Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Original Language

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst

Page 15

Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit : The Original Language 423 words of truth. Every religious tradition has been contested by their people. Religious truth belongs to the realm of realization which exceeds not only talking about speech, but also the logical particular thoughts. There is a question in the Goraksasiddhantasangraha enquiring about Vedas. It is a kind of knowledge realised in the Ajnacakra wherever it is. I am only trying to say that the question of the original language of Buddhism has two kinds of levels. One is on the larger level, where I should not be confused with questions of the history of the language. The other thing is as far as the linguistic historical point of view is concerned. I am afraid that, there seems to be different points of view that the spoken language in the days of Buddha was constituted different from the tradition of Sanskrit. It's influence on later Sanskrit also makes it different from classical Sanskrit. This idea has not been unfortunately critically examined. The evidence of believing that there was a different language than the current Sanskrit of that time. Ofcourse, Sanskrit like any other language, was damaged in different ways. But that there was a language other than Sanskrit in structure, grammar and so on, at the time of the Buddha. This is probably re-cstablished. What is called Magadhi or Pali is possibly the spoken dialect. Asoka himself uses the language throughout his vast empire from east to west & north to south, Kandhara to Mysore.