Acts of Apostle Thomas

XIV SIGNIFICANCE OF SANSKRIT: M. M. NINAN
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Sanskrit was developed out of Prakrit and other existing languages during the interval of 100 AD to 150
AD “The first evidence of classical Sanskrit is found as an inscription dating around A.D.150 in the
Brahmi script. It records the repair of a dam originally built by Chandragupta Maurya, and also contains a
panegyric in verse, which can be regarded as the first literary composition in classical Sanskrit. It is at
Girnar in Kathiawar and was inscribed by Rudradamana, the Saka Satrap of Ujjayini, on the same rock on
which the Fourteen Rock Edicts of Asoka were also found.
It is significant that Rudradamana employed classical Sanskrit in a region where about four hundred years
before him Asoka had used only Prakrit. This definitely proves that in the second century AD Sanskrit was
replacing the dialects. Even so the language did not replace Prakrit everywhere, but it continued to be used
in inscriptions for something like one hundred years or even more after this date. However, from the fifth
century A.D. classical Sanskrit is seen to be the dominant language in the inscriptions.” ( Hinduism, by
Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Oxford University Press, USA, 1979.)
If that is the case in what language was the Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads transmitted
since Sanskrit did not exist? Except for most part of Rig Veda all others are written in Sanskrit. What that
tells us that they were written only after the first century AD.
This evidently puts new and sharp change in the way we look at Hinduism. In fact Hinduism did not come
to exist before first century. Hinduism is totally different from the Vedic religion. The mistake early
indologists who came from Europe was to assume the continuity of Vedic religion and Hindu religion.
Hindu religion itself was a convenient artificial definition of the British.
Thus apart from portions of the Veda which were not written in Sanskrit, all other Vedas, Upanishads,
Brahmanas and Puranas etc were written down later than 100 AD at liberal estimate. They must have been
written down much later in actual fact. A more realistic estimate will be around 6 th Centaury AD. “The
pious view is that the Vedas are eternal and uncreated and exist essentially as sound. More conventional,
but still pious, scholarship may still exaggerate the antiquity of the Vedas, sometimes claiming they go
back to 10,000 BC or earlier. Now, however, it looks like even the oldest parts of the Rg Veda do not
antedate the arrival of the Arya in India, although the gods and elements of the stories are older, since they
are attested with Iranian peoples and the Mitanni, with parallels in Greek and Latin mythology.” (Kelly
Ross)
“Thus for instance the vast amalgamation of Puranic tradition known as the Skandapurana, as far as we can
speak of it as a single work at all, cannot be older than the 16th century, as has been shown in the
Groningen Skandapurana project (see Adriaensen et al 1994). Many scientific manuals and commentaries
were composed during the 17th and 18th centuries, and a 19th century compilation, the Sukraniti, passed
for a long time as a genuine ancient work. And of course Indian scholars of traditional learning are all the
time producing new Sanskrit literature.” Klaus Karttunen http://folklore.ee/folklore/vol8/veda.htm
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