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AUGUST, 1892.]
THE INSCRIPTIONS OF PIYADASI.
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engraved in the Aramean alphabet of the north-west, while the Indian alphabet is employed at Mathurâ; but at Mathurà itself, the inscription of Dhanabhûti, although written in Indian characters, does not observe the practice of doubling any more than they do. This neglect is, therefore, not the peculiarity of one particular mode of writing; it is a general fact down to a certain epoch, which, in the north is marked by the reign of Kanishka. On the west coast, the first inscription in which we find the notation of double consonants is No. 1l of Kanhêri (Arch. Surv. V. 85). It is one of the latest of the series, and is certainly not earlier than the end of the 2nd century. The doubling of consonants, therefore, only makes its appearance at the period in which the monuments testify that correct Sanskrit was becoming taken into common use, and the parallel application, in the inscriptions of the time of Kanishka, of the ancient procedure, and of the new method, indicates that we have grasp ed the precise moment of the evolution.
It is not difficult to come to a conclusion.
Mixed Sanskrit is certainly not a direct copy of literary Sanskrit, attempted at an epoch when the latter had already been established in common use. The progressive march by which it gradually approximated classical forms as well as its feeling its way in matters of detail, would be, under this hypothesis, without any possible explanation. Its tendency towards an etymological and regulated orthography is everywhere visible. If it had had before its eyes a fixed, a definitive model, previously realized by writing and literary practice, it would from the first have imitated it in all its particulars. It would not have waited three centuries before doubling its consonants in writing. As it constantly tended to go as close as possible to the orthographical conditions, of which the learned Sanskļit is the completed perfect type, it would have gone right up to it. From the moment at which real Sanskțit appears, Mixed Sanskrit disappears, and this most naturally; for, in face of real Sanskrit, Mixed Sanskrit is without reason for existence, its efforts would be without honour, and its shortcomings without excuse. "Far, therefore, from being able to pass for an imitation of pre-existing Sanskrit, Mixed Sanskpit proves, by its very existence, that Literary Sansksit did not exist, I mean for current use. The date on which the classical language appears in the monuments, coincides with that at which the Mixed Sanskrit ceases to be employed, and marks very exactly the epoch at which the learned language took possession of that empire which was destined never to escape it. This conclusion is further strengthened by the fact that the current of this diffasion may, at least in one direction, be traced by the monuments. Regular Sanskrit can be considered as under process of establishment in the north-west towards the end of the first century of our era. The practice immediately began to spread towards the south. In the second half of the following century, the inscription of Rudradaman presents to our notice, in Gajarât, the first incontestable monument. It was the influence of the same sovereign which caused it to extend still further, for in an inscription of his daughter it makes its first appear. ance in the dominions of the Andhrabhsityas. Until then these princes had only employed a Monumental Prakrit now and then affecting the appearance of Mixed Sanskrit.
Although Mixed Sanskțit is not a direct imitation of a pre-existing Sanskrit, the close connexion between the two terms is evident. But is, therefore, Mixed Sanskrit the source of Classical Sanskrit? Is it Classical Sanskrit in course of formation ? By no means, any more than the converse case is true. The reasons are peremptory.
All the elements from which Sanskrit, in its classical form, has been built up, were pre-existing in the Vedic language. Its system of phonetics, which is that which gives it its special character in comparison with the popular idioms, had long been fixed and analysed for the purpose of religious recitation. In order, therefore, to fix Sanskrit, there was no room for much feeling of the way. So far as there may have been any, it was certainly not of the kind we witness in Mixed Sanskřit. In fixing classical Sanskrit, a regular course would have been followed, instead of the constant alternate progress and retrogression which we find in the mixed variety. We do not find in it side by side the two-fold reflexion, the learned and the
