Evolution from Brahmi to Gupta to sanskrit part 5

Five chronologically distinct strata can be identified within the Vedic language:

1.???ig-vedic

2.??Mantra

3.??Sa?hitā ?prose

4.??Brāhma?a ?prose

5.??Sūtras

The first three are commonly grouped together, as the Sa?hitās[A] ?comprising the four Vedas:?k, atharvan, yajus, sāman, which together constitute the oldest texts in Sanskrit and the canonical foundation both of the Vedic religion, and the later religion known as Hinduism.

Vedic Sanskrit?was an ancient language of the?Indo-Aryan ?subgroup of the?Indo-European language ?family. It is attested in the?Vedas ?and related literature, compiled over the period of the mid-2nd ?to mid-1st millennium BCE.[3] ?It was?orally preserved , predating the advent of writing by several centuries.?to have occurred around or before 1800 BCE. The date of composition of the oldest hymns of the?Rigveda ?is vague at best, generally estimated to roughly 1500 BCE.?"Proto-Rigvedic" Indo-Aryans intrude the BMAC around 1700 BCE. He assumes early Indo-Aryan presence in the?Late Harappan ?horizon from about 1900 BCE, and "Proto-Rigvedic" (Proto-Dardic) intrusion to Punjab as corresponding to the?Gandhara grave culture ?from about 1700 BCE. According to this model, Rigvedic within the larger Indo-Aryan group is the direct ancestor of the?Dardic languages .

The early Vedic Sanskrit language was far less homogeneous compared to the language defined by Pā?ini, i.e., Classic Sanskrit. The language in the early?Upanishads ?of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit. The formalization of the late form of Vedic Sanskrit language into the?Classical Sanskrit ?form is credited to?Pā?ini 's?A??ādhyāyī, along with?Patanjali 's?Mahabhasya?and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patanjali's work.

?g-vedic

Many words in the Vedic Sanskrit of the??g·veda ?have cognates or direct correspondences with the ancient Avestan language, but these do not appear in post-Rigvedic Indian texts. The text of the??g·veda?must have been essentially complete by around the 12th century BCE. The pre-1200 BCE layers mark a gradual change in Vedic Sanskrit, but there is disappearance of these archaic correspondences and linguistics in the post-Rigvedic period.

Mantra language

This period includes both the mantra and prose language of the?Atharvaveda ?(Paippalada and Shaunakiya), the??g·veda?Khilani , the?Samaveda ?Sa?hitā, and the mantras of the?Yajurveda . These texts are largely derived from the ?g·veda, but have undergone certain changes, both by linguistic change and by reinterpretation. For example, the more ancient injunctive verb system is no longer in use.

Sa?hitā

An important linguistic change is the disappearance of the?injunctive , subjunctive, optative, imperative (the?aorist ). New innovations in Vedic Sanskrit appear such as the development of periphrastic aorist forms. This must have occurred before the time of?Pā?ini ?because Panini makes a list of those from the northwestern region of India who knew these older rules of Vedic Sanskrit.

Brāhma?a prose

In this layer of Vedic literature, the archaic Vedic Sanskrit verb system has been abandoned, and a prototype of pre-Panini Vedic Sanskrit structure emerges. The?Yaj?agāthās?texts provide a probable link between Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit and languages of the Epics. Complex meters such as?Anu??ubh ?and rules of?Sanskrit prosody ?had been or were being innovated by this time, but parts of the Brāhma?a layers show the language is still close to Vedic Sanskrit.

Sūtra language

This is the last stratum of Vedic literature, comprising the bulk of the??rautasūtras ?and?G?hyasūtras ?and some?Upani?ad s such as the?Ka?ha Upani?ad ?and?Maitrāya?iya Upani?ad .These texts elucidate the state of the language which formed the basis of Pā?ini's codification into Classical Sanskrit.

·????????Vedic had a?voiceless bilabial fricative ?, called?upadhmānīya[i] ) and a?voiceless velar fricative ?([x ], called?jihvāmūlīya[ii] )—which used to occur as?allophones ?of?visarga???appeared before voiceless?labial ?and?velar consonants ?respectively. Both of them were lost in Classical Sanskrit to give way to the simple?visarga.?Upadhmānīya?occurs before?p?and?ph,?jihvāmūlīya?before?k?and?kh.

·????????Vedic had a?retroflex lateral approximant ?([?])[iii] ?as well as its breathy-voiced counterpart ([??]),[iv] ?which are not found in classical Sanskrit, with the corresponding plosives??(/?/)and??h(/??/) instead;?it was also metrically a cluster, suggesting?Proto-Indo-Aryan ?pronunciations of *[??]?and *[???]?(see?Mitanni-Aryan ) before the loss of voiced sibilants, which occurred after the split of Proto-Indo-Iranian.

·????????The vowels?e?and?o?were actually realized in Vedic as?diphthongs ?ai?and?au, but they became pure?monophthongs ?in later Sanskrit, such as?daivá-?>?devá-and?áika->ekā-. However, the diphthongal behaviour still resurfaces in sandhi.

·????????The vowels?ai?and?au?were correspondingly realized in Vedic as long?diphthongs ?āi?and?āu, but they became correspondingly short in Classical Sanskrit:?dyā?us?>?dyáus.

·????????The Prāti?ākhyas claim that the "dental" consonants were articulated from the root of the teeth (dantamūlīya,?alveolar ), but they became pure?dentals ?later, whereas most other systems including Pā?ini designate them as dentals.

·????????The Prāti?ākhyas are inconsistent about?[r ]?but generally claim that it was also a?dantamūlīya. According to Pā?ini it is a?retroflex consonant .[27] [26]

·????????The?pluti?(trimoraic ) vowels were on the verge of becoming?phonemicized ?during middle Vedic, but disappeared again.

·????????Vedic often allowed two like vowels in certain cases to come together in?hiatus ?without merger during?sandhi , which has been reconstructed as the influence of an old?laryngeal ?still present in the Proto-Indo-Iranian stage of the language:?PIE ?*h?weh?·nt-?→?va·ata-.?

Ancient Sanskrit

The simple name 'Sanskrit' generally refers to Classical Sanskrit, which is a later, fixed form that follows rules laid down by a grammarian around 400 BC. Like Latin in the Middle Ages, Classical Sanskrit was a scholarly?lingua franca?which had to be studied and mastered. Ancient Sanskrit was very different. It was a natural, vernacular language, and has come down to us in a remarkable and extensive body of poetry. (We have intentionally avoided the use of the traditional word "Vedic" to describe the language of these poems for reasons.

??????They indeed were comrades of the gods,

Possessed of Truth, the poets of old: ?

The fathers found the hidden light ?

And with true prayer brought forth the dawn.??

?'The Veda'. Perhaps around 1000 BC (all dating in prehistoric India is only approximate), editors gathered the ancient poems together and arranged them, together with some more modern material, into ten books according to rules that were largely artificial.

They gave the collection the name by which it continues to be known, 'Rig-veda', or 'praise-knowledge'. Other collections came into being, based on this sacred material, and they were given parallel names. The editors of the 'Sāma-veda' arranged the poems differently, for the purpose of chanting, and introduced numerous alternative readings to the text. The sacrificial formulae used by the priests during their recitations, together with descriptions of their ritual practices, were incorporated into collections to which the general name 'Yajur-veda' was given. Later still, a body of popular spells was combined with passages from the?Rigveda, again with variant readings, and was given the name 'Atharva-veda'. A continuously-growing mass of prose commentary, called the?Brāhma?as, also came into being, devoted to the attempt to explain the meaning of the ancient poems. To the later?Brāhma?as?belongs the profusion of texts known as the Upanishads, which are of particular interest to Indologists, as Sanskrit scholars today often describe themselves, because of their important role in the development of early Indian religious thought.

?point of view of understanding the earliest Sanskrit text -- the?Rigveda?itself -- it has always been, and continues to be, crucially misleading.

Because the poems were put to ritual use by the ancient priests, much of their vocabulary was assumed by the authors of the later texts to refer in some way to ritual activity. The word?pa?ú?'beast, cattle' came to designate a sacrificial victim in texts of the?Brāhma?as, for example, and?juhū??'tongue' was thought to mean 'butter ladle'. Abstract words of sophisticated meaning particularly suffered. The compound?puro-?ā???'fore-worship' (from?purás?'in front' and?√dā??'worship') acquired the specific sense 'sacrificial rice cake', despite the fact that the word?vrīhí?'rice', found in later texts, does not occur in the poems of the?Rigveda. The complex noun?krátu?'power, intellectual ability', discussed in the introduction to Lesson 7, was misunderstood to mean 'sacrifice' by the authors of the commentaries. Similarly, a number of important verbs of abstract meaning were thought by the editors of the?Sāmaveda?to be related solely to the production of milk, and to refer to cows?

Indology has always used the word 'Vedic', 'of the Veda', to describe pre-Classical Sanskrit, and the poems to which the name 'Rig-veda' had been given are studied in the context of 'the Veda'.

The sounds of Sanskrit and the Sanskrit alphabet.

The 'dictionary' order of Sanskrit follows phonetic rules. The vowels come first.?

a,?ā,?i,?ī,?u,?ū,?r?,?r??,?l?

The short vowel?a?is pronounced?,?i?and?u?as in?bit?and?put?(in Classical Sanskrit the short?a?sound became even shorter, and is transliterated as a?u?sound). These vowels each have a long equivalent,?ā,?ī,?ū.?Sanskrit has a vocalic?r?sound,?r?, which occurs frequently and is pronounced like the?r. The word?Rigveda?itself in Sanskrit begins with this vocalic?r, which is why it is sometimes transliterated without the?i, Rgveda.

?ri?and as?ar.) There is also a longer?r??sound,?r??, and a vocalic?l?sound,?l?, which is very rare and is pronounced something like the?l?(with silent?e).

Four long vocalic sounds classified as diphthongs follow: ?

e,?ai,?o,?au

The consonants are also arranged phonetically. ?

k,?kh,?g,?gh,??,?c,?ch,?j,?jh,??,??,??h,??,??h,??,?t,?th,?d,?dh,?n,?p,?ph,?b,?bh,?m

The sounds produced at the back of the mouth,?k,?kh,?g,?gh?are listed first, and are described as 'velar' because they are made with the tongue touching the soft palate (velum?in Latin). 'Palatal' consonants,?c,?ch,?j,?jh, are made slightly farther forward in the mouth, with the tongue touching the hard palate; 'dentals',?t,?th,?d,?dh, with the tongue touching the teeth; and 'labials',?p,?ph,?b,?bh, with the lips.

sequence or class comprises a 'voiceless' sound, pronounced without the vibration of the vocal cords, like?k; the same sound aspirated,?kh, pronounced with a following h sound; a 'voiced' sound,?g; the same sound aspirated,?gh; and a nasal.?

Voiceless ?

Voiced ?

Velar

?

k

?

kh

?

G

?

gh

?

?

Palatal

?

c

?

ch

?

J

?

jh

?

?

Retroflex

?

?

?

?h

?

?/?

?

?h/?h

?

?

Dental

?

t

?

th

?

D

?

dh

?

N

Labial

?

p

?

ph

?

B

?

bh

?

M

????becomes???(and??h??h) between vowels, as in the word?puro?ā???mentioned in the first section of the introduction.

At the end of the alphabet come semivowels and sibilants, and?h:

?

?

y,?r,?l,?v,??,??,?s,?h

The semivowels and sibilants are again in phonetic order:

?

?

Semivowel

?

?

Palatal

?

y

?

?

Retroflex

?

r

?

?

Dental

?

l

?

?

Labial

?

v

?

?

The semivowels are closely related to vowels:?y?corresponds to?i/ī,?r?to?r?/r??,?l?to?l?, and?to?u/ū.?The word sandhi is used to describe the way in which sounds change as a result of adjacent sounds, both within words and across word boundaries, and it is a natural phenomenon in speech.?the Sanskrit name?sa?-dhi?'putting-together' has come to be used to describe this phenomenon in other languages.

?Final?i/ī?and?u/ū, for example, when followed by another vowel were systematically turned into the related semivowels?y?and?v?in order to avoid hiatus, that is, to give a smooth, continuous sound. A language of a different character emerges. "The text of the Rigveda, when metrically restored, shows us a dialect in which the vowels are relatively more frequent, and the syllables therefore lighter and more musical, than is the case in classical Sanskrit.

?In the?Rigveda. Two short vowels that are the same, for example,?-i?at the end of a word followed by?i-?at the beginning of a word, usually combine to give the long vowel, here?-ī-. Long vowels, or a mixture of long and short vowels, combine in the same way.?

?with final?a/ā, which may combine with initial?i/ī?to give?e, and with initial?u/ū?to give?o. a?vino?ásam?=?a?vinā u?ásam,?

Simple vowel

?

a ā

?

i ī

?

u ū

?

r?

First grade

?

a ā

?

e

?

O

?

ar

Second grade

?

ā

?

ai

?

Au

?

ār