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KANISHKA
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history of the Indian peoples. The causes that preceded it, the changes in the intellectual stand. point that went with it, the results that followed on both, are each of them of vital importance. The main cause has been supposed to be the study, in the brahmin schools, of the Vedic forms no longer familiar, the evolution in this manner of a grammatical system, and then the gradual application of this system to the vernacular speech, until at last any form not in accordance with the system became considered as vulgar, and fell into disuse. A subsidiary cause, which also deserves consideration, is the influence of the intercourse with foreigners, and especially with the socially powerful Greeks, Scythians, and Tartars. The teaching of grammar, and the spread of ideas of learned diction among the inore educated people, would be greatly strengthened by the necessity of explaining linguistic forms to people of this sort. Who so likely to have been asked to do this as those who were known to have already devoted attention to the subject, and had a wellearned reputation, that is, the brahmins ? And why, otherwise, should it be precisely these border districts on the extreme north-west frontier (not looked upon in other matters as the home of orthodox teaching) that were the home of the most developed and most authoritative grammatical teaching, and the place of residence of the most distinguished grammarians ?
Hand in liand with the gradual adoption, and at last with the almost exclusive use of the brahmin
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
