Editing Sanskrit (section)

== History ==
=== Origin and development ===
{{see also|Indo-European vocabulary|Proto-Indo-Aryan language|Indo-Iranian languages}}
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| footer = Left: The [[Kurgan hypothesis]] on [[Indo-European migrations]] between 4000 and 1000&nbsp;BCE; right: The geographical spread of the Indo-European languages at 500 CE, with Sanskrit in South Asia
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Sanskrit belongs to the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European family of languages]]. It is one of the three earliest ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]]:<ref name=Woodard12/><ref name=Bauer2017p90/><ref name="Ramat2015p26">{{cite book |first1=Anna Giacalone |last1=Ramat |first2=Paolo |last2=Ramat |year=2015 |title=The Indo-European Languages |pages=26–31 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-92187-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PLa5CAAAQBAJ}}</ref>
* [[Vedic Sanskrit]] ({{circa}} 1500–500&nbsp;BCE).
* [[Mycenaean Greek]] ({{circa}} 1450&nbsp;BCE)<ref>{{cite news |title=Ancient tablet found: Oldest readable writing in Europe |date=1 April 2011 |website=National Geographic |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110330-oldest-writing-europe-tablet-greece-science-mycenae-greek|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110401192141/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110330-oldest-writing-europe-tablet-greece-science-mycenae-greek/|url-status=dead|archive-date=1 April 2011}}</ref> and [[Ancient Greek]] ({{circa}} 750–400&nbsp;BCE).
* [[Hittite language|Hittite]] ({{circa}} 1750–1200&nbsp;BCE).

Other Indo-European languages distantly related to Sanskrit include [[Old Latin|archaic]] and [[Classical Latin]] ({{circa}} 600&nbsp;BCE–100&nbsp;CE, [[Italic languages]]), [[Gothic language|Gothic]] (archaic [[Germanic language]], {{circa|350&nbsp;CE}}), [[Old Norse]] ({{circa}} 200&nbsp;CE and after), [[Old Avestan]] ({{circa|late 2nd millennium&nbsp;BCE}}<ref>{{cite book |first=Jenny |last=Rose |date=18 August 2011 |title=Zoroastrianism: A guide for the perplexed |pages=75–76 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4411-2236-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4h0SBwAAQBAJ}}</ref>) and [[Avestan language|Younger Avestan]] ({{circa}} 900&nbsp;BCE).<ref name=Bauer2017p90>{{cite book |first=Brigitte L. M. |last=Bauer |year=2017 |title=Nominal Apposition in Indo-European: Its forms and functions, and its evolution in Latin-romance |publisher=De Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-046175-6 |pages=90–92 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BWzNDgAAQBAJ}} For detailed comparison of the languages, see pp. 90–126.</ref><ref name="Ramat2015p26"/> The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in the Indo-European languages are the [[Nuristani language]]s found in the remote [[Hindu Kush]] region of northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern [[Himalayas]],<ref name="Ramat2015p26"/><ref name="DaniMasson1999">{{cite book |last=Harmatta |first=J. |editor1-last=Dani |editor1-first=Ahmad Hasan |editor2-last=Masson |editor2-first=Vadim Mikhaĭlovich |chapter=The Emergence of the Indo-Iranians: The Indo-Iranian Languages |title=History of Civilizations of Central Asia |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000094466?posInSet=3&queryId=a6dad7c3-cad4-47e1-a5ef-49a1cd6d31f9 |year=1992 |volume=I |publisher=UNESCO |pages=357–358 |isbn=978-81-208-1407-3}}</ref>{{sfn|Masica|1993|p=34}} as well as the extinct [[Avestan]] and [[Old Persian]] – both [[Iranian languages]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Saul |last=Levin |date=24 October 2002 |title=Semitic and Indo-European |volume=II: Comparative morphology, syntax, and phonetics |page=431 |series=Current Issues in Linguistic Theory No. 226 |publisher=[[John Benjamins Publishing Company]] |oclc=32590410 |isbn=9781588112224}} {{isbn|1588112225}}</ref>{{Sfn|Bryant|Patton|2005|p=208}}<ref name="Robins2014p346">{{cite book |first=R. H. |last=Robins |year=2014 |title=General Linguistics |pages=346–347 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-88763-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IryOAwAAQBAJ |access-date=18 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134204/https://books.google.com/books?id=IryOAwAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> Sanskrit belongs to the [[Centum and satem languages|satem]] group of the Indo-European languages.

Colonial era scholars familiar with Latin and Greek were struck by the resemblance of the Sanskrit language, both in its vocabulary and grammar, to the classical languages of Europe.
In ''The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World'', Mallory and Adams illustrate the resemblance with the following examples of [[cognate]] forms{{sfn|J. P. Mallory|D. Q. Adams|2006|p=6}} (with the addition of Old English for further comparison):
{| class="wikitable"
 |-
 ! &nbsp; PIE !!  &nbsp; English !! &nbsp; Old English !!  &nbsp; Latin !! &nbsp; Greek !! &nbsp; '''Sanskrit''' !! Glossary
 |-
 | *méh₂tēr || &nbsp; mother || &nbsp; mōdor || &nbsp; māter || &nbsp; mētēr || &nbsp; '''mātṛ́-''' || mother
 |-
 | *ph₂tḗr || &nbsp; father ||&nbsp; fæder || &nbsp; pater || &nbsp; patēr || &nbsp; '''pitṛ́-''' || father
 |-
 | *bʰréh₂tēr || &nbsp; brother ||&nbsp; brōþor || &nbsp; frāter || &nbsp; phreter || &nbsp; '''bhrā́tṛ-''' || brother
 |-
 | *swésōr || &nbsp; sister ||&nbsp; sweoster || &nbsp; soror || &nbsp; eor || &nbsp; '''svásṛ-''' || sister
 |-
 | *suHnús || &nbsp; son ||&nbsp; sunu || &nbsp;-  || &nbsp; hyiós || &nbsp; '''sūnú-''' || son
 |-
 | *dʰugh₂tḗr || &nbsp; daughter ||&nbsp; dohtor || &nbsp;- || &nbsp; thugátēr || &nbsp; '''duhitṛ́-''' || daughter
 |-
 | *gʷṓws || &nbsp; cow ||&nbsp; cū || &nbsp; bōs || &nbsp; bous || &nbsp; '''gáu-''' || cow
 |-
 | *demh₂- || &nbsp; tame, timber ||&nbsp; tam, timber|| &nbsp; domus || &nbsp; dom- || &nbsp; '''dām-''' || house, tame, build
 |}
The correspondences suggest some common root, and historical links between some of the distant major ancient languages of the world.{{efn|William Jones (1786), quoted by Thomas Burrow in ''The Sanskrit Language'':{{sfn|Burrow|1973|p=6}} "The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from ''some common source'', which perhaps no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick {{sic}}, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the Old Persian might be added to the same family."}}

The [[Indo-Aryan migrations]] theory explains the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages by proposing that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in South Asia from a region of common origin, somewhere north-west of the [[Indus River|Indus region]], during the early 2nd millennium&nbsp;BCE. Evidence for such a theory includes the close relationship between the Indo-Iranian tongues and the [[Baltic languages|Baltic]] and [[Slavic languages]], vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European [[Uralic languages]], and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna.{{sfn|Masica|1993|pp=36–38}}

The pre-history of Indo-Aryan languages which preceded Vedic Sanskrit is unclear and various hypotheses place it over a fairly wide limit. According to Thomas Burrow, based on the relationship between various Indo-European languages, the origin of all these languages may possibly be in what is now Central or Eastern Europe, while the Indo-Iranian group possibly arose in Central Russia.{{sfn|Burrow|1973|pp=30–32}} The Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches separated quite early. It is the Indo-Aryan branch that moved into eastern Iran and then south into South Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium&nbsp;BCE. Once in ancient India, the Indo-Aryan language underwent rapid linguistic change and morphed into the Vedic Sanskrit language.{{sfn|Burrow|1973|pp=30–34}}

===Vedic Sanskrit===
{{Main|Vedic Sanskrit}}
[[File:Rigveda MS2097.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|''Rigveda'' ([[Vedic chant|padapatha]]) manuscript in [[Devanagari]], early 19th&nbsp;century. The red horizontal and vertical lines mark low and high pitch changes for chanting.]]
The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as ''[[Vedic Sanskrit]]''. The earliest attested Sanskrit text is the [[Rigveda]] ({{Transliteration|sa|IAST|Ṛg-veda}}), a Hindu scripture from the mid- to late-second millennium&nbsp;BCE. No written records from such an early period survive, if any ever existed, but scholars are generally confident that the oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they are ceremonial literature, where the exact phonetic expression and its preservation were a part of the historic tradition.{{Sfn|Meier-Brügger|2003|p=20}}{{sfn|MacDonell|2004}}{{sfn|Keith|1996|pp=3–4}}

However some scholars have suggested that the original Ṛg-veda differed in some fundamental ways in phonology compared to the sole surviving version available to us. In particular that retroflex consonants did not exist as a natural part of the earliest Vedic language,{{sfn|Deshpande|1993|p=165}} and that these developed in the centuries after the composition had been completed, and as a gradual unconscious process during the oral transmission by generations of reciters.{{citation needed|date=June 2024}}

The primary source for this argument is internal evidence of the text which betrays an instability of the phenomenon of retroflexion, with the same phrases having sandhi-induced retroflexion in some parts but not other.{{sfn|Bloomfield|Edgerton|1932|loc=§163–170}} This is taken along with evidence of controversy, for example, in passages of the Aitareya-Āraṇyaka (700 BCE), which features a discussion on whether retroflexion is valid in particular cases.{{sfn|Deshpande|1993|pp=130–196}}

The Ṛg-veda is a collection of books, created by multiple authors. These authors represented different generations, and the mandalas&nbsp;2 to 7 are the oldest while the mandalas&nbsp;1 and 10 are relatively the youngest.{{sfn|Barbara A. Holdrege|2012|pp=229–230}}{{sfn|Bryant|2001|pp=66–67}} Yet, the Vedic Sanskrit in these books of the Ṛg-veda "hardly presents any dialectical diversity", states [[Louis Renou]] – an [[Indology|Indologist]] known for his scholarship of the Sanskrit literature and the Ṛg-veda in particular. According to Renou, this implies that the Vedic Sanskrit language had a "set linguistic pattern" by the second half of the 2nd millennium&nbsp;BCE.{{sfn|Louis Renou|Jagbans Kishore Balbir|2004|pp=5–6}} Beyond the Ṛg-veda, the ancient literature in Vedic Sanskrit that has survived into the modern age include the ''Samaveda'', ''Yajurveda'', ''Atharvaveda'', along with the embedded and layered Vedic texts such as the [[Brahmana]]s, [[Aranyaka]]s, and the early [[Upanishad]]s.{{Sfn|Meier-Brügger|2003|p=20}} These Vedic documents reflect the dialects of Sanskrit found in the various parts of the northwestern, northern, and eastern Indian subcontinent.{{Sfn|Cardona|2012}}{{Sfn|Witzel|1997|p=9}}

According to Michael Witzel, Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language of the semi-nomadic [[Aryan]]s.{{Sfn|Witzel|1997|p=16-17}}{{sfn|Harold G. Coward|1990|pp=3–12, 36–47, 111–112, Note: Sanskrit was both a literary and spoken language in ancient India.}} The Vedic Sanskrit language or a closely related Indo-European variant was recognized beyond ancient India as evidenced by the "[[Mitanni]] Treaty" between the ancient Hittite and [[Mitanni]] people, carved into a rock, in a region that now includes parts of [[Syria]] and [[Turkey]].<ref name="Cohen2017p11">{{cite book
 |first=Signe
 |last=Cohen
 |year=2017
 |title=The Upanisads: A complete guide
 |pages=11–17
 |publisher=Taylor & Francis
 |isbn=978-1-317-63696-0
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EnE3DwAAQBAJ
 |access-date=18 July 2018
 |archive-date=29 March 2024
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134215/https://books.google.com/books?id=EnE3DwAAQBAJ
 |url-status=live
 }}</ref>{{efn|The Mitanni treaty is generally dated to the 16th&nbsp;century&nbsp;BCE, but this date and its significance remains much debated.{{sfn|Bryant|2001|p=249}} }} Parts of this treaty, such as the names of the Mitanni princes and technical terms related to horse training, for reasons not understood, are in early forms of Vedic Sanskrit. The treaty also invokes the gods [[Varuna]], [[Mitra]], [[Indra]], and [[Ashvins|Nasatya]] found in the earliest layers of the Vedic literature.<ref name="Cohen2017p11"/><ref>{{cite book
 |first=Andrew
 |last=Robinson
 |year=2014
 |title=India: A Short History
 |pages=56–57
 |publisher=Thames & Hudson
 |isbn=978-0-500-77195-2
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TgU7CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT44
 |access-date=18 July 2018
 |archive-date=29 March 2024
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134211/https://books.google.com/books?id=TgU7CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT44#v=onepage&q&f=false
 |url-status=live
 }}</ref>

{{Quote box
| width = 28%
| style = min-width:25em
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| align = right
| quote = <poem>
O Bṛhaspati, when in giving names
::they first set forth the beginning of Language,
Their most excellent and spotless secret
::was laid bare through love,
When the wise ones formed Language with their mind,
::purifying it like grain with a winnowing fan,
Then friends knew friendships –
::an auspicious mark placed on their language.
</poem>
| source = — ''[[Rigveda]] 10.71.1–4''<br />Translated by Roger Woodard<ref>{{cite book
 |first=Roger D.
 |last=Woodard
 |year=2008
 |title=The Ancient Languages of Asia and the Americas
 |page=1
 |publisher=Cambridge University Press
 |isbn=978-0-521-68494-1
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UQpAuNIP4oIC
 |access-date=18 July 2018
 |archive-date=29 March 2024
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329131545/https://books.google.com/books?id=UQpAuNIP4oIC
 |url-status=live
 }}</ref>
}}
The Vedic Sanskrit found in the Ṛg-veda is distinctly more archaic than other Vedic texts, and in many respects, the Rigvedic language is notably more similar to those found in the archaic texts of Old Avestan [[Zoroastrianism|Zoroastrian]] ''Gathas'' and Homer's ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey''.<ref name="Lowe2015p2">{{cite book
 |first=John Jeffrey
 |last=Lowe
 |year=2015
 |title=Participles in Rigvedic Sanskrit: The syntax and semantics of adjectival verb forms
 |pages=2–3
 |publisher=Oxford University Press
 |isbn=978-0-19-870136-1
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u7u6BwAAQBAJ
 |access-date=18 July 2018
 |archive-date=7 September 2023
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230907144358/https://books.google.com/books?id=u7u6BwAAQBAJ
 |url-status=live
 }}</ref> According to Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton – Indologists known for their translation of the Ṛg-veda – the Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times the social structures such as the role of the poet and the priests, the patronage economy, the phrasal equations, and some of the poetic metres.{{sfn|Stephanie W. Jamison|Joel P. Brereton|2014|pp=10–11, 72}}{{efn|An example of the shared phrasal equations is the ''dyáuṣ pitṛ́'' in Vedic Sanskrit, from Proto-Indo-European ''*dyḗws ph₂tḗr'', meaning "sky father". The Mycenaean Greek equivalent is ''Zeus Pater'', which evolved to ''Jupiter'' in Latin. Equivalent "paternal Heaven" phrasal equation is found in many Indo-European languages.{{sfn|Stephanie W. Jamison|Joel P. Brereton|2014|p=50}}}} While there are similarities, state Jamison and Brereton, there are also differences between Vedic Sanskrit, the Old Avestan, and the Mycenaean Greek literature. For example, unlike the Sanskrit [[simile]]s in the Ṛg-veda, the Old Avestan ''Gathas'' lack simile entirely, and it is rare in the later version of the language. The Homerian Greek, like Ṛg-vedic Sanskrit, deploys simile extensively, but they are structurally very different.{{sfn|Stephanie W. Jamison|Joel P. Brereton|2014|pp=66–67}}

=== Classical Sanskrit ===
[[File:Birch bark MS from Kashmir of the Rupavatra Wellcome L0032691.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|A 17th-century birch bark manuscript of Pāṇini's grammar treatise from Kashmir]]
The early Vedic form of the Sanskrit language was far less homogenous compared to the Classical Sanskrit as defined by grammarians by about the mid-1st millennium BCE. According to Richard Gombrich—an Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist Studies—the archaic Vedic Sanskrit found in the ''Rigveda'' had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. Gombrich posits that the language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the [[Buddha]]'s time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages.<ref name="Gombrich2006p24">{{cite book|first=Richard|last=Gombrich|title=Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jZyJAgAAQBAJ|year=2006|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-90352-8|pages=24–25|access-date=19 July 2018|archive-date=3 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230703145618/https://books.google.com/books?id=jZyJAgAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

The formalization of the Saṃskṛta language is credited to {{IAST|[[Pāṇini]]}}, along with Patañjali's {{Transliteration|sa|Mahābhāṣya}} and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patañjali's work.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Gérard |last1=Huet |first2=Amba |last2=Kulkarni |first3=Peter |last3=Scharf |title=Sanskrit Computational Linguistics: First and Second International Symposia Rocquencourt, France, October 29–31, 2007 Providence, RI, USA, May 15–17, 2008, Revised Selected Papers |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t2f1hneiV08C |year=2009 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-642-00154-3 |pages=v–vi |access-date=19 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134221/https://books.google.com/books?id=t2f1hneiV08C |url-status=live }}</ref> Panini composed ''{{IAST|Aṣṭādhyāyī}}'' ('Eight-Chapter Grammar'), which became the foundation of Vyākaraṇa, a [[Vedanga|Vedānga]].{{sfn|Harold G. Coward|1990|pp=13–14, 111}} The {{IAST|Aṣṭādhyāyī}} was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it is the earliest that has survived in full, and the culmination of a long grammatical tradition that Fortson says, is "one of the intellectual wonders of the ancient world".<ref name="Fortson, §10.26">Fortson, §10.26.</ref> Pāṇini cites ten scholars on the phonological and grammatical aspects of the Sanskrit language before him, as well as the variants in the usage of Sanskrit in different regions of India.{{sfn|Harold G. Coward|1990|pp=13–14, 111}} The ten Vedic scholars he quotes are Āpiśali, [[Kashyapa|Kaśyapa]], Gārgya, Gālava, Cakravarmaṇa, [[Bharadvaja|Bhāradvāja]], Śākaṭāyana, Śākalya, Senaka and Sphoṭāyana.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Pāṇini|first2=Sumitra Mangesh|last2=Katre|title=Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iSDakY97XckC&pg=PR19|year=1989|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|isbn=978-81-208-0521-7|pages=xix–xxi|access-date=18 July 2018|archive-date=29 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134719/https://books.google.com/books?id=iSDakY97XckC&pg=PR19#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Cardona|1997|p=2}}

In the {{IAST|Aṣṭādhyāyī}}, language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar, according to Renou and Filliozat, is a classic that defines the linguistic expression and sets the standard for the Sanskrit language.<ref>Renou, Louis, and Filliozat, Jean. ''L'Inde Classique, manuel des etudes indiennes''. Vol. II. pp. 86–90. [[École française d'Extrême-Orient]], 2000 [1953]. {{ISBN|2-85539-903-3}}.</ref> Pāṇini made use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology and lexicon. This metalanguage is organised according to a series of meta-rules, some of which are explicitly stated while others can be deduced.<ref>Angot, Michel (2001). ''L'Inde Classique''. pp. 213–215. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. {{ISBN|2-251-41015-5}}</ref> Despite differences in the analysis from that of modern linguistics, Pāṇini's work has been found valuable and the most advanced analysis of linguistics until the twentieth century.<ref name="Fortson, §10.26"/>

Pāṇini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Yuji|last1=Kawaguchi|first2=Makoto|last2=Minegishi|first3=Wolfgang|last3=Viereck|title=Corpus-based Analysis and Diachronic Linguistics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iaZxAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA223|year=2011|publisher=John Benjamins|isbn=978-90-272-7215-7|pages=223–224|access-date=18 July 2018|archive-date=29 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134751/https://books.google.com/books?id=iaZxAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA223#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> His systematic treatise inspired and made Sanskrit the preeminent Indian language of learning and literature for two millennia.<ref name=bowman328>{{cite book|first=John |last=Bowman|title=Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cYoHOqC7Yx4C |year=2005|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-50004-3|page=728}}</ref> It is unclear whether Pāṇini himself wrote his treatise or he orally created the detailed and sophisticated treatise then transmitted it through his students. Modern scholarship generally accepts that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as ''[[Lipi (script)|lipi]]'' ('script') and {{Transliteration|sa|lipikara}} ('scribe') in section 3.2 of the {{Transliteration|sa|Aṣṭādhyāyī}}.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=11}}<ref name="Juhyung Rhi 2009 5, 1–13">{{cite journal| first=Juhyung |last=Rhi|year= 2009|journal= Journal of Central Eurasian Studies| volume= 1|title=On the Peripheries of Civilizations: The Evolution of a Visual Tradition in Gandhāra|pages=5, 1–13}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first1=Rita |last1=Sherma|first2=Arvind |last2=Sharma|title=Hermeneutics and Hindu Thought: Toward a Fusion of Horizons|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x4eXRvwyvtMC&pg=PA235|year=2008|publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4020-8192-7|page=235}}</ref>{{efn|Pāṇini's use of the term ''lipi'' has been a source of scholarly disagreements. Harry Falk in his 1993 overview states that ancient Indians neither knew nor used writing script, and Pāṇini's mention is likely a reference to Semitic and Greek scripts.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Falk|first1=Harry|title=Schrift im alten Indien: ein Forschungsbericht mit Anmerkungen|date=1993|publisher=Gunter Narr |language=de|pages=109–167}}</ref> In his 1995 review, Salomon questions Falk's arguments and writes it is "speculative at best and hardly constitutes firm grounds for a late date for Kharoṣṭhī. The stronger argument for this position is that we have no specimen of the script before the time of Ashoka, nor any direct evidence of intermediate stages in its development; but of course this does not mean that such earlier forms did not exist, only that, if they did exist, they have not survived, presumably because they were not employed for monumental purposes before Ashoka".{{sfn|Salomon|1995|pages=271–279}} According to Hartmut Scharfe, ''lipi'' of Pāṇini may be borrowed from the Old Persian ''dipi'', in turn derived from Sumerian ''dup''. Scharfe adds that the best evidence, at the time of his review, is that no script was used in India, aside from the Northwest Indian subcontinent, before {{circa|300&nbsp;BCE}} because Indian tradition "at every occasion stresses the orality of the cultural and literary heritage".<ref name="Scharfe 2002">{{cite book |last= Scharfe |first=Hartmut |year=2002 |title=Education in Ancient India |pages=10–12 |series=Handbook of Oriental Studies |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden, Netherlands}}</ref> Kenneth Norman states writing scripts in ancient India evolved over the long period of time like other cultures, that it is unlikely that ancient Indians developed a single complete writing system at one and the same time in the Maurya era. It is even less likely, states Norman, that a writing script was invented during Ashoka's rule, starting from nothing, for the specific purpose of writing his inscriptions and then it was understood all over South Asia where the Ashoka pillars are found.<ref name="Hinüber1989">{{cite book |first=Oskar |last=von Hinüber |year=1989 |title=Der Beginn der Schrift und frühe Schriftlichkeit in Indien |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xiYTAQAAMAAJ |publisher=Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur |oclc=22195130 |pages=241–245 |isbn=9783515056274 |language=de |access-date=18 July 2018 |archive-date=15 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231215194736/https://books.google.com/books?id=xiYTAQAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> Goody (1987) states that ancient India likely had a "very old culture of writing" along with its oral tradition of composing and transmitting knowledge, because the Vedic literature is too vast, consistent and complex to have been entirely created, memorized, accurately preserved and spread without a written system.{{sfn|Goody|1987|pp=110–124}} Falk disagrees with Goody, and suggests that it is a Western presumption and inability to imagine that remarkably early scientific achievements such as Pāṇini's grammar (5th to 4th&nbsp;century&nbsp;BCE), and the creation, preservation and wide distribution of the large corpus of the Brahmanic Vedic literature and the Buddhist canonical literature, without any writing scripts. Bronkhorst (2002) disagrees with Falk, and states, "Falk goes too far. It is fair to expect that we believe that Vedic memorisation—though without parallel in any other human society—has been able to preserve very long texts for many centuries without losing a syllable. ... However, the oral composition of a work as complex as Pāṇini's grammar is not only without parallel in other human cultures, it is without parallel in India itself. ... It just will not do to state that our difficulty in conceiving any such thing is our problem".<ref name=bronkhorst2002lar>{{cite journal |first=Johannes |last=Bronkhorst |year=2002 |title=Literacy and rationality in ancient India |journal=Asiatische Studien |volume=56 |issue=4 |pages=803–804, 797–831}}</ref>}}

The Classical Sanskrit language formalized by Pāṇini, states Renou, is "not an impoverished language", rather it is "a controlled and a restrained language from which archaisms and unnecessary formal alternatives were excluded".{{sfn|Louis Renou|Jagbans Kishore Balbir|2004|p=53}} The Classical form of the language simplified the ''sandhi'' rules but retained various aspects of the Vedic language, while adding rigor and flexibilities, so that it had sufficient means to express thoughts as well as being "capable of responding to the future increasing demands of an infinitely diversified literature", according to Renou. Pāṇini included numerous "optional rules" beyond the Vedic Sanskrit's {{Transliteration|sa|bahulam}} framework, to respect liberty and creativity so that individual writers separated by geography or time would have the choice to express facts and their views in their own way, where tradition followed competitive forms of the Sanskrit language.{{sfn|Louis Renou|Jagbans Kishore Balbir|2004|pp=53–54}}

The phonetic differences between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit, as discerned from the current state of the surviving literature,{{sfn|Deshpande|1993|pp=130–196}} are negligible when compared to the intense change that must have occurred in the pre-Vedic period between the Proto-Indo-Aryan language and Vedic Sanskrit.{{sfn|Burrow|1973|pp=33–34}} The noticeable differences between the Vedic and the Classical Sanskrit include the much-expanded grammar and grammatical categories as well as the differences in the accent, the semantics and the syntax.{{sfn|A. M. Ruppel|2017|pp=378–383}} There are also some differences between how some of the nouns and verbs end, as well as the ''sandhi'' rules, both internal and external.{{sfn|A. M. Ruppel|2017|pp=378–383}} Quite many words found in the early Vedic Sanskrit language are never found in late Vedic Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit literature, while some words have different and new meanings in Classical Sanskrit when contextually compared to the early Vedic Sanskrit literature.{{sfn|A. M. Ruppel|2017|pp=378–383}}

[[Arthur Macdonell]] was among the early colonial era scholars who summarized some of the differences between the Vedic and Classical Sanskrit.{{sfn|A. M. Ruppel|2017|pp=378–383}}<ref>{{cite book |first=Arthur Anthony |last=Macdonell |year=1997 |title=A Sanskrit Grammar for Students |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbFJJ2NF8W4C |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-0505-7 |pages=236–244 |access-date=19 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134721/https://books.google.com/books?id=HbFJJ2NF8W4C |url-status=live }}</ref> Louis Renou published in 1956, in French, a more extensive discussion of the similarities, the differences and the evolution of the Vedic Sanskrit within the Vedic period and then to the Classical Sanskrit along with his views on the history. This work has been translated by Jagbans Balbir.{{sfn|Louis Renou|Jagbans Kishore Balbir|2004|pp=1–59}}

===Sanskrit and Prakrit languages===
[[File:Word for Sanskrit Samskrita in the Mandsaur stone inscription of Yashodharman-Vishnuvardhana 532 CE.jpg|thumb|An early use of the word for "Sanskrit" in Late [[Brahmi script]] (also called [[Gupta script]]):{{center|<sup>[[File:Gupta ashoka sam.jpg|14px]]</sup><sub>[[File:Gupta ashoka skrr.jpg|17px]]</sub>[[File:Gupta ashoka t.svg|14px]] ''Saṃ-skṛ-ta''}}<br />[[Mandsaur stone inscription of Yashodharman-Vishnuvardhana]], 532&nbsp;CE.<ref name="JFF">{{cite book |last1=Fleet |first1=John Faithfull |title=Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum Vol 3 (1970)ac 4616 |date=1907 |page=153, line&nbsp;14 of the inscription |url=https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.358795/2015.358795.Corpus-Inscriptionum#page/n373/mode/2up}}</ref>]]
The earliest known use of the word {{Transliteration|sa|Saṃskṛta}} (Sanskrit), in the context of a speech or language, is found in verses 5.28.17–19 of the ''Ramayana''.<ref name=wright-sanskrit-first/> Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects ([[Prakrit]]s) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these {{Transliteration|sa|Apabhramsa}}, literally 'spoiled'.<ref>{{cite book |first=Alfred C. |last=Woolner |title=Introduction to Prakrit |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IwE16UFBfdEC|year=1986|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-0189-9 |page=6, context: 1–10}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Clarence |last=Maloney |year=1978 |title=Language and Civilization Change in South Asia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M_oUAAAAIAAJ |publisher=Brill Academic |isbn=978-90-04-05741-8 |pages=111–114 |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134722/https://books.google.com/books?id=M_oUAAAAIAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other [[Indo-European languages]] but which are found in the regional Prakrit languages, which makes it likely that the interaction, the sharing of words and ideas began early in the Indian history. As the Indian thought diversified and challenged earlier beliefs of Hinduism, particularly in the form of [[Buddhism]] and [[Jainism]], the Prakrit languages such as [[Pali]] in [[Theravada]] Buddhism and Ardhamagadhi in Jainism competed with Sanskrit in the ancient times.<ref>{{cite book |first=Gaurinath Bhattacharyya |last=Shastri |title=A Concise History of Classical Sanskrit Literature |year=1987 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-0027-4 |pages=18–19 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QYxpvZLg4hAC |access-date=19 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134732/https://books.google.com/books?id=QYxpvZLg4hAC |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Rune Edvin Anders |last=Johansson |year=1981 |title=Pali Buddhist Texts: Explained to the beginner |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-7007-1068-3 |page=7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fovyapaDaYIC |quote=Pali is known mainly as the language of Theravada Buddhism. ... very little is known about its origin. We do not know where it was spoken or if it originally was a spoken language at all. The ancient Ceylonese tradition says that the Buddha himself spoke Magadhi and that this language was identical to Pali. |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134722/https://books.google.com/books?id=fovyapaDaYIC |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=dundas69>{{cite book |first=Paul |last=Dundas |title=The Jains |year=2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-26606-2 |pages=69–70 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X8iAAgAAQBAJ |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=2 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702114824/https://books.google.com/books?id=X8iAAgAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> However, states [[Paul Dundas]], these ancient Prakrit languages had "roughly the same relationship to Sanskrit as medieval Italian does to Latin".<ref name=dundas69/> The Indian tradition states that the [[Buddha]] and the [[Mahavira]] preferred the Prakrit language so that everyone could understand it. However, scholars such as Dundas have questioned this hypothesis. They state that there is no evidence for this and whatever evidence is available suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had the capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages such as [[Ardhamagadhi]].<ref name=dundas69/>

A section of European scholars state that Sanskrit was never a spoken language.<ref name=Shastri1987p20>{{cite book |author=Gaurinath Bhattacharyya Shastri |year=1987 |title=A Concise History of Classical Sanskrit Literature |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-0027-4 |pages=20–23 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QYxpvZLg4hAC |access-date=19 July 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329134732/https://books.google.com/books?id=QYxpvZLg4hAC |url-status=live }}</ref> However, evidences shows that Sanskrit was a spoken language, essential for [[oral tradition]] that preserved the vast number of Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. The textual evidence in the works of Yaksa, Panini, and Patanajali affirms that Classical Sanskrit in their era was a spoken language ({{Transliteration|sa|bhasha}}) used by the cultured and educated. Some ''[[sutra]]s'' expound upon the variant forms of spoken Sanskrit versus written Sanskrit.<ref name=Shastri1987p20/> Chinese Buddhist pilgrim [[Xuanzang]] mentioned in his memoir that official philosophical debates in India were held in Sanskrit, not in the vernacular language of that region.<ref name=Shastri1987p20/>

{{Wide image|IndoEuropeanTree.svg|600px|Sanskrit's link to the Prakrit languages and other Indo-European languages|350px|right|alt=Tree diagram showing genetic relationships among languages}}
According to Sanskrit linguist professor Madhav Deshpande, Sanskrit was a spoken language in a colloquial form by the mid-1st&nbsp;millennium&nbsp;BCE which coexisted with a more formal, grammatically correct form of literary Sanskrit.{{sfn|Deshpande|2011|pp=218–220}} This, states Deshpande, is true for modern languages where colloquial incorrect approximations and dialects of a language are spoken and understood, along with more "refined, sophisticated and grammatically accurate" forms of the same language being found in the literary works.{{sfn|Deshpande|2011|pp=218–220}} The Indian tradition, states [[Moriz Winternitz|Winternitz]], has favored the learning and the usage of multiple languages from the ancient times. Sanskrit was a spoken language in the educated and the elite classes, but it was also a language that must have been understood in a wider circle of society because the widely popular folk epics and stories such as the ''[[Ramayana]]'', the ''[[Mahabharata]]'', the ''[[Bhagavata Purana]]'', the ''[[Panchatantra]]'' and many other texts are all in the Sanskrit language.<ref>{{cite book |first=Moriz |last=Winternitz |author-link=Moriz Winternitz |year=1996 |title=A History of Indian Literature |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-0264-3 |pages=42–46 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JRfuJFRV_O8C |access-date=20 July 2018 |archive-date=26 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231226083105/https://books.google.com/books?id=JRfuJFRV_O8C |url-status=live }}</ref> The Classical Sanskrit with its exacting grammar was thus the language of the Indian scholars and the educated classes, while others communicated with approximate or ungrammatical variants of it as well as other natural Indian languages.{{sfn|Deshpande|2011|pp=218–220}} Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside the vernacular Prakrits.{{sfn|Deshpande|2011|pp=218–220}} Many [[Sanskrit drama]]s indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. The cities of [[Varanasi]], [[Paithan]], [[Pune]] and [[Kanchipuram]] were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era.{{sfn|Deshpande|2011|pp=222–223}}

According to [[Étienne Lamotte|Lamotte]], Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas, and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied, so did its spread and influence.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Étienne |last=Lamotte |author-link=Étienne Lamotte |year=1976 |title=Histoire du buddhisme indien, des origines à l'ère saka |language=fr |journal=Tijdschrift voor Filosofie |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=539–541 |place=Louvain-la-Neuve, France |publisher=Université de Louvain |department=Institut orientaliste}}</ref> Sanskrit was adopted voluntarily as a vehicle of high culture, arts, and profound ideas. Pollock disagrees with Lamotte, but concurs that Sanskrit's influence grew into what he terms a "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" over a region that included all of South Asia and much of southeast Asia. The Sanskrit language cosmopolis thrived beyond India between 300 and 1300&nbsp;CE.<ref name=pollock1996p197>{{cite book |first=Sheldon |last=Pollock |editor-first=Jan |editor-last=Houben |article=The Sanskrit cosmopolis, A.D.&nbsp;300–1300: transculturation, vernacularization, and the question of ideology |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_eqr833q9qYC&pg=PA197 |title=Ideology and Status of Sanskrit: Contributions to the history of the Sanskrit language |publisher=E. J. Brill |location=Leiden, New York |year=1996 |isbn=978-90-04-10613-0 |pages=197–199; pp. 197–239 for context and details |access-date=22 March 2024 |archive-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329135457/https://books.google.com/books?id=_eqr833q9qYC&pg=PA197#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>

Today, it is believed that Kashmiri is the closest language to Sanskrit.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-02-19 |title='Kashmir had an overwhelmingly Indic and Sanskritic identity and character' |first1=Akrita |last1=Reyar |url=https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/kashmir-had-an-overwhelmingly-indic-and-sanskritic-identity-and-character-shonaleeka-kaul-jnu/334839|website=timesnownews.com |language=en |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240108212808/https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/kashmir-had-an-overwhelmingly-indic-and-sanskritic-identity-and-character-shonaleeka-kaul-jnu/334839 |archive-date= Jan 8, 2024 }}</ref><ref>P. 116 ''Sanskrit and Other Indian Languages'' By Śaśiprabhā Kumāra; "''Their language was Vedic Sanskrit which is spoken by all Kashmiris presently.''"</ref><ref>''Kashmir: Its Aborigines and Their Exodus'' By Colonel Tej K Tikoo</ref>

=== Dravidian influence on Sanskrit ===
Reinöhl mentions that not only have the Dravidian languages borrowed from Sanskrit vocabulary, but they have also affected Sanskrit on deeper levels of structure, "for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian influence".<ref name=":02">{{cite book |last=Reinöhl |first=Uta |year=2016 |title=Grammaticalization and the Rise of Configurationality in Indo-Aryan |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=120–121}}</ref> Similarly, Ferenc Ruzca states that all the major shifts in Indo-Aryan phonetics over two millennia can be attributed to the constant influence of a Dravidian language with a similar phonetic structure to Tamil.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ruzca |first=Ferenc |date=2013 |editor-last=Klein|editor-first=Jared S. |title=Indic Across the Millennia: from the Rigveda to Modern Indo-Aryans |publisher=Hempen Verlag|pages=145–152 |chapter=The influence of Dravidian on Indo-Aryan phonetics|url=https://www.academia.edu/472464|isbn=9783934106055}}</ref> Hock et al. quoting George Hart state that there was influence of [[Old Tamil]] on Sanskrit.<ref name=":11">{{cite book |first1=Hans Henrich |last1=Hock |last2=Bashir |first2=E. |last3=Subbarao |first3=K. V. |year=2016 |title=The languages and linguistics of South Asia a comprehensive guide |publisher=Berlin de&nbsp;Gruyter Mouton |pages=94–95}}</ref> Hart compared Old Tamil and Classical Sanskrit to arrive at a conclusion that there was a common language from which these features both derived – "that both Tamil and Sanskrit derived their shared conventions, metres, and techniques from a common source, for it is clear that neither borrowed directly from the other."<ref>{{cite book |last=Hart |first=George |year=1976 |title=The relation between Tamil and classical Sanskrit literature |place=Wiesbaden |publisher=O. Harrassowitz |isbn=3447017856 |pages=317–320}}</ref>

Reinöhl further states that there is a symmetric relationship between Dravidian languages like Kannada or Tamil, with Indo-Aryan languages like Bengali or Hindi, whereas the same relationship is not found for non-Indo-Aryan languages, for example, Persian or English:

{{blockquote|text=A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting Bengali or Hindi equivalents for the Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order; but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into a non-Indo-Aryan language.|source=Reinöhl<ref name=":02"/>}}

Shulman mentions that "Dravidian nonfinite verbal forms (called {{Transliteration|ta|vinaiyeccam}} in Tamil) shaped the usage of the Sanskrit nonfinite verbs (originally derived from inflected forms of action nouns in Vedic). This particularly salient case of the possible influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is only one of many items of syntactic assimilation, not least among them the large repertoire of morphological modality and aspect that, once one knows to look for it, can be found everywhere in classical and postclassical Sanskrit".<ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last=Shulman |first=David Dean |title=Tamil : a biography |publisher=The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |year=2016 |location=London, UK |pages=12–14, 20}}</ref>

The main influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is found to have been concentrated in the timespan between the late Vedic period and the crystallization of Classical Sanskrit. As in this period the [[Indo-Aryan peoples|Indo-Aryan]] tribes had not yet made contact with the inhabitants of the South of the subcontinent, this suggests a significant presence of Dravidian speakers in North India (the central Gangetic plain and the classical Madhyadeśa) who were instrumental in this substratal influence on Sanskrit.{{sfn|Burrow|1973|p=386}}