A History of Sanskrit Literature c7.s2.1

c7.s2.1

We have seen that the Sanskrit of the grammarians is essentially a legitimate development from the Vedic speech; it remains to consider the extent of its use, in the time of Pāṇini and later. In examining the matter it is essential to remember the social conditions of India. In Britain to-day the varieties of English spoken and written are complex and numerous; in India, where caste, clan, and racial distinctions were far more prominent and important, linguistic facts were far more complicated still. What is clear¹ is that Sanskrit represents the language of Brahmanical civilization, and the extent of that civilization was ever increasing, though the Brahmanical religion had to face competition from new faiths, in special Buddhism and Jainism, from the fifth century B. C. The Buddhist texts themselves afford the most convincing evidence of all of the predominance of Brahmanism; the Buddha is represented as attempting not to overthrow the ideal of Brahmanism, but to change its content by substituting merit in place of birth as the hall-mark of the true Brahmin. The public religious rites and the domestic ritual were recorded and carried out in Sanskrit, and education was in Brahmin hands. The Buddhist texts repeatedly confirm the Brahmanical principle that instruction of the people (*lokapakti*) was the duty of Brahmins, and the tales of the Jātakas² show young men of all classes, not merely Brahmins but boys of the ruling class, Kṣatriyas, and children of the people, Vaiçyas, seeking instruction in the north from Brahmin teachers. Sanskrit was the language of science, not merely grammar, prosody, astronomy, phonetics, etymology, but doubtless also of more magic arts, such as the physiognomy and demonology recorded in the Buddhist texts and confirmed by the inclusion of magic, Sarpajanavidyā, and Devajanavidyā in the list of the subjects taught by the Brahmin to the people given in the *Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa*.³ The same text⁴ mentions also Anuçāsanas, Vidyās, Vākovākya, Itihāsa, Purāṇa, Gāthās, and Nārāçaṅsīs, and the continuity of tradition is attested by the *Mahābhāṣya*¹ which includes under the range of Sanskrit speech the four Vedas with their Aṅgas and Rahasyas, the Vākovākya, Itihāsa, Purāṇa, medicine. The *Āçvalāyana Gṛhyasūtra*,² probably not far removed from Pāṇini in date, repeats in the main the list of the *Çatapatha*, but adds Sūtras, Bhāṣyas, *Bhārata*, *Mahābhārata*, and the works of the Dharmācāryas. Other sciences such as those of the bow, music, architecture, and politics are recorded in the *Mahābhārata*,³ and, so far as they were in the hands of the Brahmins, we need not doubt that Sanskrit here also had its place.