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literatures are the knots at the points of intersection. It is only through these literatures that we are able to detect the effects of a change in society on the language. Indian languages, as I have told you in the beginning are a vast field for study and research. Their importance has not yet come home to our scholars. But it is a great study and a number of men should devote themselves to it for years before we can arrive at sure conclusions. But thanks to our ancestors, --- they often made strenuous efforts to unravel the mystery of languages, and have left most valuable results unparalleled in the history of languages of other countries. Let us all take advantage of these important results and proceed slowly but surely with single-hearted devotion to find out the truth and nothing but the truth in the mystery of languages.
Want of time prevents me from speaking more fully about the later forms of languages, especially the most fascinating subject of the beginning of vernaculars, – of works like Dhyanesvarīin the Marathi, Chocubhatta's work on the Bagdavats in Hindi, and the Buddhist songs and Dohásin Bengali and so on. But yet I have another duty to discharge. I have to speak a few words on Sanskrit literature and on the Prakrit literature. The number of works on these literatures may be described in the words of the Buddhist bards as Gangānadīvālukopama. A comprehensive survey is impossible. I will louch only those subjects in which European scholars admit that we achieved great results, viz. Philosophy, Grammar and Poetry. But before I take up these three, I think it my bounden duty to protest against the attempt made in certain quarters to deprive the Indians of the credit of the discovery of the decimal system of notation. We had indeed, a complete system of letter numerals. Out manuscripts and our inscriptions are all dated and paged in letter numerals. But still we have undoubted proofs both in Brahminic and Buddhist literature of the use of decimal system of notation very carly. In Abhidharmakosavyakhyå it is stated that one gulik, or figure acquires different values when placed in different positions. The same idea is also expressed in the Vyasabhāsva of the Patañjalisütras. So it can be confidently asserted that the Indians knew the decimal system at least in the early centuries of the Christian Era.
Our Philosophy began with the enumeration of philosophical ideas by numbers. Very early -- in the latter days of the Vedic period -- it gradually developed into a system of comparison in the Vaiścsika, the central point of which was the finding out similarities and differences, i.e. comparison. From comparison we rose to classification. From classification, the next step was Kathā or Controversy. Various systems of carrying on controversy
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