Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c12.72

Language: English

c12.72.1

Patañjali lived in the middle of the second century before Christ and king Aśoka in the middle of the third. Between Patañjali and Kâtyâyana a pretty long time must have elapsed, since in the Mahâbhâshya various readings or emendations in a few cases of the Vârtikas of the latter are noticed and sometimes their interpretations as given by other writers; so that a sort of literature must have grown round the Vârtikas. I am, therefore, inclined to accept the popular tradition which refers Kâtyâyana to the period of the Nandas, i.e., to about the first quarter of the fourth century before Christ. Now we have seen that in the time of this grammarian the Sanskrit language assumed a different form from that it had in that of Pâṇini; and by the time of Patañjali very great reverence had come to be paid to this last author. For in giving the uses of grammar the author of the Mahâbhâshya says that it is the duty of a Brâhman to study the Vedas along with their aṅgas or illustrative S'âstras; and of the six aṅgas grammar is the chief. Patañjali is not likely to yield this honour to any other than Pâṇini's grammar. To account for these and some of the other circumstances noticed by Dr. Goldstücker we must place Pâṇini about four centuries before Kâtyâyana, i. e. refer him to about the 8th century before Christ. Yâska must have flourished a short time before him.

c12.72.2

Though the Pâli or an idiom very close to it was the language of the uneducated classes in the times of Kâtyâyana, Aśoka, and Patañjali, still its formation must be dated some centuries earlier, since in its verb it represents what I have called Middle Sanskrit or Sanskrit of Yâska and Pâṇini. Yâska notices local varieties of Sanskrit words, and gives one or two instances, but makes no allusion to any apabhraṁśas or corruptions, though from the nature of his work he may be expected to do so; while Kâtyâyana and Patañjali mention them frequently, as we have seen. Even if they existed in his time, therefore, they must have been insignificant and unimportant, and did not enter into the speech of any class of the Aryan society to any appreciable extent. After his time, however, i. e. about the seventh or sixth century B. C., the elaboration of the Pâli, or low Sanskrit as it might be called, began in a decided manner; and the language continued to be spoken up to the time of Patañjali. Till then it did not specifically assume a Prâkṛit form, though in the inscriptions of Aśoka some of the characteristics of a later Prâkṛit, the Mâgadhî, were developed, as we have seen, in one province, very likely Magadha itself. The Prâkṛits must have begun to be formed about that time, but they did not then attain any distinctive character; and the vernacular speech probably did not finally leave the Pâli stage till a very long time afterwards.

c12.72.3

About the time when the inscriptions in the cave-temples were composed, the Pâli was, as I have stated, a sacred and literary language. The longer and more important of the inscriptions are therefore in that language. But in a good many of the shorter inscriptions, especially of private individuals, we have words exhibiting Prâkṛit characteristics.¹ The growth of the specific Prâkṛits, therefore, must be referred to the early centuries of the Christian era; and we may therefore infer that about the time our first dramatic plays were written they were actually the spoken dialects of those classes of the people whose representatives use them in those works. About the sixth or seventh century the Apabhraṁśa was developed in the country in which the Brajabhâshâ prevails in modern times; or, if the speeches in that dialect contained in the fourth Act of the Vikramorvaśî were really composed by Kâlidâsa, which, as remarked in a former lecture, we have the gravest reasons for doubting, its growth must be assigned to a somewhat earlier period. Daṇḍin mentions the Apabhraṁśa, and a good many verses from his Kâvyâdarśa are found in Vâmana’s Alaṁkâravṛitti; and if this be the same Vâmana that lived at the court of Jayâpîḍa, king of Kaśmîr, who reigned from 751 A. C. to 782 A. C., Daṇḍin must have flourished before the eighth century. The modern vernaculars seem to have begun to assume a distinctive character about the tenth century.

c12.72.4

In the copperplate inscription containing the name of Bhâskarâchârya, dated 1128 Śaka or 1206 A. C., which I once mentioned before, Marâṭhî appears in its specific character, and so also does Hindî in the work of Chand, who flourished about the same time.