অসমীয়া ব্যাকৰণ আৰু ভাষাতত্ত্ব the surrounding country. Just before the rise of Buddhism this mighty kingdom gave peace and security to the people and prosperity to trade and commerce. Under the patronage of Kosala King the growth of the institution of the Wanderers became very rapid and the development of the common language marked. The Magadha ingdom with its capital at Pataliputra was next in importance at this time. But later in the fifh century B.C. it rose to be of importance and in the third and four centuries B.c., under the Mauryan dynasty it brought the Kosala kingdom under its sway. Then also the common language of that vast country was cultivated on its intellectual side. But in later times it underwent some changes. | (2) RELIGIOUs :-It should not be supposed that the vedic Sanskrit was in common use in Northern India just before or after the rise of Buddhism. It was not. And the classical Sanskrit was born several centuries afterwards. This is proved not by the Hindu literature but by external evidence, e.৪., the inscriptions of the time. To quote an authority :-- | “In the second century after Christ they began to record অants of land to Brahmins. In the third century there are also a few instances. From the fourth century onwards there are quite numerous inscriptions showing a marked rise in Brahmanical influence. The Gupta king art then stated to have carried out the most complicated and expensive sacrifices, such as Horse-sacrifice. Each of two inscriptions records the erection of a sacrificial post, another an endowment for fighting lamps in a temple to the sun. There are grants of villages for the performance of ১acrificial rites; and numerous grants of land to Brahmans, and to the temples in their charge. But for the four centuries before that (that is to say, from 300 B.C. to 100 A.D.) no Brahmin, no Brahmin temple, no Brahmin god, no sacrifice or ritualistic act of any kind is ever, even once, referred to. There is a very large number of gifts recorded as given by Kings, princes and chiefs, by merchants, goldsmiths, artisans, and ordinary householders; but not one of them is given in support of anything-of any opinion or divinity or practice-with which the Brahmans had any- thing to do. And whereas the later inscriptions, favouring the Brahman and their special sacrifices, are in Sanskrit, these earlic ones, in which they are not mentioned, are in a sort of Pali ot in the local vernacular of the place where the inscriptions are found, but in a docc similar in many essential respects, to the dialect for common intercourse, based on the vernacular, which I suggest, the Wanderer must have used, in the discussions, at the time when Buddhism arose. | Dr. Bhanderkar has come to the conclusion that from 200 B.c. to 400 A.D. there was no monument or inscription of any kind devoted to T“Buddhist India"--by Rhys Davids, pp. 50j5l.
