Curu, from whom Pándu was lineally descended, and in whose family the Indian Apollo became incarnate; whence the poem, next in fame to the Ramayan, is called Mahabharat.”*

"The Pracrita, or second class of Indian languages," (says Mr. Colebrooke) comprehends the written dialects which are now used in the intercourse of civil life, and which are cultivated by lettered men. The author of a passage already quoted, includes all such dialects under the general denomination of Pracrit: but this term is

commonly restricted to one language, namely to the Saraswati bala bani, or the speech of children on the banks of the Saraswati, or youthful speech of Saraswati. There is reason to believe that ten polished dialects formerly prevailed in as many different civilized nations, who occupied all the fertile provinces of Hindustan and the Dekhan. Evident traces of them still exist. They shall be noticed in the order

* Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. ix. p. 367, et seq.

in which these Hindu nations are usually enumerated."

"The Sareswata was a nation which occupied the banks of the river Saraswati. Brahmanas, who are still distinguished by the name of their nation, inhabit chiefly the Panjab or Panchanada, west of the river from which they take their appellation. Their original language may have once prevailed through the southern and western parts of Hindūstān proper, and is probably the idiom to which the name of Pracrit is generally appropriated. · This has been more cultivated than any other among the dialects which will be here enumerated, and it occupies a principal place in the dialogue of most dramas. Many beautiful poems composed wholly in this language, or intermixed with stanzas of pure Sanscrit, have perpetuated the memory of it, though perhaps it may have long ceased to be a vernacular tongue. Grammars have been compiled for the purpose of teaching this language and its prosody, and several treatises of rhetoric have

been written to illustrate its beauties. The Pracrita Manorama and Pracrita Pingala are instances of the one, and the Saraswati Cantabharana of Bhojadeva, may be named as an example of the other, although both Sanscrit and Pracrit idioms furnish the examples with which that author elucidates his precepts."

"The Canyacubjas possessed a great empire, the metropolis of which was the ancient city of Canyacubja or Canoge. Theirs seems to be the language which forms the ground-work of modern Hindūstanee, and which is known by the appellation of Hindi or Hindevi. Two dialects of it may be easily distinguished, one more refined, the other less so. To this last the name of Hindi is sometimes restricted, while the other is often confounded with Pracrit. Numerous poems have been composed in both dialects, not only before the Hindustanee was ingrafted on the Hindi by a large intermixture of Persian, but also in very modern times, by Mohammedan as well as Hindu poets On examination,

the affinity of Hindi with the Sanscrit language is peculiarly striking; and no person acquainted with both can hesitate in affirming that Hindi is chiefly borrowed from Sanscrit. Many words, the etymology of which shews them to be the purest Sanscrit, are received unaltered; many more undergo no change but that of making the final vowel silent; a still greater number exhibits no other difference than what arises from the uniform permutation of certain letters; the rest too, with comparatively few exceptions, may be easily traced to a Sanscrit origin. Pracrit and Hindi books are commonly written in the Devanagari; but a corrupt writing, called Nagari, is used by Hindūs in all common transactions where Hindi is employed by them; and a still more corrupted one, wherein vowels are for the most part omitted, is employed by bankers and others in mercantile transactions."

Gaura, or, as it is commonly called, Bengalah, or Bengali, is the language spoken in the provinces, of which the an

cient city of Gaur was once the capital; it still prevails in all the provinces of Bengal, excepting, perhaps, some frontier districts, but is said to be spoken in its greatest purity in the eastern parts only; and, as there spoken, contains few words which are not evidently derived from Sanscrit. This dialect has not been neglected by learned men. Many Sanscrit poems have been translated, and some original poems have been composed in it: learned Hindūs, in Bengal, speak it almost exclusively; verbal instruction in sciences is communicated through this medium, and even public disputations are conducted in this dialect. Instead of writing it in the Devanagari, as the Pracrit and Hindevi are written, the inhabitants of Bengal have adopted a peculiar character, which is nothing else but Devanagari, deformed for the sake of expeditious writing. Even the learned amongst them employ this character for the Sanscrit language, the pronunciation of which too they in like manner degrade to the Bengali standard.—Although Gaura be