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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1892.
regular Sanskrit itself, it cannot be anything other than a special literary language, or, more exactly, & special literary orthography. In itself, it is no more surprising to find side by side two literary idioms like Sanskțit and Mixed Sanskrit than to find the parallel use of the various Prakrit dialects which were established for religious or poetic usage. From the facts proved for the time of Piyadasi, we are prepared to see a double orthographical current establish itself, one more near to the popular pronunciation, and the other approaching, and tending to approach more and more nearly, etymological forms. In the hundred and fifty or two hundred years which separate our edicts from the most ancient monuments of Mixed Sanskrit properly so-called, these tendencies, which we have grasped in their rudimentary state, have had time to become accentuated, and to develop in the strict logical sequence of their principles. As it appears to as in the most recent monuments, Mixed Sansksit is so nearly the same as Sanskrit, that it seems impossible to separate the history of one dialect from that of the other. What is the relationship which unites the two P
From the time when Sanskrit first appears, we find it in a definite form. Neither in yrammar nor in its orthography do we find any feeling the way, any development, any progress. It leaps ready armed from its cradle. As it was at the first day, so it has remained to the end. Mixed Sanskrit is altogether different. Uncertain in its orthographical methods, without any absolute system or stability, it appears to us, from Kapur di Giri to Mathura, progressing, in spite of many hesitations, in spite of many minor inconsistencies, in one continuous general direction. At Kapur di Giri the language is entirely Praksit, but several consonantal groups are preserved without assimilation. In the inscription of Dhanabhůti at Mathura,es the terminations are Prakrit, but spellings like udtsiputra, ratnagriha approach the classical standard. At Snë Vihar, even the terminations take the learned spelling; asya and not asa; only a few irregularities connect the language with Prâksit. In the caves we have seen that some inscriptions have side by side the genitive in asya and that in asa. These examples will suffice.
Besides these characteristics, two important facts, which mark their true significance, deserve mention.
In the north, the first inscriptions written in Sanskrit, or at least so nearly Sanskrit that they bear witness to its diffusion, are those of Mathura, and date from the reign of Kanishka. Shortly after this period we find no further examples of monumental Mixed Sanskrit. In the west, the son-in-law of Rudradaman inaugurates the use of Sansksit with the inscription of Kanhöri; from the end of the second century, the use of Mixed Sanskrit is, in the west, banished from the insoriptions. In a word, the introduction of regular Sanskrit marks the disuse of Mixed Sanskrit. That is the first fact.
The second is of another nature. All texts in Mixed Sanskrit, both in the north and in the west, preserve uniformly one very characteristio peculiarity, which we have already noticed in the spelling of Piyadasi. They never write as double, identical or homogeneous consonants, which are really doubles either by origin or by assimilation. This trait only disappeared at the procise moment when Mixed Sanskrit coased to be used. In the north, the first inscriptions which double these consonants are those of Mathura, which are almost entirely couched in regular Sanskrit. The practice was certainly a new one, for the other inscriptions of the reign of Kanishka, even those which, as at Suë Vihar, approach most nearly the learned orthography, do not adopt it. It is quite true that they are
61 Bharhut Stupa, pl. LIII. 4. The transcription proposed by General Cunningham requires corrections. We should read,
Kal........... dhana bhatisa .........vatal putrasa [uddhapa) lasa dhanabhatisa dánari védika toranini cha ratanagriha sa ruabudhap jaya saha matapi tihi (7) saha . chatu . parishdhi
