Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c12.9

Language: English

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Now the way in which the supposed contemporaneous development of Sanskrit and the Prâkṛits is accounted for by Mr. Beames is, as we have seen, this:— That the Prâkṛits arose by a natural development, while Sanskrit was created by the Brâhmans, and principally by Pâṇini, out of the Vedic dialect, the salient points of Prâkṛit speech, and by a resuscitation of antiquated terms. Hence it contains the old words and forms from which those in the Prâkṛits are derived. And this also accounts for the existence of what Mr. Beames calls an Aryan but non-Sanskritic element in the Prâkṛits, by which he probably means those few forms that are not found in classical Sanskrit, but must be referred to the Vedic dialect, or others that must be Aryan, though not found either in classical or Vedic Sanskrit. Of the latter there are almost no instances which may be regarded as beyond the possibility of doubt. But such a theory is calculated to bring relief to a puzzled philologist who, not knowing to what Sanskrit word to trace any Prâkṛit or Vernacular word, will at once get out of the difficulty by putting it down as an Aryan word not found in Sanskrit. But how is it possible to create such a language as the Sanskrit out of the elements indicated by Mr. Beames? A literary style, as distinguished from a conversational style, is what one can understand, but a language which never had anything to correspond to it in ordinary vernacular speech, but is simply created, is inconceivable.

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And if the creation of a sacred language was the conscious and deliberate aim of the Brahmans, and Pânini resuscitated old or obsolete words, why did they or he not include in the new language all the innumerable old obsolete Vedic words and grammatical forms, which would have, from the very reverence that was paid to the Vedas, rendered their invention more sacred; and why should they, instead of doing so, have distinguished between a Chhândasa or Vedic, and Bhâshâ or popular, speech? And, if the inventors seized all the salient features of the popular dialects, would they have left a few but striking Vedic peculiarities in the popular speech, such as the absolutive in त्वान् or तून, unrepresented in their new language? And how could they from the popular dialects, in which the conjugations and declensions were reduced to fewer types, construct the innumerable forms of the Sanskrit noun or verb, the Perfects, the Aorists and the lost tenses or moods? And what must have been the basis of the incalculable Taddhita or nominal, and Krit or verbal derivatives, which have left but few traces in the Prâkrits? Even the Vedic dialect is not calculated to afford much help. For if the grammar of the later Sanskrit had been framed by the conscious inventors upon the model of the Vedic, the declensions, conjugations, and the derivatives would have been like the Vedic; whereas, as a matter of fact, the differences are great, and some of these I pointed out in the first lecture.

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There remains the third alternative, that there was a traditional memory of these forms. But why should they have been committed to memory when there was no motive? The sacred formulas which Mr. Beames says were orally transmitted do not, if they were the same as those that have come down to us, contain a large number of such forms; and, if they were different, they are simply imaginary. And, though the Vedas were and are committed to memory, the literally incalculable number of case forms, verbal forms, Taddhitas, and Kridants, in the absence of any general rules which were laid down afterwards, as the theory supposes, by the grammarian creators of the languages, it is thoroughly impossible to commit to memory,—impossible, as the great author of the Mahâbhâshya says, even for Indra, with Brihaspati for his teacher and a thousand celestial years during which to learn them. Of course it is a different thing when they are current in a language which one learns from his childhood, though even in this case very few know all the words and forms which are current in their own country, and nearly all only such as they are immediately concerned with. And what is the evidence for the truth of this theory? Absolutely none is given. It is simply the vague feeling of an individual or individuals, and not a conclusion arrived at after a deliberate weighing of evidence;

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while it sets at naught the clearest evidence available in the works of the grammarians themselves, which I shall presently adduce. The theory, therefore, is utterly untenable, and the contemporaneous development of Sanskrit and the Prâkṛits derived from it, to account for which it was invented; is an impossibility. Professor Aufrecht, though he does not believe in a plurality of Vedic dialects, derives the Prâkṛits from the Vedic language, and assigns Sanskrit to schools of the learned, but does not explain its genesis. Those who believe the Vernacular dialects to be derived directly from the Vedic must explain the origin of classical Sanskrit in some such way as Mr. Beames has done; there is no other way.