understood the local varieties of language employed in those three several provinces, as well as the dramatic dialects severally so called. Vararuchi specifies only one inferior dialect, the Paisachi, and understands by it the form of speech employed by the lowest classes of men. This is to be distinguished from the speech of Pisachas (goblins), which, when introduced on the stage, are said to use a gibberish totally ungrammatical. The word is to be understood as figuratively used to denote the contempt in which the lowest classes were held. Hemachandra mentions a variety of this dialect, the Chūlikā-paiśāchi, which denotes a form of speech lower than even the former. In fact two varieties of Paisachi appear to be distinguished by the grammarians, both of them spoken by barbarous tribes, of which the one seems to belong to northern, the other to southern, India. Rāma Tarkavāgīsa also mentions two sorts of Paiśāchi, signifying by this name a rude mixture of language drawn from different idioms.

"The term apabhransa is applied by the grammarians to those dialects which are the furthest removed from the pure Sanskrit original, and have undergone the greatest corruption. Hemachandra specifies two kinds, of which one has most affinity with the principal Prakrit, and the other with the Sauraseni. The older writers assign this dialect to the people who dwell on the shores of the western ocean, especially the Abhīras. Rāma Tarkavāgīsa, departing from the view of the earlier writers, ascribes the varieties of the local and provincial dialects to the apabhransa, as their source. The same author seems also (when he uses (iii. 1) the words nāgādikramāt, “according to the manner of those who speak like Nāgas, or serpents, etc."), to assign a mythological name to the provincial dialects in the same way as the older writers talk of certain barbarous tribes as Pisachas. This designation appears to have proceeded from the writers on rhetoric, who assign Sanskrit to the gods: Prakrit is then left for men; while those whom the Brahmans consider to be scarcely deserving of the name of men, Chanḍālas, Abhiras, and such like, are only fit to utter the speech of goblins, or serpents.

"The Prakrit dialects employed in the dramas are rightly asserted by the grammarians to be of Sanskrit origin; for both the grammatical forms and the words, with very few exceptions, as well as the entire

95 See the passage quoted in p. 48.

structure of the Prakrits, and the character of their syntax, are derived from the Sanskrit. When, however, the more recent grammarians assert the same of the Canarese and other South-Indian dialects, they are in error, as, although these languages contain words. formed from Sanskrit according to certain rules, their grammatical forms and primary words cannot by any possibility have been drawn from that source.'

I will hereafter show (when I come to refer more particularly to the South-Indian languages) that the Indian grammarians of the south claim for the Telugu, and no doubt for the Tamul, Canarese, and Malayalim, also, an origin quite independent of the Sanskrit.96

SECT. V.-The Pāli, and its Relations to Sanskrit and Prākṛit. The above tabular comparison of the Prakrits with the modern vernaculars, will have abundantly shown, that the latter are derived from the former, or from some kindred sources, and that both are derived in great part from the Sanskrit, at some period of its history, the one mediately, the other more immediately. Although, however, it be sufficiently clear, both from the authority of the native grammarians and by a comparison of the Sanskrit and the Prakrits, that the latter are derived from the former, yet the later Prākṛits do not represent the derivative form of speech which stands nearest to the Sanskrit; and we are in a position to point out a dialect which approaches yet more closely to the latter than the Prakrits do. I mean the Pāli, or sacred language of the Buddhists; a language which is extinct in India, but in which numerous canonical books of the Bauddha religion, still extant in Burmah and Ceylon, are written.97

Though, however, this language has had the singular fate of having now disappeared from its native soil, to become a sacred language in foreign countries, it is yet nothing more than one of the ancient

*See Dr. Caldwell's Comp. Grammar of the Dravidian languages, pp. 30, 31; the Introduction to Campbell's Telugu Grammar, 3rd edit., Madras, 1849, pp. xv. ff.; and the Note, in the same work, by Mr. Ellis, to Mr. Campbell's Introduction, pp. 11-22.

If any Brahmanical reader should think of studying these pages, I hope that the connexion of the Pali language with the Buddhist religion will not deprive it of all interest in his eyes, much less induce him, with the author of the Nyāya mālā vistara, I. 3, 4, to regard it, though of pure Sanskrit original, as polluted, like cow's milk in a dog's skin (nahi pūtam syād gokshīram sva-dṛitau dhṛitam), by the unholy contact of these heretics.

vernacular dialects of Northern India. Magadhi is the appellation which the Buddhists of Ceylon themselves give to it. It is, indeed, true, as we are informed by Mr. Turnour, that the "Buddhists are impressed with the conviction that their sacred and classical language, the Magadhi or Pāli, is of greater antiquity than the Sanskrit; and that it had attained also a higher state of refinement than its rival tongue had acquired. In support of this belief they adduce various arguments, which in their judgment are quite conclusive. They observe that the very word 'Pali' signifies, original, text, regularity; and there is scarcely a Buddhist Pāli scholar in Ceylon who, in the discussion of this question, will not quote, with an air of triumph, their favourite verse, sā Māgadhī mūla-bhāsā narā yāy'ādikappikā | brahmano ch'assutäläpä Sambuddha chāpi bhāsare. 'There is a language which is the root (of all languages); men and Brahmans at the commencement of the creation, who had never before heard or uttered a human accent, and even the supreme Buddhos spoke it: it is Magadhi.' This verse" is a quotation from Kachchāyano's Grammar, the oldest referred to in the Pāli literature of Ceylon. The original is not extant in this island." 100 Mr. Turnour, however, is inclined to "entertain an opinion adverse to the claims of the Buddhists on this particular point [the priority of Pāli to Sanskrit]. The general results of the researches hitherto made by Europeans, both historical and philosophical, unquestionably converge," he thinks,

98 Mahawanso, Introduction, p. xxii; see also p. xxvii. Mr. Childers translates thus: "The Magadhī is the original language in which men of former Kalpas, and Brahmas by whom speech has not been heard, and supreme Buddhas speak." The "Brahmas" are, he thinks, the inhabitants of the upper Brahma worlds. The idea entertained by the Buddhists of the superiority of the Pāli to Sanskrit may also be learnt from the following passage of the commentary on the Grammar called Rūpasiddhi, describing the result of the composition of Kachchāyano's Grammar: ewam sati nānādesa-bhasa-sakkatādi-khalita-wachanam anākāram jetwā Tathagatena wuttāya subhāwa niruttiyā sukhena Buddha-wachanam ugganhissanti | "This being done, men, overcoming the confusion and incorrectness of diction, arising from the mixture of Sanskrit and other dialects of various countries, will, by conformity to the rules of grammar propounded by the Tathagata (Buddha), easily acquire the doctrine of Buddho." -Mahāwanso, Introd., pp. xxvi, xxvii.

99 Preserved in the grammar called Payogasiddhi. Turnour, p. xxvii. Mr. Childers tells me that the verse does not occur in Kachchāyana.

100 This grammar is now in the hands of scholars, and parts of it have been pubished by Mr. D'Alwis and Dr. Kuhn. Mr. Childers says that it is in the hands of every native scholar, and must have been so in Mr. Turnour's time.

"to prove the greater antiquity of the Sanskrit. Even in this island," he proceeds, "all works on astronomy, medicine, and (such as they are) on chemistry and mathematics, are exclusively written in Sanskrit: while the works on Buddhism, the histories subsequent to the advent of Gōtamo Buddho, and certain philological works alone, are composed in the Pali language" (Mahawanso, Introd. pp. xxii, xxiii). There is no question that Mr. Turnour is right, and that the priests of Ceylon, who are no philologists, are wrong. The Pāli bears as distinct traces of derivation from Sanskrit, in an early stage of its development, as any of the other northern dialects. Before, however, adducing the proofs of this, I must give some account of the manner in which the Pāli was introduced into Ceylon.

The appearance of Buddha as a religious reformer in Northern Hindustan seems to have taken place in the earlier part of the sixth century before Christ. He is said to have entered on his mission in the year 588, and to have died in 543 B.C. (Turnour, Introd. to Mahāw., p. xxix).101 In strong contrast to the Brahmans, he and his followers strove to disseminate their new doctrines in a popular shape among all classes of society; and for this purpose employed, where necessary, the current vernacular dialects of their age and country, though, at the same time, they may have used both Sanskrit and Magadhi in the composition of their sacred works (Lassen, Ind. Alt. ii. 492, f.; 1147, f; Burnouf, Lotus de la Bonne Loi, p. 862).102 Three Buddhist synods were held at different periods within 300 years after

101 The grounds for preferring the Cingalese date of Buddha's death, 543 or 544 B.C., to that of the Northern Buddhists, are set forth by Lassen, Ind. Alt., vol. ii., pp. 51-61. See especially pp. 60, 61. The historical value of the Buddhist records is, according to Mr. Turnour (Introd., p. xxviii), assured in the following way:-"The age in which we now live is the Buddhōtpado of Gotamo [the interval between the manifestation of one Buddho and the epoch when his religion becomes extinct]. His religion was destined to endure 5,000 years; of which 2,380 have now passed away (A.D. 1837) since his death, and 2,620 are yet to come. . . . . . By this fortunate fiction, a limitation has been prescribed to the mystification in which the Buddhistical creed has involved all the historical data contained in its literature anterior to the advent of Gotama. . . . The mystification of the Buddhistical data ceased a century at least prior to B.C. 588, when Prince Siddhattho attained Buddhohood, in the character of Gotamo Buddho."

102 Benfey has expressed a different opinion on one point. He says (Indien, p. 194), the Buddhist books of Nepal composed in Sanskrit are, "as we shall hereafter show to be probable, merely translations from the Buddhist sources, which were originally composed in Pali."

Buddha's death, for the collection and arrangement of the sacred works which expounded the doctrines and discipline of his religion; for the correction of errors and abuses; and for the purpose of propagating the new faith in foreign countries. The revelations of Buddha are stated by his followers "to have been orally pronounced in Pali, and orally perpetuated for upwards of four centuries, till the close of the Buddhistical age of inspiration." They consist of the Pitakattaya [in Sanskrit Pitakatraya], or the three pitakas, which now form the Buddhistical Scriptures, divided into the Vinaya, Abhidharma, and Sūtra pitakas. A schism having arisen after Buddha's death, the first Buddhist council was held in 543, when the authenticity of this Pāli collection was established, and commentaries upon it, called Aṭṭhakatha, were promulgated. At the second council, in 443 B.C., the authority of the Pitakattaya was again vindicated, and the Aṭṭhakatha delivered on that occasion completed the history of Buddhism for the interval subsequent to the previous council. In the year 309 B.C., the third council was held in the reign of King Aśoka, who was a zealous promoter of Buddhism [Turnour, p. xxix]. Various missions were consequently undertaken. 103 Mahendra, the son of King Aśoka, was sent on a mission to Ceylon, for the conversion of that island.

The following account of his proceedings is given by the native authorities, as abstracted by Professor Lassen (Ind. Alt. ii. pp. 247– 253):-Mahendra arrived in Ceylon in the year 245 B.C., was hospitably received by the king of the island, and began by his preaching to convert the inhabitants to the religion of Buddha. The king himself embraced the new doctrine. Relics of Buddha were transported to the island from Northern India, and the Bodhi tree, under which Buddha had attained the most perfect knowledge, was transplanted thither from Behar, and, according to the belief of the Buddhists, continues to flourish to the present time. Many miracles attended these transactions. The conversions to Buddhism continued; and many male and female devotees were consecrated to the Buddhist priesthood. Buddhism, thus introduced, has ever since remained the creed of Ceylon; and that island, the head-quarters of Southern Buddhism, and the seed-plot from which it was propagated into Burmah and other parts of Transgangetic India, is regarded in those countries as a holy 103 See Lassen, Ind. Alt., i, pp. 79, 86, 229, ff., and 234-240.