Indian Antiquary Vol 21

SR No.: 032513
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 430
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 266

250
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1892.
found itself secured. It suppressed the use of Mixed Sanskrit, after having, nevertheless, been one of its principal factors. Before, however, the latter disappeared from current use and from the monuments, it had already secured a future course for itself as a literary language. The very aspect of the Buddhist dialect of the Gathâs," so nearly does it approach Classical Sanskrit, proves that it was first settled at a period close to the definitive domination of the latter. In this respect, the tradition which places the arrangement of the Canon of the Northern Buddhists in the time of Kanishka, agrees very well with the conclusions to which we have been led by epigraphy. Not, indeed, that we are to assume that all the works or fragments written in Mixed Sanskrit are necessarily so ancient as that; but that the fixing of this system of orthography and the application to literary use which assured it its survival, must be referred to that epoch, which marks, together with the diffusion of cli.ssical Sanskrit into general use, the hour in which Mixed Sanskrit, when on the eve of being absorbed into it, borrowed from it the largest proportion of learned elements.
We thus see how, under the common, but on the one hand direct and on the other indirect, influence of an ancient religious language, there was produced in parallel lines, and not without reciprocal reactions, the two-fold development of Classical and of Mixed Sanskrit. Their final fusion, to the benefit of the classical language marks the hour of its definitive establishment, of the commencement of an undisputed supremacy which yet endurds.
Thus is explained the apparently paradoxical formula within which we found ourselves shut up. The endless chain is broken. Mixed Sanskrit is, to speak exactly, neither a copy nor the source of regular Sanskrit, but is something of both. Classical Sanskrit, without enjoying a public and consecrated existence at the time when the early form of Mixed Sanskrit makes its appearance, nevertheless did exist in the close circle of the schools, in a stage of formation more or less advanced. It will be understood how the Vedic language could, without being written, exercise a profound action, and how the Brahmans, in spite of their distaste for writing, were led to fix and to put into circulation that great instrument of literary production in India, Sanskrit. This profane language did not compromise the privilege belonging to their religious language, of which they still remained the jealous guardians.
MISCELLANEA. XOTES ON THE TRADITIONAL AND the Hova tribe in the Province of Imerina, in MYTHICAL MEN AND BEASTS OF THE which are the Highlands they now occupy. These MALAGASY.
prople say that their forefathers came from someFrom the general appearance of the Malagasy,
where unknown, and drove out a race of men called especially of the leading Hova tribe, and from
the Vazimba, which, they say, is now extinct, their language, we can easily see that they are of but was a diminutive race, with the head small Malay extraction. Their numerals, for instance, in proportion to the body. The phrase Vazimba up to ten are identical; and it is a curious fact, loha (Vazimba-headed) is still occasionally used that in the Malagasy language we find words
to express anything, such as a nail, that has an from almost all of the many different dialects unusually small head. But whether the tribe in spoken in the Malay islands of the Archipelago. question is extinct is a matter of doubt. A friend, However, in their customs, folklore and when exploring an unknown part of western religion the Malagasy have, I believe, but | Madagascar, came across people of a distinctly little in common with the Malays. I have negro type calling themselves Vazimbas,' and never heard of any tradition among the native of having, as aborigines, an hereditary right over the Madagascar as to their arrival in the island, and river traffic, albeit in subjection to the Beteiriry
river traffic. albeit in subiection to they are entirely unconscious of any relationship tribe of the Sakalavas. They had not, however, to the Malays.
as far as he noticed, anything peculiar in the forThere is, however, a tradition of the arrival of mation of the cranium. I may add, while speak. 1 They are not in any way a seafaring people, except Stanley, I think, mentions a tribe called Wasimba the Bakalava tribe on the west coast, and this tribe in Central Africa. Some derive the name from the is very much more akin to the Negro type than the Swahili word wasimu, an ogre or madman, others from Nalay.
kuzimu, in the grave.