Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c8.81

Language: English

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You will thus have observed a much greater progress in the operation of those principles which we found at work in the construction of the Pâli. Here as before we find that the less known forms are made up on the model of the more known. The number of old forms which still remained in some of the Pâli declensions and conjugations has been greatly reduced in the Prâkrits, and a further advance been made in the introduction of uniformity and simplicity in the grammar of the language. It is also worthy of remark, that in a great measure the same false analogies which are used in the Pâli have come down to the Prâkrit, and their range extended. Thus the analogy of nouns in इन् or neuter nouns in इ or उ has been carried much further in the declension of masculine nouns ending in इ or उ. Nouns in ऋ, अन् and वत् have adapted themselves more closely to the model of those ending in अ, their Sanskrit nom. case supplying the new अ base; and the अ conjugations have more generally prevailed over the rest. The device of using such case-forms as मम and मह्यम् as bases, and making up the cases by appending the proper terminations has also been more largely availed of. Some of these phenomena may be attributed to the operation of the same invariable laws in the development of either without being an index to a more intimate connection between the two dialects. But there are individual forms in the two languages which, though they might be different, are yet the same in both.

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Such, for instance, are वच्छे acc. pl., the loc. sing. ending in the pronominal म्हि or म्मि, the double gen. तिस्साय, the 2nd pers. pl. ending in इत्था of the present tense, and a good many others. The consonantal and vowel changes also, so far as they go in the older language, are the same. We may therefore safely conclude that the Pâli represents generally an earlier stage of the same language which afterwards became the Prâkrit or Prâkrits. But there are again in the Prâkrits such forms as those of the ablative in दो and आहि instead of the old pronominal म्हा, the first pers. pl. of the Pres. in मो or मु instead of the Pâli म, the 1st pers. sing. of the Imperative in मु instead of the Pâli मि, the S'aurasenî absolutive in इअ corresponding to the Sanskrit य, which does not exist in the older dialect, and others. These Prâkrit forms cannot have been developed out of the Pâli forms, but must have grown independently from the Sanskrit originals. In the same way, though the Prâkrit sounds are generally the same as or further developments of the Pâli sounds, there are a good many which could not have grown out of the latter. Thus the रि in the Prâkrit words रिद्धि, रिच्छ, रिण, रिजू, &c.

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cannot have been developed out of the इ or अ of the Pâli इद्धि, अच्छ, अण, उज्जु, &c., or the अइ and अउ of such words as दइच्च, भइरव, पडर, कउसल, &c., from the ए and ओ of the corresponding Pâli words, or the ण्ण for Sanskrit ज्ञ from the Pâli ञ्ञ, though this latter exists in some of the Prâkrit dialects, or the रिस for श or ष in such words as आअरिस, सुदरिसण, बरिस, and परामरिस from the स्स or स of the Pâli आदास, सुदस्सन, वस्स, and परामास. The Prâkrit sounds must in these cases be traced directly to the corresponding Sanskrit sounds. It therefore appears that the Prâkrits had also an independent development, which may be accounted for on the supposition that they sprang not from the Pâli but a sister dialect or dialects; or that, though originally they were the same as the Pâli, their subsequent development was influenced by the parent language, and thus other sounds and forms not existing in the earlier dialect came in fresh from Sanskrit. But the first supposition is discountenanced by the fact that the resemblance between the Pâli and the Prâkrits extends even to isolated cases; and the second is supported by the circumstance that in one important particular the Prâkrits resemble the Sanskrit in the last stage of its development, while the Pâli differs in that particular from both and agrees with an earlier form of the parent language. We have seen that in later Sanskrit verbal forms especially of the past tenses were rarely used, and participles were employed instead;

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and we find that the Prâkrits have mostly lost all the Sanskrit tenses and moods except three, and past time is generally expressed by the past participle and contingency by the present; while the Pâli has, as we have seen, preserved eight, including all the past tenses and the conditional. Middle Sanskrit bears to later or classical Sanskrit the same relation, in this respect, that the Pâli bears to the Prâkrits. The change that came over Sanskrit between the two periods left its impress on what may be called the Vernacular speech. This could not have been the case unless Sanskrit had continued to influence that form of speech represented first by the Pâli and afterwards by the Prâkrits. And it was because it continued so to influence it, that the Prâkrits came to have sounds and grammatical forms also derived direct from Sanskrit and not through the Pâli. This leads to the conclusion, which will be developed in detail in the last lecture, that when the Pâli and the Prâkrits came into existence Sanskrit had not been dead but was as much a living language as either of the other two and both were spoken or used for ordinary purposes, one by men of culture and the other by ordinary people.