in the beginning, you gave to the poets-wisdom, understanding of speech; and I have seen the (sacred) places which the sages created in performing the sacrifice." 250

Though, however, some traces of an idea that the rishis were inspired by the gods, by Vach, or Indra and Agni, or Indra and Varuna (but not, in any of the passages which I have here quoted, by Brahma, who in later times was regarded as the source of inspiration: see above, p. 195), may thus be detected in the Rigveda, there is no doubt, on the other hand, that these ancient bards often or generally speak of the hymns as the creation of their own minds; and there is no reason to suppose that they were anything else. But as even an inspired composition, to be generally intelligible, must be delivered in the language current among the people to whom it is first promulgated, there is no pretence for supposing that the Sanskrit of the Vedas was not the vernacular language of the age in which they were first recited.

At that early period there was no language current among the Aryas but the Vedic Sanskrit. A learned language, different from the spoken tongue, was a thing then unknown; and the refinements of grammar had no existence. This accords with the purport of the following curious passage of an ancient Brahmana,200 referred to by Sayana in the introduction to his commentary on the Rigveda, p. 35: Vyakaranam api prakriti-pratyayādy-upadeśena pada-svarupa-tad-artha-niśchayāya upayujyate | Tathā cha Aindra-vāyava-graha-brāhmaṇe samāmnāyate| "Vāg vai parāchī avyākṛitā 'bhavat | te devāḥ Indram abruvann ‘imām̃ no Vācham vyākuru' iti | so 'bravid 'varam vṛinai | mahyam cha eva esha Vayave cha saha gṛihyātai' iti | tasmād Aindravāyavaḥ saha pragrihyate 261 | tām Indro madhyato 'vakramya vyākarot | tasmād iyam vyākṛitā vāg udyate" iti | “Agnim ile purohitam" ityādi-vāk pūrvasmin kāle parāchi samudrādi-dhvani-vad ekātmikā satī avyākṛitā prakṛitiḥ pratyayaḥ padam vākyam ityādi-vibhāga-kāri-grantha-rahitā āsīt |

259 In the third volume of this work, p. 263, the verse is translated thus: "Indra and Varuṇa, I have seen through austere-fervour that which ye formerly gave to the rishis, wisdom, understanding of speech, sacred lore, and all the places which the sages created, when performing sacrifice."

260 This passage is found in the Taitt. S. vi. 4, 7, 3, in the very same words, with the addition after "udyate" of the following: tasmāt sakṛid Indrāya madhyato grihyate dvir Vayave dvau hi sa varāv avṛinīta |

261 "Pra" omitted in Taitt. S.

tadānīm devaiḥ prārthitaḥ Indraḥ ekasminn eva pātre Vāyoḥ svasya cha soma-rasasya grahaṇa-rūpena varena tushṭas tām akhanḍām Vācham madhye vichhidya prakṛiti-pratyayādi-bhāgam sarvatra akarot | tasmād iyam vāg idānīm api Pāninyādi-maharshibhir vyākṛitā sarvaiḥ paṭhyate ity arthaḥ "Grammar, also, by indicating the crude forms and the affixes, is useful for determining the character of words, and their signification. And accordingly it is thus related in the Aindra-Vāyava-grahabrahmana (a section, so called, either of the Taittiriya Sanhita, or of some Brāhmaṇa): 'Vach (Speech) spoke confusedly, and without articulation. The gods said to Indra, Make this Vach to become articulate to us. Indra replied, Let me choose a boon; let the soma be given to me and Vayu together. Hence the soma of Indra and Vayu is taken together. Indra then, dividing Speech in sunder in the middle, rendered her articulate. Hence she is spoken articulately.' The sense of this quotation, says Sayana, is this: Speech, such as in the verse Agnim ile purohitam, etc. (the first verse of the Rigveda), was originally confused, i.e. unvaried like the roar of the sea, etc., and undistinguished, i.e. without articulation to denote crude forms, inflections, words, and sentences, etc. Then Indra, being solicited by the gods, and gratified by the permission to take the soma-juice in the same vessel with Vayu, divided in the middle Speech, which had previously been without division, and introduced everywhere the distinction of crude forms, inflections, etc. In consequence, this Speech, being now distinguished in its parts by Panini and other great sages, is pronounced by all men."

It may be asked, however, If the Vedic Sanskrit was once the spoken language of India, how did it ever cease to be spoken? To this I reply as follows:

By the time when the collections of the Vedic hymns were formed, the Sanskrit, the vernacular speech of the rishis and their descendants, had undergone a considerable alteration, which had gradually resulted, as we have already seen (compare pp. 36, 68, ff.), both from the general laws of change to which all language is subject (as exemplified in various other ancient tongues), and also from the action of local causes, such as the intercourse of the Aryas, or Sanskrit-speaking race, with the Dasyus, or Mlechhas, who spoke a quite different tongue. In this way, words which had formerly been commonly employed in Sanskrit

became obsolete, or acquired new meanings, while other new words, borrowed from the dialects of the Mlechhas, were introduced into currency; and forms of inflection which were once current got gradually into disuse, and made way for other novel forms. Thus a twofold alteration was produced in the ancient Indian language (the Sanskrit of the Vedas). First, the Pali and the Präkṛit, or vernacular dialects, were formed out of it in the manner which has already been described (pp. 33, 68, f., 134, 146); and secondly, a learned language, based upon the Sanskrit of the Vedas, but variously modified (see pp. 138, f.), and polished, was gradually constructed by grammarians, which being removed from the corrupting influences of popular use, has thenceforward continued unchanged (p. 162).

When the process of change had been going on for many generations, the Vedic hymns became exceedingly difficult to understand. The obstacles to comprehension, arising from these intermediate changes of language, were greatly augmented by the obscure and elliptical style in which the hymns were originally composed, which rendered it hard for the men of subsequent ages to understand the brief allusions to ancient ideas, practices, and events with which they abound.

These considerations will sufficiently account for the difficulty which was experienced in the comprehension of the Vedic hymns in later ages, without there being the least necessity for our supposing that they were composed in a language at all different from that which was ordinarily current in India, among the common people of the Aryan race, at the time of their composition.

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CHAPTER II.

AFFINITIES OF THE INDIANS WITH THE PERSIANS, GREEKS, AND ROMANS, AND DERIVATION OF ALL THESE NATIONS FROM CENTRAL ASIA.

FROM the preceding review it is clear that the Sanskrit language has been undergoing a continual change, from the very earliest times up to which we can follow its course. But if this be the case, it would be contrary to all analogy to suppose that that language had remained unaltered in those yet earlier ages before the Vedas were composed. It must, therefore, now become my object to inquire, whether we can discover any means of following it back to its origin. We are not, it must be confessed, in a position to do this in any other way than that of reasoning and inference; for, in the absence of any Sanskrit writings anterior to the Vedas, we possess no direct means of tracing the history of the Sanskrit language and its mutations any further back than the date of the composition of those hymns. There is, however, another way in which we can arrive at some conception of that history. From facts which are established and evident, we must reason to the unapparent causes which they presuppose, and out of which they have arisen.1

Learned men have remarked, that there is a great resemblance between the Sanskrit and other languages, some of which, like it, are now no longer spoken, but were formerly the current and popular speech of ancient nations, and are preserved in written records which

1 Ως εγὼ συμβάλλομαι, τοῖσι εμφανέσι τὰ μὴ γινωσκόμενα τεκμαιρόμενος, “ As I conjecture, inferring things unknown from things that are manifest," says Herodotus, ii. 33. Compare Euripides, fragment 5 of the Phoenix, råpavĥ tekμnpíoiow ČIKÓTWS ἁλίσκεται, "A probable conclusion regarding things unapparent is reached by proofs."

3

have descended to us from a remote antiquity. These are 1st, the Zend and other varieties of the ancient Persic; 2nd, the Greek; and 3rd, the Latin. The Zend language is preserved in the Zend Avesta, a collection of writings connected with the ancient religion of Persia. The poems of Homer, which form the oldest relic of the extensive literature of ancient Greece, are supposed to have been written about 2,700 years ago. And there are many Latin books which are 2,000 years old. From the great similarity which exists between these languages and the Sanskrit, of which proofs and instances will be presently adduced, learned men have inferred: 1st, That these forms of speech have all one common origin, i.e., that Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, and Latin are all, as it were, sisters, the daughters (some perhaps older and some younger, but still all daughters) of one mother who died in giving them birth, or, to speak without a figure, that they are derivatives from, and the surviving representatives of, one older language, which now no longer exists; and 2ndly, That the races of men who spoke these several languages are also all descended from one stock, and that their ancestors at a very early period all lived together in some country (situated out of Hindustan), speaking one language; but afterwards separated, to travel away from their primeval abodes, at different times and in different directions; the forefathers of the 2 It is not necessary for my purpose to insist much on the affinities of the Sanskrit to any other languages besides those I have named.

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3 Facies non omnibus una, nec diversa tamen, qualem decet esse sororum.

4 From a comparison of the various for is which words of identical signification have assumed in the different derivative' tongues, and of the laws which in each case must have governed the mutations which they have undergone, it becomes possible to ascertain, in many cases with certainty, or with high probability, the form which the words had at first in the mother-language, the original Indo-European speech. In the work of the late August Schleicher, entitled "Compendium der vergleichenden Grammatik der Indogermanischen Sprachen" (i.e. "Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-Germanic Languages") 3rd ed., 1871, the letters of the mother-language which continue unaltered in the derivative tongues, and those which have been replaced by others, are specified, and the original forms of inflection and conjugation, as well as of numerous words, are stated. And in August Fick's "Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der Indogermanischen Sprachen," (i.e. "Comparative Grammar of the Indo-Germanic Languages "), 2nd ed., 1870, the words of the original language are given according to the author's conception of their form. writers, however, though generally, are not always, at one as to the original forms Thus Schleicher thinks the word for "five" was kankan, whilst Fick makes it pankan. The former takes svastars to have been at first the word for "sister," whilst the latter makes it svasar.

These