Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c6.10

Language: English

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In this condition Sanskrit philology passed into the hands of Europeans. The discovery of Sanskrit and the Indian grammatical system at the close of the last* century led to a total revolution in the philological ideas of Europeans. Before this time there was hardly a scientific treatment of linguistic facts, etymological analysis was scarcely known, and philological speculation had not emancipated itself from the trammels of religion. The Jews were the chosen people of God, and hence their language, the Hebrew, was the most original of all languages, and all others were derived from it. This was the belief of European scholars, as that of the orthodox Pandit at the present day is that Sanskrit is the primitive language, and all others are corruptions of it; though, however, the Pandit has an excuse in the fact that the languages he generally hears spoken about him have really sprung from Sanskrit. But several circumstances had about this time prepared Europe for independent thought in philology, and Sanskrit supplied the principles upon which it should be conducted and determined the current in which it should run. The languages of Europe, ancient and modern, were compared with Sanskrit and with each other.

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This led to comparative philology and the classification of languages, and a comparison of the words and forms in the different languages led scholars into the secrets of the growth of human speech, and the science of language was added to the list of existing branches of knowledge. The progress made within about fifty years is marvellous, and affords a striking instance of the intellectual activity of the Europeans. In the cultivation of philology and the elaboration of this new science the Germans, of all other nations, have been most prominent, and have done by far the greater portion of the work. The more limited field of Prâkṛit philology with which we are here concerned has not been left uncultivated. Pâli, the earliest of the Prâkṛit dialects, is almost as much studied in Europe as Sanskrit. We have editions of Pâli texts by Turnour, a Ceylon Civilian, and a Danish scholar, Fausböll; and of a Native Grammar by Kachchâyana, by M. Senart, a Frenchman; an original treatise on this subject by Clough, and a very useful Dictionary by the late lamented Professor Childers.³ The derivation of the language from Sanskrit forms the subject of an essay by the great French scholar, M. Burnouf, and the equally great German scholar, Professor Lassen. There are notices of the Prâkṛit dialects in one of Colebrooke’s essays and in the preface to Professor Wilson’s Hindu Theatre.

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Lassen also wrote a book entitled Institutiones Linguæ Pracraticæ, based upon the grammatical works of native writers, and upon the Prâkṛit passages occurring in the Sanskrit dramatic plays. Professor Weber, whose industry and comprehensive grasp are admirable, has published an elaborate analysis of the language and contents of a Jaina religious work in Prâkṛit entitled the Bhagavatī, and of the language of a collection of Prâkṛit songs by Hâla, together with an edition and translation of the work. Dr. Cowell has brought out a nice edition of the Prâkṛita-Prakâs’a by Vararuchi; and Dr. Muir, whose works are so valuable to the student, devotes a large portion of his second volume of the “Sanskrit Texts” to Prâkṛit philology, in which he gives his own views and a summary of those of other scholars. In Ceylon, Mr. D’Alwis has published a work on the Pâli, and in India an edition of the Prâkṛit Grammar of Kramadîs’vara has been published in the Bibliotheca Indica, and of that of Hemachandra in Bombay by a Jaina priest with the assistance of a Sâstrî⁴. The modern vernaculars have not yet succeeded in attracting the attention of the learned in Europe. Essays on some points of vernacular philology by Professor Hoernle, of Jayanarayan’s College, Benares, have appeared in the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society. But the most important work on this subject that has yet appeared is Mr. Beames’s Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages.

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Two volumes have been published, and the third and last is expected.⁵ Mr. Beames has brought his subject down to the pronoun; and the forthcoming volume will treat of the verb. Dr. Trump in his valuable Grammar of the Sindhî language compares the grammatical forms existing in the several vernaculars, and recent grammarians of Gujarâtî and Marâthî have made attempts in some cases to trace the grammar of these languages from the Sanskrit through the Prâkrit. A Gujarâtî Sâstrî, named Vrajalâl, has written a useful little tract on the history of his vernacular.⁶ But upon the whole, it must be acknowledged that vernacular philology is still in a state of infancy, and a great deal of what has been written is unsatisfactory.