Page:Growth of Asamiya Language.pdf/13

GROWTH OF THE STUDY OF MODERN INDIAN LANGUAGES 3 in three directions. In the north-west il developed into Northern Ben- gali and Assamese, to the south into Oriya, and between the two into Bengali. Each of these three Gescendants is equally and directly con- nected with the common Immediate parent, and hence we find North Bengali agreeing in some respects rather with Oriya, spoken far away to the south than with Bengali of Bengal proper of which it is usually classed as a sub-dialeet". (Linguistic Suvey of India, I, 1, p. 120). Sincere as this survey by Grierson had been, it still suffers from the serious defect that it was mainly theoretical and had no correlation with the history of the people speaking those languages, a factor which no truly scientific survey could really ignore. For it is not enough to postulate a pet theory and to show classifications and sub-classifications of linguistic families and sub-families, but it is essential to study the history of languages with their particular characteristics and traits in close relation to the political, social and cultural history of their speak ers. Just like literature, a language also does not grow in vacuum, and could not thrive with its roots in the air. So it was defective, at least in respect of Asamiya, to have conducted that comprehensive survey without due cure to its historical and geographical, political and social, linguistic and cultural perspective. Even at the first sight it must appear an anachronium to speak of 'North Bengal, if not of the whole of Bengal, as distinct from modern Asam when we are considering the origin of modern Indian languages, for it was an integral part of the same country until late in the eighteenth century, even politically, as it is still so socially, linguistically and cu turally. To push further, the whole of Bengal with its ancient pro- vinces of Kama Suvarna and Pundra Vardhana was really a part and parcel of the vast kingdom of Kämarüpa under Bhaskara Varman, styled the Emperor of Eastern India in Chinese annals, as is also sufficiently evidenced by epigraphy and other Indian records. That linguistically, also politically, the province of Bengal was under the vassalage of the Prikrt of Kimarüpa as first suggested by the his. toric Records of Yuan Chwang, finding separate Praksts for Magadha and Kimarüpa, and supported by epigraphie and literary records of Eastern India as the copper-plate inscriptions of the line of the Varman kings from the sixth to the twelfth century and by the Buddhist songs composed at least by the later part of this period. Hoernelle's Essays appear to be the basis of the present compara- tive philology directly or indirectly. The theories developed by him, mainly about the two different migrations of the Aryans based on the peculiarities of the outer and the inner band of Indian languages, had