and compact prose" which (as Albrecht Weber, in his History of Sanskrit Literature, observes) had been gradually developed in the Vedic period. The scientific student of literature should note some of the causes which checked the growth of Indian prose.
The development of prose is to a certain extent necessarily democratic—it is the everyday speech of some social group; for example, the explanation of the prominence of Arabic prose in Arabic literature is to be found in its close correspondence with the polished speech of the Koreish. Critics have shown how Athenian conversation, in public or private, is the true source of that splendid instrument of thought we call Attic prose; and any one who takes the trouble to trace the beginnings of prose in England, France, Germany, will soon discover the powerful influences of the language actually spoken at court, or in the public assemblies, or in the private meetings of the educated classes. The Bráhman caste clearly lacked the freedom and variety of social status which in the West contributed so largely to the growth of prose. Moreover, prose must be written; for, if there is any point in which students of early literature are at length tolerably unanimous, it is the impossibility of making and retaining a prose work by the aid of the memory alone. But here the exclusiveness of Bráhman learning, the desire to prevent popularisation by writing, threw a serious obstacle in the way of prose development. Again, in the extended conquests of the Aryans—as was afterwards to happen to Latin and Arabic—the purity of the old Aryan tongue was being impaired by contact with barbarian languages, and the need of a uniform standard in Aryan speech was more and more experienced; and so the Bráhmans, as the keepers of the most ancient records, possessed a monopoly not only of
