Николас Остлер - Empires of the Word - A language History of the World

Something of the same division of function between Sanskrit for high and Prakrit for everyday use is also shown by the language conventions of Sanskrit drama. Every play was multilingual, or multi-dialectal. From the sixth century AD, noble males speak in Sanskrit; ladies speak in Śaurasenī (the Mathura Prakrit), but sing in Mahārāṣṯrī; meanwhile, low characters are scripted in Magadhi (ironically, the descendant of the dialect that had had royal overtones, nine hundred years before). We can only suppose that intervening political reversals (e.g. the rise of the Sātavāhana kings in the Maharashtra area over the first centuries BC and AD) had a more or less permanent effect on the perceived status of the dialects. [759]

Rājaśekhara , making recommendations C. AD 900 for the ideal poet, says that he should have servants fluent in Apabhraṃśa (’falling off, the quite generally used, but unflattering, term for later forms of Śauraseni Prakrit, on its way to becoming modern Hindi), maids in Magadhi and the like; but his wives should speak Sanskrit, or else ‘Prakrit’, which for him means Maharashtri, and his friends all languages. [379]The social imperative for Sanskrit had become inescapable, despite the poet’s own personal enthusiasm for his local Prakrit. But to a large extent, the status of the dialects seemed to have become fully detached from awareness of their local origins, or their history.

Interestingly, Magadhi had probably also been the dialect of Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, though about one millennium earlier. (His contemporary, Mahāvīra , the founder of Jainism, lived in the area too.) Magadha was also the area of the earliest Buddhist councils, which established the outlines of this faith for later generations. And Buddhism’s most famous, and influential, early convert was King Aśoka himself, another resident of Magadha, in its chief city, Pāṯaliputra (modern Patna in the state of Bihar on the Ganges).

This geographical coincidence might have been expected to lead Buddhism to favour Magadhi. The Buddha had advised his monks to teach in their own language ( sakayā niruttiyā). His view here seems to have involved not only a respect for the vernacular, but also a positive belief that his caste, the warrior Kṣatriya , was actually superior to the priestly Brāhmaṇa with its Sanskrit associations. This was part of his persuasive redefinition of the whole caste system and of what it was to be truly ariya (Aryan)—though this word is usually translated in Buddhist English as ‘noble’—based on personal merit rather than birth.

But the monks did not in turn privilege the common speech of the Buddha himself and his region. Rather, they declared themselves in favour of any form of vernacular language. There are stories that this caused some unease among Brahman monks, who feared that the resulting slack grammar and pronunciation would corrupt the sayings of the Buddha. However, in time a particular Prakrit did come to predominate: it was called Pāli (’canonical’) and was a mixed Prakrit. Despite the claims of the Buddhist tradition (which also claimed that this language had been spoken by the Buddha and was, for good measure, the original language of all beings, sabbasattānaṃ mūlabhāsa) , [760]Pali was not predominantly Magadhi, but included many distinctively Western elements, reminiscent of Śauraseni: it must have arisen as a kind of Buddhist Aryan creole, by a process of compromise among monks speaking various Prakrits.

Later on, as the faith developed, and became more heavily institutionalised, it increasingly adopted a grander style of language, in form closer to classical Sanskrit, which is known as Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. This typically involves taking the grammatical structures of Prakrit, which are much simpler and more analytic than those of Sanskrit, and reclothing the words in case markings and verb endings that are reminiscent of classical Sanskrit, but quite often misapplied from the viewpoint of classical grammar.

Overall, throughout Indian linguistic history, Sanskrit’s status has tended to rise, both in secular and sacred use; the Maurya kings’, and the Buddhists’ and Jains’, early preference for the vernacular all ultimately yielded to the respect in which Sanskrit was held. It has been recognised throughout as an artificial ( saṃskṛta ) language; but if anything this has increased its status, and its use has come to be seen as a linguistic touchstone for the quality of a text.

It is interesting to compare briefly some external perceptions of Sanskrit, and of its role in society. There are two outsiders’ traditions which have left records of their encounters: for the last three centuries BC, we have reports from the Greeks; and for the middle of the first millennium AD, from the Chinese to the north-east.

A glance at the map shows that, in an age of overland travel on foot, emissaries of both civilisations must have had to distinguish themselves in terms of determination even before they could reach the centres of Indian culture: Greece was over 5000 miles away (though Greek had been established as a lingua franca for most of that distance), while China, though closer as the crow flies, was in practice cut off not only by the Taklamakan desert but also by the mountains stretching from the Pamirs to the far Himalayas.

The Greeks knew little about India until Alexander’s campaigns brought them to its borders in 327 BC. Thereafter there were diplomatic exchanges between some of the great Indian rulers of the north and the Greek dynasts who controlled the east of what had been the Persian empire, the Seleucids. From 302 to 288 Megasthenes served as Seleucid ambassador to King Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra (Patna), which he introduced to the Greek world as Palibothra. He left a discursive study of Indian ways, the Indikā , which, taken together with some reports of Onesicritus and Nearchus, naval officers who had written memoirs of their service with Alexander, stood as the core of Greek knowledge of India until the end of the ancient world.

The Indikā has not survived, but can be reconstructed substantially from the extensive quotations that figure in other authors, such as Strabo and Pliny, writing (in Italy) two centuries later. It contains little or nothing on the political or literary aspects of Indian life, but does contain an analysis of the caste system, identifying no fewer than seven distinct ‘tribes’ or ‘lineages’, which can be fairly well mapped on to the time-honoured four-way division into Brahmans (priests and philosophers), Kshatriyas (kings and warriors), Vaiśyas (merchants) and Śudras (labourers). It also appears to note the prevalence of the cults of Śiva and Krishna, but the inference is indirect: in the usual Graeco-Roman way, it gives only the names of Greek gods which the author had identified with the Indian figures; so the Indians are said to have worshipped Heracles (since like Krishna he carried a club), and Dionysus (since like Śiva he was associated with thriving vegetable life and with Mount Meru, whereas Dionysus had been born from Zeus’s thigh, in Greek mērou , and he was a pretty wild character, worshipped with music and dance).

Megasthenes does cope more explicitly with the more intellectual aspects of religions practised in the Maurya empire of his time, distinguishing Brahmans ( brak h manai or bragmanai ) and Śramans ( sarmanai ) as different kinds of philosophers. Śramaṇa is indeed a Sanskrit word sometimes used specifically for Buddhist monks, but there is no explicit mention of Buddhism, which would have been some two hundred years old at the time (having been founded in exactly the same region where Megasthenes was resident).