SANSKRIT LANGUAGE AN1) LITERATURE. Lavaage. The Sanskrit ie a branch of the Indo-Germanic family of languages. Of all those languages it is that which approaches nearest to the primitive type ; and by the originality, purity, and abundance of its fortes, is peculiarly calculated to throw light on the obscure laws of the formation of language. hieing also possessed of a rich literature, and the whole of its materials having been fully treated of by native grammarians, it was no sooner introduced to the teamed of Europe than it gave rise to a new philological science, that of comparative grammar, and kel to the conclusion that the ancient Permian, the Armenian, the Greek, and the Latin, formed but one language with the German, the Lettie, the Slavonia!), and even the Celtic, each of them languages affording the most extraordinary illustrations of the others.
The Sanskrit was introduced into Ina; when the Brahminical race obtained possession of the country (A. W. von Schlegel, ' Do l'Origine des Ilindous; in the Trans. Roy. Soc. Literature,' ii., 2, 405, &e. ; Chr. Lassen,' Indisehe Alterthuinekunde; i. 515, 531, it ; M. N ' Ilietory of Aneient Sanskrit Literature; 1859, p. 12); and having driven out the languages of the at of India, which are now only 'woken in the Southern Deccan, as the Telugu, i), Canarese, and, others, and by some detached tribes, chiefly in the Vindhyamountains, for example, the Gonds and Klionds (Lamen,1. 1. 1., 366, It; N. :duller, ' On the Classification of the Turanian Languages,' p. 169, fE ; IL Compete Grammar of the Dravidian Languagels; 1856, p. 8, ft), has spread over the extensive tract of country between the Himalayas, the Indus, and the Kistna. Within these limits it has had a history of its own, and has passed through various changes. It appears in its most ancient form in the Vedas, about the 15th century before Christ, and in that state is very nearly related to the Zend, the ancient language of Persia, and contains many forms and words which have become obsolete. The classical Sanskrit, on the contrary, having once become fixed, has, for about 3000 years, partly as a living language and partly as a learned one, retained the some structure, with the mere exception of difference in style, and a few archaisms, which only occur in the most ancient works.
Prakrit dialects.-Out of the Sanskrit, however, even in compara tively early times, dialects arose, which gradually became still farther removed from the original and from each other ; and from these dialects those of the languages now spoken in India are derived, which do not belong to the aboriginal languages mentioned above. There is a Lew, however, which pervades the whole of those Prakrita.e, that is, derivative languages, as they are called by the Indian grammarians, in contradistinction to the San.4krita, or that language which is regularly and grammatically constructed (A. Weber, Vorlesungen fiber indische Literaturgesehichte; 1852, p. 168); and it is worthy of remark, that this Lew is precisely the same as that according to which the Romance language, the Italian, the Spanish, and the French, have grown out of the Latin. There is the same softening, the same assimilation, and the same exclusion of the harsher sounds, the some weakening of the forms, the same substitution of particles for cases, and the same periphrastic conjugations.
The oldest of these dialects, and that which deviates least from the Sanskrit, is the Peel, which has become the sacred language of the southern branch of the Buddhists, who, when they abrogated the institution of castes, required a language which, at least for works nut strictly scientific, should not be exclusively understood by the privileged classes. Having originally been carried by the Buddhists from Northern India to Ceylon, the Pali has continued to exist in that island, as well as in Burmah, Siam, and Kamboja, and possesses a copious literature. (Burnout and Lassen, ' lessai sur he Pali,' Paris, 1826 ; Clough, ' Pali Grammar,' Colombo, 1824 ; 'Jenne Ceylon Branch R. As. Soc.; 1847, No. 3, p. 1Se, iC ; Pallegoix, Gramm. Linguae Thai,' Bangkok, 1850, p. 181, ft.) Different from the l'ali is the Geithei, or ballad dialect, which appears only in the poetical portion of the Buddhist literature of Nepal (' Journ. As. Soc. of Bengal; xxiii.