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" ^ These theological arguments may be passed over : but immediately afterwards, in order to show that the Veda has a material e:d8tence, Kum&rila uses another curious expression, which shows again that to him the Veda existed only in the memory of men. " Before we hear the word Veda," he says, " we perceive, as different from all other objects, and as different from other Vedas, something in the form of the Rig-veda that exists within the readers, and things in the form of Mantras and Br&hmanas, different from THE INTRODUCTION OF WRITING. 511 others." Such arguments would not occur to people who were accustomed from time immemorial to ap- peal to a book as the sacred authority of their faith. When contemporaneously with our Reformation, Nanak founded the religion of the Sikhs, we find In India, as well as elsewhere, that a book, a real book, was considered as the firmest foundation of a new faith. ^' At their assemblies, when the chiefs and prin- cipal leaders are seated, the Adi-Granth (the first book) and Da^ma Pddshdhka Granth are placed before them ; they all bend their heads before these scriptures, and exclaim, Wa ! Gurujika Kbdlsa ! Wa I Gurujiki Fateh ! A great quantity of cakes, made of wheat, butter, and sugar, are then placed before the volumes of their sacred writings, and covered with a cloth. These holy cakes, which are in commemoration of the injunction of Nanak, to eat and to give to others to eat, next receive the salutation of the assembly, who then rise, and the Acalis pray aloud, while the musicians play. The Acalis, when the prayers are finished, desire the council to be seated. They sit down, and the cakes being uncovered are eaten of by all classes of Sikhs; those distinctions of original tribes, which are on other occasions kept up, being on this occasion laid aside, in token of their general and complete union in one cause. The Acalis then exclaim, " Sirdars ! (chiefs) this is a Gurumat& " (a great assembly); on which prayers are again said aloud. The chiefs, after this, sit closer, and say to each other : ^^ The sacred Granth (book) is betwixt us, let us swear by our scriptures to forget all external disputes, and to be united." ' ' Asiatic ReaearcheSj xi. 265. 508 THE INTRODUCTION OF WRITING. their names are their sounds. The name for r, Rep/la^ does not occur in Pjlnini. Kd^tyd^yana, however (iii. 3, 108, 4), explains the derivation of Repha^ and in iv. 4, 128, 2, he uses it for ra. In the Pr&ti4&khyas likewise, the word is well known, and as the participle riphita is used in the same works, there can be little doubt that Repha is derived from a root riph^ to snarl or hiss. The terms for the three accents show no traces of Avriting, such as the Latin word " circumflexus." What would have been more natural, if writing had been known in P&nini's time, than that he should have called the dot of the Anusvllra, vindu^ i. e. dot, and the Yisarga, dvivindu^ the double dot ? Let us take a later grammarian, Yopadeva, and we find such words at once. In Vopadeva, the Anusvd,ra is called vinduj the Visarga, dvivindu. What the Prd.ti^khyas and P&nini called the JihvdmMiya^ the sibilant formed near the base of the tongue, and Upadhmdnit/ay the labial flatus, Vopadeva calls Vajrdkriti^ having the shape of the thunderbolt (x), and Gajakambh&kritij having the shape of an elephant's two frontal bones (;). The term arddhachandra^ or half-moon, belongs to the same class of grammatical terms. Why should these words occur in later grammarians, and not one of them be found in the Prfi,ti6&khya8 or P&nini ? Another class of words which would be sure to betray the existence of writing where writing was known, are the words expressive of reading, compos- ing, book, chapter, paragraph, &c. The most usual word for reading in Sanskrit is adhyeti or odMte^ and at first sight the very existence of such a word might seem to prove the existence of books that could be read. But we have seen in the PrS,ti6&khyas what was THE INTRODUCTION OF WRITING. 509 meant when the pupils asked their tutor to make them read. Adkyeti and adhzte^ from adhij over, and i, to go, mean " he goes over a thing, he conquers it, acquires it ; " and the very expression " to read a work from the mouth of the tutor," would be sufficient to show that the work existed, not as a book, but in men's memory. Another expression of the same kind is found in Manu (x. 1): "All the three castes may read the Veda, but the Brahman alone is allowed to proclaim, i. e. to teach it (prabrti- yat). To teach is expressed by the causative of the verb adhyetij adhydpayati^ he makes read, i. e. he teaches.^ The ancient Hindus distinguish be- tween two kinds of reading, the grahanddhyayana^ the acquisitive reading, and the dhdranddhyayana^ the conservative reading ; the former being the first acquisition of a work, the latter its rehearsing in order not to lose a volume that once belonged to one's mental library. This rehearsing, or svddhydya^ self-reading, was as sacred a duty as the first acquisi- tion. It was by means of this svd.dhyd,ya alone that works could be said to live. We meet with similar expressions in other literatures of the ancient world. Ahura masd&, when he wishes his law to live among men, requires Jima to be not only the "rememberer" (meretfl), but the bearer and preserver (bheret^), of the Zarathustrian revelation. And many centuries later, Mah&vira ^, the founder of the Jaina religion, is called sdraS^ vdraS, and dhdraS of sacred knowledge, i. e. smdraka^ a rememberer, vdraka^ a guardian who keeps it from profane eyes, and dhdraka, a holder ' Apastamba, Dharma-siitra, iii. 86. ^ Kalpa-sfitra, ed. Stevenson, p. 29. 512 THE INTRODUCTION OF WRITING. Such a scene would be impossible among pure Brahmans. They never speak of their grdnthas or books. They speak of their Veda^ which means "knowledge." They speak of their ^rvHy which means what they have heard with their ears. They speak of Smritij which means what their fathers have declared unto them. We meet with BrAhmanas^ %. e. the sayings of Brahmans ; with SiitraSj i. e. the strings of rules ; with VedAngas^ i. e. the members of the Veda ; with Pravaclianas^ i. e. preachings ; with sSdstraSj i. e. teachings ; with DarmnaSj i. e. demon- strations ; but we never meet with a book, or a vo- lume, or a page. If we take the ordinary modem words for book, paper, ink, writing, &c., not one of them has as yet been discovered in any Sanskrit work of genuine bxi- tiquity. Book, in modem Sanskrit, is jnisW^ ^^ P^^^ takanij a word most likely of foreign origin.^ ^^ ^% a in such works as the Hitopade6a, where wc ^^^ ^ r '' person, " neither read in books nor taught \>5 ^ v-^^ The Hitopade^ itself is said to be written C IV^^^viAok^ an extract from the Panchatantra and anotb^^ w used To write is likh and Zip, the former ori^x^^ xp^yes, in the sense of scratching, whether on aton^ ^^ ^^ the latter, in the sense of covering ^ Hvt^^^^^ ^Ve^ ink. Thus in Sakuntala, the chief hei* *i>^^ coin- advised to write a love-letter ("^dctrj^i^ualVhana' plains that she has no writing-mat^^j ^ /U^ sddhandni)^ and her friend tells her -t^ ^ i ^ i, leaf as smooth as the breast of a parrc^*- ^k^ .jM W ^ ^^> a,nd ^^^ ' Could it be apestak, original! j the Sanskrit f ^ Spiegel, Grammar of the Parsi Language, p, ^Q^^^^^thAn(^ ' THE INTRODUCTION OF WRITING. 511 others." Such arguments would not occur to people who were accustomed from time immemorial to ap- peal to a book as the sacred authority of their faith. When contemporaneously with our Reformation, Nanak founded the religion of the Sikhs, we find in India, as well as elsewhere, that a book, a real book, was considered as the firmest foundation of a new faith. ^^ At their assemblies, when the chiefs and prin- cipal leaders are seated, the Adi-Granth (the first book) and Da^ma Pddshdhka Granth are placed before them ; they all bend their heads before these scriptures, and exclaim, Wa ! Gurujika Khdlsa ! Wa I Gurujiki Fateh ! A great quantity of cakes, made of wheat, butter, and sugar, are then placed before the volumes of their sacred writings, and covered with a cloth. These holy cakes, which are in commemoration of the injunction of Nanak, to eat and to give to others to eat, next receive the salutation of the assembly, who then rise, and the Acalis pray aloud, while the musicians play.