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| | Principles
and Practice of Hindu Religion | |
Chapter
- IV : The
Scriptures and The Sacred Works | An
Analysis of the Texts Available that gives the Divine Message
for
Every One to Study, Understand and Follow as a Way of Life |
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| | Lesson
- 51 : | Evolution
of Vedic Languages and Scripts!
The
way they were written and spoken | |
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the various faiths and beliefs that existed in several parts of the 'pre-Aryan'
India merged with `Aryan' culture and faiths, several schools were established
to propagate the teachings in many areas with different interpretations. At this
time Sanskrit and Prakrit languages were spoken in the court, religious practice
and in commerce. Brahmi and Naagari scripts were used in these languages. Various
'Aryan' languages developed from it mainly in the Northern part of India and had
some influence on the languages of the South. The 'Dravidian' group of languages,
mostly related to Tamil, were mostly spoken in the South though some were spoken
all over India in several small communities. They had a distinctive script with
some similarities with other languages. Even now, there are a few thousand people
who speak languages and dialects called Brauhi in Sind (Pakistan), Malto in Bihar
and Gondi in Madhya Pradesh (India) that are also 'Dravidian' languages.
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This
shows that both groups of languages were spoken all over the land and both had
'Pre-Aryan' and 'Aryan' influence in the words and scripts. These were said to
be the derivatives of "Indo-European" language group. It is very obvious that
both groups were of India's own and not European. Modern day researchers see more
similarities in the languages and script of both groups. They were used in the
worship and rituals all the time, though Vedic teachings were in Sanskrit only.
All Vedas were written in Brahmi Script. While all the languages of ancient India
were of similar origin, there existed certain subtle differences from region to
region like dialects, which gradually developed into several distinct languages.
We can trace many similarities between the 'Dravidian' languages and 'Aryan' languages.
Sounds "Ba" and "Va" in the East, "Ra" and "Da" in the North and "Pa" and "Ha",
"LLa" and "Zha" in the South were often interchanged for the same words in different
languages. This had an influence in the pronunciation of Vedic recitations also.
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| Lessons:
-
49 , 50
, 51 , 52 , 53
, 54 , 55 , 56
, 57 , 58 , 59
, 60 , 61 , 62
, 63 , 64 . |
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