, and by the power of analogy obliterated all recollection of varieties; and just as, on the other hand, these dialects while they gradually degenerated often preserved at the same time fuller and more ancient forms; so also the Vedic dialects became partly combined in one stream, in which their individual existence was lost, and so formed the regular Sanskrit Bhâshâ, and partly flowed on individually on their own original (Prâkṛita) irregular force, and continued to be the idioms of different provinces in the corruption of which they participated. The Sanskrit language and the Prâkṛit dialects had, therefore, a common and simultaneous origin; the latter did not spring out of the former." Professor Weber gives a few instances of Prâkṛitised Sanskrit words from the Vedic dialect, as he calls it, to show that the developments of the Prâkṛits began then, but nearly all of these are from such works as the Upanishads, which must be assigned to a very late period when the language was in that confusion which we find in the Buddhistic Gâthâs. Now if the development of Sanskrit and the Prâkṛits was contemporaneous, how comes it that almost all the words and grammatical forms in these latter dialects are manifest corruptions of Sanskrit words and forms? Professor Weber’s theory does not account for this fact, but this defect is supplied by Mr. Beames, who holds nearly the same view as the Professor. He says, "The idea of a common language is the creation of modern times, and the effect of the spread of literature." "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." In a note we are told that this is probable but cannot be proved. The dialect of the Vedic hymns was, he says, only one of these. Then "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." "They seized on the salient features of Âryan speech as contained in all dialects, and moulded them into one harmonious whole." They (the popular dialects) 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 ages rolled on, the vulgar dialects went on developing into new forms, while Sanskrit remained fixed and fossilized for ever." The second is, that though Pânini, who is credited with this feat of constructing the Sanskrit language, lived when the early dialects were much changed, still among the Brâhmans there was a traditional memory of the ancient and then obsolete forms of many words . . . . . 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."