5

THE LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE

Sanskrit

This brings us to the question of Sanskrit the sacred language of India.  The word “Sanskrit” (Samskritam) means “that which have been refined” – a language refined from existing languages.  That is what the name itself says and evidently it was developed out of common languages by refining them.  The main language of North India during the ministry of Thomas was Pali and Prakrit - the languages used by Buddhism and Jainism.  Dravidian language of Tamil already existed in the south.  Evidently, Sanskrit language was made by refining all these common languages.

One of the early exhaustive collections of languages can be found in the Buddhist edicts of Emperor Asoka. (268 -233 BC).  His aim was to declare the gospel of Buddha to all his subjects and therefore, he presented this gospel in all languages spoken in the empire.  It included Greek and even Aramaic (because there was a small group of Jews in the country).  However, there was no Sanskrit in the group, indicating that the language Sanskrit did not exist at that time.  We know that Buddhism and Jainism used only Pali and Prakrit languages. In fact, the earliest Sanskrit document ever found dates AD 150.   It is evident therefore that Sanskrit came into existence during the period of AD 100 – 150 by refining the existing languages.

Thus, apart from most portions of Rg Veda, which were not written in Sanskrit, all other Vedas, Upanishads, Brahmanas, and Puranas etc were written down later than 150 AD at liberal estimate.  They must have been written down much later.  

Here is a list of dating of Hindu Puranas as assessed by objective Hindu Scholars:

It will be interesting to look at the time line of various scriptures.  Please note that we are talking about written scriptures.  Any one can claim a long period of non-written oral transmission of scriptures for which we have no method of verification.  It is only common knowledge that it is the documentation and writing “in black and white", that lead to growth of ideas and literature. We cannot expect scientific thinking or logical thinking and building on ideas of the past without the solid communication medium of writing.  Hence, the time line of Scriptures will be revealing.

Notice that the earliest form of written scripture was the Hebrew Torah.  Even Egyptian writing did not permit documentation to develop literature, because they were essentially pictograms.  Only the phonetic system permitted elaborate conceptual literature.  While Zoroastrian Zend Avesta was written in the Sixth Century BC and Buddhist and Jain literature by Fifth Century BC, Aryan Vedas came to be written down only in the Second Century BC.  The rest of the Indian Scriptures – the Puranas and the Upanishads and Brahmanas came into existence only after Sanskrit became the language of Gods – the liturgical language and the language of theological studies.  This took place after a century of Thomas’ ministry.  Written in Sanskrit,  Puranas (Old Tales) are simply the stories of kings and their warfare, which tells about the Aryan conquest of India. The Upanishads were theological discourses, which gave different viewpoints.  These theological schools of thoughts were crystallized much later than the second century AD.