Wilson Philological Lectures: ON SANSKRIT AND THE DERIVED LANGUAGES DELIVERED IN 1877

The renowned Sanskrit scholar Dr Bhandarkar was appointed Wilson Philological Lecture in 1877 and was the first lecturer under the endowment. His subject was the Sanskrit and Prakrit languages derived from it. It was under this that he delivered a course of seven Lectures on Sanskrit. These important Lectures were delivered by him in 1877 at the University of Bombay. The seven lectures discuss the general laws guiding the development of language; Pali and the dialects; Prakrit and Apabhramsha; Phonology of the Northern vernaculars; Remnants of the older grammatical forms relation between Sanskrit, Pali, the Prakrit and the modern languages etc. The method he followed is strictly historical, tracing the modern vernaculars from the original Sanskrit through all the different stages of development of which we have evidence and assigning the different transformations to their causes, natural or physical, racial, and historical. These lectures, with the exception of the fifth and the sixth, were thoroughly revised afterwards and the first two and the seventh were published in Vol. XVI of the Journal, B.B.R.A.S., between the years 1883 and 1885; while the third and the fourth were published between 1887 and 1889. The other two lectures remained in manuscript for a long time, until he finished his book on ?Vaisnavism, Saivism etc,? which was written for the series of Encyclopaedia of IndoAryan Research. These have now been revised and he publishes them for the first time along with a reprint of the other five lectures in the present volume.