Buddhism in India

Transitoriness and Transformations 89

had to allow the development of popular languages and eventually

give them some recognition.

The ‘Prakrits’ (local languages which includes the so-called

‘Dravidian’ as well as ‘Indo-European’ languages) began their

development as regional–national languages of India during the

period of Buddhism.^1 In Tamil, the earliest to develop, some of this

Buddhist- and Jaina-influenced literature is preserved, including the

Kuraland the poetic novels or kavyas, in the post–Sangam period.

There is also a belief among many Tamils that the sage Agastya,

credited with being the first teacher of Tamil, was a Buddhist, not a

Brahman rishias the orthodox tradition has it. The growth of the

Prakrit ‘Maharashtri’, which later become Marathi, also took place

early, during the Satavahana period up to the 4th century CE, a time

of major influence of Buddhism. Eastern Indian languages also devel-

oped through the medium of Buddhist literature. According to

N.K. Sahu, who sees Tantra as originating in Orissa, the language

of the songs of Buddhist wandering tantrics during the 8th–10th

centuries of the Common Era was ‘the parent stock of modern

Oriya, Bengali, Maithili and Assamese’ (Sahu 1958: 156–57).

What was the reason then, of Mahayana literature being in

Sanskrit? By the 1st century onwards, the Prakrit-Pali in which

the Theravada classics were preserved had also become an elite

language. As other languages developed throughout India, Pali

could not really be the ‘language of the country’ that the Buddha

had advised his disciples to preach in. Sanskrit by that time had

developed as complex and difficult elite language, but it nevertheless

appeared to be the only one that could link the different regions of

the country. Thus much of the high scholarship of the Mahayana

monks was also carried on in Sanskrit. In addition, Chinese and

Tibetan monks learned and preserved Mahayana literature only in

Sanskrit and translated from that. But popular Mahayana was

written, recited and sung in the vernaculars, as is shown by the

Tibetan chronicler Taranatha who notes how the songs of some

early Mahayana preachers were recited widely among the common

people ‘beginning from the marketplace to the king’s palace’

(Taranatha1990: 101).

(^1) For a realistic account of the actual development of Indian languages (as opposed
to the elite notion that the Prakrits are offshoots of Sanskrit), see Rhys Davids,
(1997: 150–58), and Cardona, ‘Middle Indo-Aryan’ (1997).
88 Buddhism in India
close to that spoken in Magadha at the time of the Buddha and
which later developed as a lingua franca. With time, however, the
developing vernaculars of the different regions of the country
diverged increasingly from Pali also (for a good summary, see Rhys
Davids 1917: 152–57 and Bloch 1970: 1–38).
There must have been a tremendous amount of literature—
writings, stories, songs, fables, beyond this. Buddhism from the
beginning had a missionary impulse, and the Buddha was adamant
that it be taught in the language of the people and not the ‘Vedic
language’ (Kullavagga V, 33, 1). Throughout Asia, as Buddhist
bhikkhus travelled teaching the Dhamma in the languages of the
people, they played a major role in developing these vernaculars as
‘national languages’; in societies with developed class hierarchies
they gave status to the language of the common people. Victor Mair
illustrates this for China, Korea and Japan, contrasting the positive
attitude in India to the deshabhasha(the language of the country
or locality) with the Mandarin disdain for ‘folk talk’ in China.
Buddhists valorised the Prakrits (prakrta, literally ‘made before’) as
‘natural’ languages, that is unadorned, unrefined, seeing the elite
Sanskrit (samskrta, literally ‘made together,’ i.e., refined) as ‘artifi-
cial’ (Mair 1994: 724). Mair also writes very strikingly of the impact
made by songs and verses of the Buddhist missionaries: ‘Probably
more important in raising the consciousness of some Chinese...was
the Buddhist penchant for psalmody. There was no precedent in the
indigenous literary and religious traditions for the flood of sacred
singing and chanting that engulfed China with Buddhism.’
The real contrast, however, in terms of attitudes towards popular
language is not so much between India and China as between
Buddhism and the elites (Chinese or Indian). The Indian Brahmanic
elite, who were similar to the Chinese mandarins, cultivated Sanskrit
as a ‘pure’ and elevated language, and disdained the ‘Prakrits’. These
were considered as low languages of the people who could not
properly pronounce or understand the high language. Elitism in
India took different forms, not because it was less elitist, but
because the ‘lower’ castes (Shudras and Dalits) were forbidden to
speak Sanskrit, while Brahmans maintained a monopoly on sacred
learning. In China, in contrast, the elite language was difficult but
open to everyone, even those from the lowest social strata, who
could find the resources to learn it. This had the effect of developing
a more exclusive and closed elite in India, but it also meant they