Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/614

SANSKRIT LANGUAGE. 548 SANSKRIT LANGUAGE. Hindu griiiimmriiiii I'miiiii (q.v.) and his fol- lowers. Kor the last 2000 years or more, until the (irfsoiit dav, this lanpiiajie has led a more or less artificial "life, hcin^', like Latin durin;; the Middle Arps, the means of eommuniealion and literary expression of the i>riestly, learned, and eulliva"ted eastes. (See S.v.nskuit Lrri:nAriKi:.) It is distinfinished most obviously from the later derived dialeets, Prakrit (q.v.) and Pali (q.v.). whose eharaeter and forms in relation to Sanskrit are closely analogous to those of the Romance lanfiuages" (q.v.) in tlieir relation to Latin. On the"" other hand. Sanskrit is dislin^Miished. al- thonj.di much less sharply, from the oldest forms of Indian sjieecli. iirescrved in the canonical and wholly religions literature of the 'cda (q.v.), Ifrnhmuna (q.v.). and Upanimd (q.v.). These forms of speech are in their turn by no means free from inii>ortant dialectic, stylistie, and chro- nolo-;ieal dill'erenees, b>it they are cominised under the one name, Vedic (or, less properly, Vedic Sanskrit), which is thus distiiignislieil from the laiifiua^'e of Panini. whose proper desifination is Sanskrit, or classical Sanskrit. Vedic differs from Sanskrit about as much as the (ireck of lloiiier docs from classical (ireck. The Vedic apparatus of ■.'rannnatical forms was much richer and less definitely settled than that of Sanskrit, which gave u]) much of the earlier language without, as a rule, supplying the proper substitutes for the lost materials. Many case- forms and verbal forms of Vedic disappeared in Sanskrit. The subjunctive wa,s lost, and about a dozen Vedic infinitives were reduced to a single one in Sanskrit. Sanskrit also gave up the most important heirloom which had been handed down by the Indian language from prehistoric times, the system of Vedic accentuation. It nuist be borne in mind, however, that Vedic, notwithstand- ing its somewhat unsettled richness, and its verv archaic character, is not to be regarded as a popular tongue, but as the more or less artificial 'high s|)ee<'li.' handed down through generations by families of priestly singers. Both 'eilic and Sanskrit were in a sense caste languages, based upon popular idioms. The grammatical regula- tion of Sanskrit at the hands of Panini and his followers, however, went beyond any academic attempts to regulate speech recorded elsewhere in the history of civilization. The Vedic hymns, the earliest literary produc- tion of the Indian people, were composed in the northwest of India, in the river-basins of the Indus and its tributaries. The date of these hymns is unknown, n.r. 1500 being the conven- tional assumption; still less known is the time when the Aryans eonmienced their entry into India through the i)asses of the Hindu Knsh. Nevertheless older forms lying behind the Vedic language may be reconstructed by the aid of com- parative philology. The original home of the Vedic people was in the great Persian region on the northern side of the Himalayas. By comi)ari- son of Vedic and Sanskrit with the oldest forms of Persian -speech, . vesta (q.v.) and Old Persian (q.v.), it is clear that these languages are col- lectively mere dialects of one and the same older idiom. This is known as the Indo-Iranian, or Aryan (in the narrower sense) language. There- constructed Indo-Iranian language differs less from the language of the Veda than classical Sanskrit does from Prakrit and Pali. The language of the Persian Avesta is so much like that of the Veda that entire passages of either literature may be converted into good specimens of the other hy merely observing the special laws of sound which each has evolveil in the course of its se])arate existence. This Indo-Iranian language, again, is part of the greater linguistic community of tlie so-called Indo-Germanic languages (q.v.). See al.so Philology. Since the revival of classical learning there has been no event of such importance in the his- tory of culture as the discovery of Sanskrit in the latt<'r part of the eighteenth century. The study of this language opened up the primitive Indo-tiermanic period, and originated the science of comparative philology in all its bearings. Lin- guistic science, comparative mythology, .science of religion, comparative jurisprudence, an<l other important fields of historical and philosophical study, either owe their very existence to the dis- covery of Sanskrit or were profoundly influenced by its study. By its aid the spiritual monuments of Zoroaster (see .4vesta) were made accessible, as well as the stone monuments of the Persian kings of the Acha>menidan dynasty. After Alexander's invasion of India the Greeks became acquainted to a certain extent with the learning of the Hindus. The Arabs in the Middle Ages introduced the knowledge of Indian science to the West, the so-called Arabic (in reality In- dian) numerals among other things. Beginning with the sixteenth century, European nations, the Portuguese. Dutch, Danes, English, and French, obtained a more or less permanent foothold in India, but they sought material gain only, never- theless a few' European missionaries acquired some familiarity with Sanskrit, and Abraham Roger even translated the Sanskrit poet Bhartrihari (q.v.) into Dutch as early as 1651. But the first Sanskrit grammar to be published in Europe, that of L'ather Paulinus a Sainto Bartholoma'o. was printed in Rome no earlier than 17!)0. English scholars in India, Sir William Jones, Charles Wilkins. H. F. Colebrooke. H. H. Wilson, and others, at the end of the eighteenth century, were the first real mediators between India and Europe. Wilkins's translation of the Bhagavad- gita (q.v.) and .Jones's translation of the Sakun- tala (q.v.) elicited the greatest admiration. Es- pecially in Germany, men like Herder. Goethe, the brothers Schlegel, and Wilhelm von Hundxddt were ])rofoundly moved and attracted to the new langiuige, its literature, and its theosophy. Friedrich von Schlegel's Ueber die Sprarhv iiiid W'cislteit der Indier introduced the historical and comparative method into the science of langiiage. Soon afterwards Franz Bopp (.see PillLOLOGT; Bopp), in his treatise, Uebcr dim Koiijiifiationssystem. der Sanskritsprache (Frank- fort, 1816). laid the foundation of the science of comparative grammar. Since then both Indology and comparative philology have won for them- selves permanent positions among the intellectual disciplines in all centres of learning in Europi-, America, and India. The Sanskrit language has on the whole pre- served the linguistic conditions of the Indo-Ger- manic parent speech better than any other mem- ber of the Indo-Germanic family of languages. In its vocalisni it has merged the two 'triads' of vowels rt, e, o, and w, e, o respectively into // and ii : thus Indo-Germ. *andhos, 'flower' (Gk. ivSos), and *menos, 'mind' {Gk. fiiyos) . are Skt. (indlntii and manas : Indo-Germ. *p6d, 'foot,' and 'di-dhe-