“Sanskrit as a supreme language” by Ashok Aklujkar [Arch] is a very pertinent read. Some excerpts follow, with some added formatting. My notes are marked in bold like this: (VV: …). The most important section is the one titled: “Emergence of dominance”.
History
- Languages very close to Sanskrit was spoken by nearly ALL classes of people in the first millennium BC [Q13]. “The available evidence, from the earliest Sanskrit plays and other literary works around the time of the Buddha, is that Sanskrit and the early Prakrits were mutually intelligible. … Pāṇini did indeed base his grammar on the speech of the “cultured” or “educated” (śiṣṭa) people, but the fact that his discussion (and the later one of Patañjali) includes idiomatic usage and much slang does indicate it was spoken for all purposes (i.e., including worldly everyday stuff) at least.” [खट्वारूढः, तीर्थध्वाङ्क्षः]
- Even svara-s were in use. People who travelled to the north and south banks of the vipAsha (उदक् च विपाशः॥ ४।२।७३ – “अञ् प्रत्ययो भवति चातुरर्थिकः। अणो ऽपवादः। … स्वरे विशेषः। महती सूक्ष्मेक्षिका वर्तते सूत्रकारस्य।”) (today’s Beas) river could hear that names of wells were pronounced differently, and pANini’s job was to describe it.
- “Sanskrit was not (contrary to popular misinformed opinion) a single dialect. It was the grammatically and phonetically standardized form of spoken late-Vedic. For there to exist a standardized form of the language, there should be multiple non-standard forms that are in use. The very existence of Pāṇini’s grammatical standard is itself the most potent proof of there having been multiple dialects of spoken sanskrit in the late-vedic period. The spoken dialects for which sanskrit grammar was composed can all be called sanskrit even though they did not obviously 100% agree grammatically or phonetically to the standard language in practice. Vestiges of these pre-standardized Old-Indic dialects survive from Indo-Aryan literature composed throughout the vedic period, particularly from the 5th-2nd centuries BCE (when a profusion of grammatical and phonetics texts were composed to standardize the spoken language). Vedic was not a single uniform dialect, it is the common name (umbrella term) given to several closely related spoken Indo-Iranian dialects of the Vedic period in South Asia (roughly 1500 BCE to 300 BCE).” [BVP17]
- “बहूनाम् साधारणवस्तूनां नामानि न दृश्यन्ते संस्कृते” इति हेत्वाभास एव। यतः सर्वेषु व्यवहारे दृश्यमानासु भाषासु सा दशा दृश्यते। शब्दानाम् आदानप्रदानम् आविष्कारश्च सहजाः।
- On the sanskrit/ prakrit/ apabhraMshA distinction - and its antiquity:
- Sanskrit literally means refined, prAkRt means natural/ innate (implying that it is not as polished/ standardized). This is analogous to the mArgii/ desii distinction in theater and dance.
- There was non-uniformity in peoples’ education (due to opportunity, circumstance and taste). Naurally, the more educated, scholarly class used more refined language, art and customs - owing to their expending a greater amount of effort in study, standardization and codification (whether it is in grammar, dance or music). Hence, the “sanskrit/ prakrit” distinction is quite old, predating even the buddha and the shramaNa-s.
Phases of Sanskrit
Of the long time span I keep in view, the following would be the major divisions, if
one were to follow the vicissitudes of Sanskrit as they have generally
been seen in the scholarship on the subject:
(a) the period of Early Vedic represented by most of the Rg-veda, some
parts of the Atharva-veda and many of the scattered res preserved in
other Vedic texts, to which the appellation Vedic Sanskrit most fit-
tingly applies and in which explicit recognition of any known language
other than the language of the texts is yet to be detected; 11
(b) the period of much of the Atharva-veda, the Yajur-veda sariihitas,the early Brahmanas (including the Aranyakas and Early Upanisads) inwhich we have the immediate predecessor of most of Sanskrit proper and in which a recognition of the existence of other languages is found, but again, as in the Rg-veda, without any specific names (see note 11);
(c) the period of the Middle Upanisads, early sutra and Vedanga texts in
which Sanskrit proper has almost fully emerged and the separation of
contemporary Sanskrit from Vedic Sanskrit is either clearly presup-
posed or openly acknowledged;
(d) probably largely overlapping with the preceding, the period of
early Epic or Puranic Sanskrit (much of which is accessible to us only
in a form mingled with the later Epic or Puranic Sanskrit) and of
Sramanic movements and the early phases of Jainism and Buddhism, in
which languages related to but different from early Sanskrit exist and
are used for literary and religio-philosophical purposes;
(e) the period of Sanskrit proper co-existing with Epic or Puranic San-
skrit, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit and possibly other vernacular varieties,
in which Sanskrit has largely ceased to be a language of all-purpose
communication, in which the competing canonical languages, Pali and
Ardha-magadhI, are probably undergoing the same fate, in which all
three languages, but especially Sanskrit, have many centres of study
even in South India, and in which Sanskrit and Pali begin to establish
their presence in East and Southeast Asia; and
(f) the period of classical Sanskrit, in which the language almost always
conforms to the model provided by Paninian grammar, in which even
the Buddhists and the Jainas switch to the use of Sanskrit (without giv-
ing up the use of other dialects and languages) for serious religio-philo-
sophical purposes, and in which Sanskrit is used for the pan-Indian
content of practically all the sastras.
Important observations
We should, I believe, admit the following elements as obtaining in the periods concerned:
Element 1: Efforts were made to ensure that Sanskrit remained nearer
to the language of the Veda. 16 The sustained proximity helped it reap
the benefits of the prestige that went with the Veda. A tradition of
seeking association with the Veda for respectability had come into ex-
istence at a much earlier date than historians of ancient Indian culture
have so far observed. Even the Buddhists and the Jainas, contrary to the
perception prevalent at present, have extended the ‘tipping of the hat’
type of acknowledgement to the Veda in the ancient periods of their
history.
Element 2: …This prestige-bestowing development seems to have taken place in
the following stages:
- (a) the rise of the concept of a Speech or Language
Principle (viz., the very basic undifferentiated language which lies at
the root of all individual languages including those of nonhuman
beings) as a mark of living beings — as something invested in them by
God or gods, as divine; - (b) identification of the essence or original
form of the Veda corpus with the Language Principle and of the Veda
corpus itself with the closest possible realisation of the Language Prin-
ciple; - (c) thinking of the linguistic expression that the Veda corpus is as
divine by a sort of ‘next of kin’ logic; - (d) seeing Sanskrit as continua- tion of the Vedic linguistic expression;
- (e) transfer of the epithet ‘divine’ to Sanskrit.
Element 3: The disinclination to separate Sanskrit from the Lan-
guage Principle and, what we would call, Vedic Sanskrit is matched, at
the other end, by the disinclination, on the part of authors of early San-
skrit linguistic works, to indicate that, when they discuss what seem to
be Prakrit 22 words to us, they have in mind languages related to Sanskrit
but different from it. Their assumption appears to be that of a linguistic
continuum, extending from what we call Sanskrit to what we call
Prakrit. 23 Nowhere does one get the sense that they felt any urgency to
isolate Sanskrit as a language (see note 18). The capacity for absorbing
deviation thus accorded to Sanskrit must have helped it in not being in
open competition with other ‘languages’. 24 The high linguistic ground
it took must have meant that it had a long time to march ahead without
other languages coming in its way.
Element 4: The key expressions employed in stating or implying
the higher standing of what we call Sanskrit are sam + kr and its deriva-
tives. Not only is Samskrta claimed to have undergone samskara, the
other languages are given a relatively low ranking in its favour because
they lack samskara (Deshpande 1979a: 22).
(VV:What is samskAra? See below:)
- Now, at least from the days of Yaska, the Nirukta author, one com-
ponent of the meaning of saiiiskara is clear: ‘subjecting to, or being
amenable to, or undergoing grammatical operation, having gram-
matical perspicuity’. - One additional constituent must be proper pronunciation, etc. That
there was value attached to good qualities of speech in ancient India is
abundantly clear from, among other pieces of evidence, certain adjec-
tives employed in Vedic literature and the way the Buddha’s speech is
described. 29 If a certain kind of extra-mundane efficacy was associated
with accurate and good pronunciation, then the presence of this type of
samskara would be even more valued. - Beyond this, a connotation must have existed to the effect that to be
careful in speech — to attempt to use a language with samskara — is to
observe a certain discipline of the mind and body and that a person’s
subscribing to such a discipline is an indication of his good spiritual
standing. The passage yas tu prayunkte kusalo vis’ese sabdan yathavad
vyavahara-kale so ’ nantam apnoti jayam paratra, cited by Patanjali and
referred to in the preceding paragraph, would not make sense if such a
connotation is not assumed. The most explicit evidence is furnished,
however, by the passages like Kalidasa’s samskaravatyeva gira manlsi
taya [= Parvatya] sa putas ca vibhusitas ca (Kumara-sambhava 1 .28)
and Bhartr-hari’s tasmad yah sabda-samskarah sa siddhih paramat-
manah / . . . vya vasthi ta-sadh u – bhavena hi rupena samskriyamane
sabda-tattve ’pabhramsopaghatapagamad avir-bhute dharma-visese
niyato ’bhyudayah (Trikandl 1.144, Vrtti (YP I): pp. 201-02) and
sadhvi vag bhuyasi yesu purusesu vyavasthita / adhikam vartate tesu
punyam ruparii praja-pateh //(Vrtti 1.124-28 = karika 1.126). - One last association of samskara, which has not been pointed out so
far in the research literature known to me, is with a highly pervasive
principle of Vedic or Brahmanical thinking: To use a thing with
knowledge of its genesis is superior to simply using it. Use must be, as
far as possible, backed up by information about its ‘how’s and
‘why’s — the ya evam veda sa veda principle articulated in a number of
Brahmana and Upanisad texts. A sastra-purvaka prayoga is preferable
to a mere prayoga. The employment of a nonstandard linguistic form
may not generate demerit, but it does not generate merit either. The ca-
pacity to achieve that exists only in a samskrta or standard form, since
its user, given the social realities of his time, will, in most cases, be an
educated person and as such will know how the form came to be what it
is or why it must have certain features.
Element 5: For most of the specified time-span, a religious life
which was a significantly different mixture of organized and unor-
ganized religion from the one we nowadays normally imagine for that
time-span prevailed. The well-demarcated religious thinking and
living which the text-based Indological discussion of the three major
religions of ancient India — of Brahmanism, Jainism and Bud-
dhism — usually presupposes was true only of relatively few individu-
als. While the three religions were not entirely unorganized, were not
unconscious of the need to preserve their identities, and must have
made efforts to propagate themselves, the average Indian lived a life
that did not belong exclusively to (what we would call) one religious
line of thinking. He took what can be described as a grocery cart ap-
proach. Even while following one teaching principally, he did not, in
all likelihood, shun the holy men of other religions 34 or avoid com-
pletely the practices supposed to belong to another (in our terminology,
religious) stratum — practices such as propitiating a local Yaksa or
making a donation to a local monument belonging to a heterodox
religion if his prayer was answered.
Emergence of dominance
My argument suggests that, during the periods (c) – (f) mentioned
in section 2.2, it is not the political or economic backing which Sanskrit
received that is as important for its spread and high standing as the
culture, particularly the religious culture, in which Sanskrit found it-
self (and which it nurtured in return). …
The rulers and the state resources largely seem to have acted only as fa-
cilitators of a cultural process.
(Footnote: The spread of Pali and Ardha-magadhi also seems to have come about essentially in the same way as the one delineated in this paragraph.)
The phenomenon of the pre-eminence of Sanskrit, to clarify my
view further, became possible positively, because, at the time of its
emergence,
- (a) the notion of the Veda as a text on which to base philo-
sophical, social and political thinking, even if that thinking in fact hap-
pened to be new, had won wide acceptance, - (b) the institution of at-
taching some kind of special power and sanctity to the Veda sound had
already come into effect, (VV: Recall vedic prayoga-s) - (c) the followers of the Vedic way of life had
already instituted certain educational mechanisms to maintain the pu-
rity of their language, and - (d) the society had become accustomed to
attaching value to knowledgeable, correct and clear speech as a mark of
ennobling discipline and self-restraint.
The phenomenon became possible, negatively, that is, was not op-
posed effectively,
- (a) because a religious life not tending to be exclu-
sivistic generally predominated, - (b) because at least some socially in-
fluential thinkers saw some benefit in not explicating everything, that
is, in retaining certain myths and de-emphasizing historical divisions, 37
and - (c) because Sramanik religions like Jainism and Buddhism had
relatively narrower philosophies — philosophies capable of drawing
invariable commitment from only those who could be attracted to renunciation.
The processes and developments which probably helped Sanskrit
in maintaining its pre-eminence once it came into being seem to be:
- (a) training 39 of a vast and astoundingly gifted body of suta narrators 40 who
constituted a very effective mechanism for reaching practically all
levels of society, - (b) creation of an educational network that seems un-
paralleled in the ancient world, 41 - (c) development, mostly as a result of (b), of literature on practically all aspects of (ancient and medieval) life, and
- (d) constant cultivation of a class that mesmerized the ordinary
man through its intellectual and linguistic achievements.
The foregoing thoughts should not be viewed as excluding causes
such as Brahmin-Ksatriya collaboration, utility as a language of re-
ligious life, usefulness as a link language, 44 advantages a frozen lan-
guage has, 45 refusal to degrade the language by allowing its use for low-
level vyavahara (VV: Strongly disagree), repeated efforts to Sanskritize, etc .
Some of them are subsumed by the elements I have noted. Others are applicable only to the times in which Sanskrit had already assumed a leading role.