Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c6.6

c6.6

The subject on which the lectures are to be delivered this year is the Sanskrit, and the Prâkrit languages derived from it. Sanskrit is the language of the religion, law, philosophy, and poetry of the Hindus; and all their ancient and most revered books on these subjects are written in that language. Even at the present day the language we use in our daily prayers and in the performance of our various religious rites is Sanskrit; learned men carry on their disputations in Sanskrit, and now and then we meet with new poems written in that language. Prâkrit is a general name given to certain dialects in which we find some old books written; and in ordinary Hindu usage the term is extended to the vernaculars we speak. Marâthî, Gujarâtî, and the various other idioms spoken in Northern India are Prâkrits. The wording of the subject as laid down in the calendar implies that Sanskrit is the more primitive of these, and that the Prâkrits are derived from it. Our business, therefore, is to trace the history of Sanskrit, to observe how from the very earliest form in which it is presented to us in the existing literature of the language, it gradually developed or was corrupted into the modern vernaculars. The Sanskrit which we know of as such is not now the spoken language of any part of India or of the world. It is simply preserved in books, and is used by the learned. But if the Marâthî, Gujarâtî, and the rest show unmistakable signs of having been derived from this language, it must have been at one time spoken generally by our ancestors; and in being handed down from generation to generation it has undergone various modifications and changes, until we have now come to speak it as we do. But of this more hereafter.