XI
not mean these when he spoke of the bhasha" The gradual and perhaps rapid progress in the symmetry and simplicity of the language has still to be accelerated by the work of later authors and their writings furnish an ample illustration of the next stage of linguistic development.
Yaska's Nirukta forms the intermediate link between the Vedic and the non-Vedic literature. It is not devoid of archaic expression, for we meet with such phrases as 1 SreWT fSTFFcT: ' (unable to teach] and PTTW *F*F? (invested with sovereignty). But we have no- clue to the dawn of a change of style from simplicity to complexity. To the same period in the history of Sanskrit belongs Panini. His Ashtadhyayi is based on the grammar of the bhasha. NO language has survived to us that literally represents Panini's standard of dialect. Perhaps the later Brahmanas are the only best representatives. At any rate there is no portion of the existing Sanskrit literature that accurately represents Panini's Sanskrit, as regards the verbs and the nominal derivatives, Probably his grammar had for its basis the vernacular language of his day. Yaska and Panini stand to us the authorities on record of that form of the language which immediately followed the purely Vedic stage.
Times had advanced, and with it the language. *
Panini's bhasha could no longer stand stationary. The operation of the concurrent causes of linguistic progress had by the days of Katyayaria and Patanjali modified Panini's denotation and introduced new changes in thees the grammar, though he did