e classical Sanskrit
literature, whatever may be its interest to the scholar and the
antiquarian, has little to teach us which we cannot learn better from
other sources, and that at all events it is of little practical use to
young civilians. If only they learn to express themselves in
Hindustani or Tamil, that is considered quite enough; nay, as they
have to deal with men and with the ordinary affairs of life, and as,
before everything else, they are to be men of the world and men of
business, it is even supposed to be dangerous, if they allowed
themselves to become absorbed in questions of abstruse scholarship or
in researches on ancient religion, mythology, and philosophy.

I take the very opposite opinion, and I should advise every young man
who wishes to enjoy his life in India, and to spend his years there
with profit to himself and to others, to learn Sanskrit, and to learn
it well.

I know it will be said, What can be the use of Sanskrit at the present
day? Is not Sanskrit a dead language? And are not the Hindus
themselves ashamed of their ancient literature? Do they not learn
English, and do they not prefer Locke, and Hume, and Mill to their
ancient poets and philosophers?

No doubt Sanskrit, in one sense, is a dead language. It was, I
believe, a dead language more than two thousand years ago. Buddha,
about 500 B.C., commanded his disciples to preach in the dialects of
the people; and King A_s_oka, in the third century B.C., when he put
up his Edicts, which were intended to be read, or at least to be
understood by the people, had them engraved on rocks and pillars in
the various local dialects from Cabul[89] in the north to Ballabhi in
the south, from the sources of the Ganges and the Jumnah to Allahabad
and Patna, nay even down to Orissa. These various dialects are as
different from Sanskrit as Italian is from Latin, and we have
therefore good reason to suppose that, in the third century B.C., if
not earlier, Sanskrit had ceased to be the spoken language of the
people at large.

There is an interesting passage in the _K_ullavagga, where we are told
that, even during Buddha's lifetime, some of his pupils, who were
Brahmans by birth, complained that people spoiled the words of Buddha
by every one repeating them in his own dialect (nirutti). They
proposed to translate his words into Sanskrit; but he declined, and
commanded that each man should learn his doctrine in his own
language.[90]

And there is anot