Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.s1.t5.5

c8.s1.t5.5

∗ The Brahmans also of this eastern land spoke undoubtedly in their daily intercourse the popular dialect; had the Sanscrit been here, as we find it later in the dramas, the language of the upper classes, some trace of this circumstance must have shown itself in the sacred Pâli texts. But, as far as I know, there is no reference to be found in them (except, perhaps, at "Cullavagga," v, 33) to the Sanscrit, which to all appearances was not, setting aside the Brahman schools, known in wider circles. And this is not at all difficult to account for, as the Sanscrit belongs originally to the western parts of Hindostan; its universal employment as the language of the educated classes through all India, it has, as also the inscriptions teach us, first acquired at a much later period.