2 I do not propose to discuss here the date of the Rgveda. On linguistic and historical grounds it is safe to date it in the tenth-eleventh century B.C. It is the date accepted by linguisti. cians. Allowing 200 years for the incubation period the Indo-Aryan language may be presumed to have started on its career in the Indian soil from 1200 B.C. Before that the language was at the proto-Indo-Aryan stage. The first two hundred years (1200-1000 B.C.) may be assigned to the Early Vedic stage. By Early Vedic I mean the language of the older part of the Rgveda. During the next three hundred years (1000-700 B.C.) the language was at the Late Vedic stage. By Late Vedic I mean the language of the younger part of the Ķgueda and that of the Atharvaveda. The next three hundred years (700-400 B.C.) may be called the Early Sanskrit period (although the name Sanskrit was not given to the language till about 700 years later). Early Sanskrit includes the language of the Brāhmanis and Upanişads as well as of the Sūtras. The language described by Pāṇini was the culminating phase of this stage. The fourth stage started from 400 B.C. and it is Classical Sanskrit as we know it from Pāṇini's norm. Since then Sanskrit ceased to grow as a current language. Except in vocabulary this language which served as the literary speech par excellence through- out the length and breadth of India was virtually the same language as was used by the first students of Pāṇini.
