Empires of the Word - Nicholas Ostler [105]
In 518 Song-Yun () came. He penetrated no farther than Nagarahāra (Jalalabad) and Puruapūra (Peshawar), at either end of the Khyber pass, which now links Afghanistan and Pakistan; and returned to China by the same route after three years.
Then, in 629, the most famous of them all, Xuan-Zang (), reached India by stealth (the Chinese border being closed at the time), and after a three-year journey stayed for ten years, mostly as a student at Nālandā university outside Pataliputra, but also undertaking a journey around most of the south of the subcontinent.
Xuan-Zang was followed, a generation later, in 671, by a pilgrim called Yi-Jing (), Yi-Jing travelled by sea from Canton, but he stopped at the Indianised kingdom of Śrī Vijaya (Palembang) in southern Sumatra for two years of Sanskrit study. (He wrote: ‘if a Chinese priest wishes to go to the west to understand and read there, he would be wise to spend a year or two in Fo-Shi [Vijaya], and practise the proper rules there; he might then go on to central India.’) He himself then proceeded to the university of Nalanda, where he studied for ten years. Afterwards, he returned by sea to Śrī Vijaya, where he spent most of his time until 695, organising the translation of Buddhist texts from Sanskrit into Chinese, and writing two memoirs: On eminent monks who sought the law in the West, and On the spiritual law, sent from the Southern Seas.21
India for them was the home of Buddhist enlightenment. But it was also a fascinating country in its own right. Their accounts of their time there are very largely taken up with travelogue, but Xuan-Zang is particularly detailed about the intellectual life he encountered, and to which he contributed, during his stay. He wrote:
The letters of their alphabet were arranged by Brahmādeva, and their forms have been handed down from the first till now. They are forty-seven in number, and are combined so as to form words according to the object, and according to the circumstances [viz. tenses, and local cases]: there are other forms [viz. inflexions] used. This alphabet has spread in different directions and formed diverse branches, according to the circumstances; therefore there have been slight modifications in the sounds of the words [viz. spoken language]; but in its great features there has been no change. Middle India preserves the original character of the language in its integrity. Here the pronunciation is soft and agreeable, and like the language of the Devas [viz. the gods*]. The pronunciation of the words is clear and pure, and fit as a model for all men. The people of the frontiers have contracted several erroneous modes of pronunciation; for according to the licentious habits of the people, so will be the corrupt nature of their language.22
Strictly speaking, Manu’s contemporary conception of Madhyadeśa (’midland’) would, as we have seen, have excluded Magadha and the region of the lower Ganges as too far to the east. But in practice we can infer from Xuan-Zang that in his day the speech of ‘Middle India’ included the language of Pataliputra, ancient capital of several Indian empires, and of Nalanda, even then the pre-eminent university in the land.
The spread of Sanskrit
Sanskrit in India
Sanskrit first appears to us, as do most of its Indo-European sister languages, as the speech of conquering warriors, well capable of using horses and wheeled vehicles to establish domination over their neighbours, and turn them into serfs and subjects. The way of life is familiar from heroic poetry of Indo-European peoples in every direction: men who fight from chariots, speak forthrightly, and care for their own personal honour more than life itself. When, in the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata, Krishna advises Arjuna on his duty that day, he could be speaking to the Greek Achilles attacking Troy (a thousand years earlier), or the Irishman Cúchulainn standing against the hosts of Connacht (in a thousand years to come).
svadharmam api cāvekya na vikampitum arhasi: