account is given of these earlier vernaculars, viz. (1) the Prakrits, of which specimens are to be found in the different Hindu dramas, and which seem to have existed as spoken dialects, at least from the commencement of the Christian era, until they became merged in the modern vernaculars; (2) the Pāli, or sacred language of the Buddhist books of Ceylon and Burmah, which appears to represent one of the provincial dialects of northern India existing at the time when Buddhism began to be propagated in the sixth century B.C., and exhibits to us the popular speech of that region at a somewhat earlier stage than the dramatic Prakrits; (3) the dialects (nearly contemporaneous with the Pāli) which are employed in the rock and pillar inscriptions of Asoka; and (4) the singular dialect or jargon employed in the Gaāthās or metrical portions of the Buddhist chronicles of northern India. In this portion of the work some comparative tables are introduced, which exhibit (a) the relations (i.e. the points of resemblance and of difference) between the modern vernaculars, Hindi, and Mahrattī, and the dramatic Prakrits, and show how the two former have been formed by a modification of all the various elements of the latter, just as they (the older Prakrits) in their turn have sprung up (if we except a small non-Sanskritic residuum) from the gradual decomposition of the Sanskrit; (b) the forms which are common to the dramatic Prākṛits, and the Pāli, as well as those points in which they vary, and which demonstrate that the Pali diverges considerably less from the Sanskrit than the Prakrits do, and must consequently be more ancient than they; and (c) the

relation in which the rock inscriptions stand to the Pāli. In Section viii. (pp. 128–144) the conclusion is drawn that, as the vernacular speech of India, as far back as we are able to trace it, has been undergoing a continual series of mutations, and as the older the form is in which we find it existing, the nearer it approaches to the Sanskrit in its words and its grammatical inflections, it must at some period a little further back have entirely merged in Sanskrit, and have been identical with it. Thus Sanskrit having been once the same with the oldest language of northern India, must at that period have been a vernacular tongue. After some speculations on the history of the Sanskrit language and its mutations, some further arguments,-drawn partly from the parallel case of Latin (which though once a spoken tongue, was ultimately lost in its derivative dialects, Italian, etc.), and partly from certain phenomena in Indian literature, or notices occurring in Indian authors, are adduced in Section ix. (pp. 144-160) in support of the position that Sanskrit was once a vernacular language, and that the Vedic hymns were composed in the same dialect which their authors habitually spoke. I then go on to argue further (Section x., pp. 161-214) that as Sanskrit was once a spoken tongue, it must in its earlier stages have been exposed to all the mutations to which all spoken languages are subject. That such has actually been the case, is clear from a comparison of the oldest Sanskrit, that of the Vedic hymns, with the form which it took in the later literature, and which (as it became exempt from further modifications by ceasing to be popularly spoken) it has

continued ever after to retain. As, however, the distinction which is here drawn between the older and the more recent literature may be disputed by the Hindu student, I have considered it necessary to adduce proof of the assertion that the Vedic hymns are the oldest of all the Indian writings; and with this view to ascend by gradual steps from the most recent commentaries on the Veda, through the Nirukta, the Brahmanas, etc., to the hymn-collections, pointing out that each of these classes of works presupposes one of the others to have preceded it in regular order, and that such methods were employed by the commentators for the interpretation of the hymns as to prove that much of their language was already obsolete or obscure, and that consequently their priority in time to the very oldest of their expositors must have been very considerable. To complete the survey of the subject, I further show that there is a difference in the ages of the several Vedas (the Rik, Yajush, and Atharvan) themselves, as well as between the different portions of each, as is distinctly evidenced by their contents (see also pp. 446, ff.). The superior antiquity of the Vedas to the other Indian writings is next proved by a statement of the differences discoverable between the religious systems of these two classes of works, the nature-worship of the Vedas supplying the original germ out of which the Puranic mythology was slowly developed with innumerable modifications. The greater age of the Vedas is then shown by comparing a number of their grammatical forms with those of the later Sanskrit. Finally, I revert to the conclusion before indicated, that the language in which the Vedic hymns

were composed can have been no other than the vernacular speech which was employed by the rishis and their contemporaries, as it is quite inconceivable that in that early age, when the refinements of grammar were unknown, there could have existed any learned language distinct from the ordinary dialect of the people.

Having thus shown cause for believing that Sanskrit, the original speech of the early Hindus (or Indo-Arians), was at one time a spoken language, and consequently liable, like all other spoken languages, to continual mutations in its earliest ages, and having by this means paved the way for proving that it is descended from one common mother with the ancient languages of the other Indo-European races, to which it exhibits the most striking family resemblance;-I proceed, in the Second Chapter (pp. 215-357), to produce the evidence which comparative philology furnishes of this resemblance, and to argue from the affinity of languages a community of origin between the different nations by which they were spoken. I then go on to bring forward the further grounds, supplied by comparative mythology and by other considerations, for supposing that the ancestors of the Hindus belonged to the same great family as the Persians, Greeks, Romans, etc., which had its original seats in Central Asia, and that, on the dispersion, in various directions, of the different branches of that ancient family, the Indo-Arians immigrated into Hindustan from the north-west. The following are some of the details of this process of proof: In Section i. (pp. 217-228), a few simple remarks on comparative philo4 [See note 3, p. ix.]

logy are premised, in which it is shown now, by a comparison of their roots and structure, languages can be distributed into different families, of which the several members have a more or less close affinity to each other, while they have little or no resemblance to the members of any other family. This is illustrated by a comparative table, in which it is shown that while Sanskrit has in many of its words a strong similarity to Persian, it has scarcely any to Arabic; and by some other particulars. Section ii. (pp. 228-267) supplies detailed evidence of the affinities of Sanskrit with the Zend, Greek, and Latin, consisting, first, of comparative lists of words belonging to those languages which correspond with each other both in sound and sense; and secondly, of illustrations of the resemblances between those languages in their modes of inflection, as well as in the formation of words. As, however, the mutual differences which these languages also exhibit, might be urged as disproving the inference of their derivation from a common source, it is shown how, in the course of time, different branches of the same original tongue have an inevitable tendency to diverge more and more from the primitive type, both by modifying their old elements, and by assimilating new and it is further pointed out that it is precisely those parts of a language which are the most primitive and essential in which the different Indo-European tongues coincide, while those in which they differ are such as would grow up after the nations which spoke them had been separated, and had become exposed to the action of diverse influences, physical, intellectual and moral. But as, admitting the