History of Classical Sanskrit Literature c5.83

c5.83

14. “India may justly claim to be the original home of scientific philology. In one of the most ancient Sanskrit books, the Samhita of of the Black Yajurveda, there are distinct indications of the dawn of linguistic study.¹ The Brahmaṇas of the Vedas which rank next to the Samhitas, and even the Taittiriya Samhita itself, the composition of which differs in no particular from its Brahmana, are all full of etymological explanations of words, though often they are fanciful.² One Acharya followed another, and they all carefully observed the facts of their language, and laid down the laws they could discover. They studied and compared the significations and forms of words, observed what was common to them, separated the constant element from that which was variable, noticed the several changes that words undergo in different circumstances, and by such a process of philological analysis completed a system of grammar and etymology. In the Nirukta, Yaska, whose exact, date we do not know, but who must have flourished several centuries before Christ, lays down correct principles of the derivation of words.