36 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF SANSKRIT At the same time the language of the elite did not remain without change, in spite of all the influence of conscious con- servatism. The classical language as fixed by Panini (fourth cent, b.c.) is a noticeably younger form of language than that found in the Vedic texts, though much less altered from it than the spoken language of the masses, which is known slightly later from the inscriptions of Asoka. We have in fact up to this period two parallel developments of Indo-Aryan occurring side by side in different strata of the community, slow and gradual change in the dominant Brahman community restrained by education and a literary tradition, and beside it a rapid evolu- tion among the mass of the population unhindered by education and tradition. With Panini's work Sanskrit in its external form became finally stabilised and no more change was allowed. From then on the history of Indo-Aryan is the history of Sliddle Indo-Aryan in its various phases (Pali, Prakrit, Apabhramsa) and then of Modern Indo-Aryan. In this evolution Sanskrit took no part, but remained as it was fixed by Panini at a period long antedating the bulk of the classical literature. The differences between Vedic and Classical Sanskrit affect to a very small extent the phonetic structure of the language, and in this respect the contrast between Classical Sanskrit and Early Middle Indo-Aryan is most striking. They are more noticeable in the field of vocabulary and grammar, though here also they are comparatively restricted in scope. Phonetically, apart from some dialectal phenomena such as d , dh for l, lh, and the replacement of r by / in certain words, the differences are mainly concerned with innovations of Sandhi. This is noticeable for instance in the case of -iy- -uv- of the Veda which are normally replaced by y, v. The rule has been applied to the accepted text of the Rgveda, so that for instance what is written tanvds is, from the evidence of the metre, to be pro- nounced tanuvas . Among Vedic peculiarities of final Sandhi we may note that s is only inserted between final n and initial t when it is etymologically justified (sarvdms tan, but varsman tasthau, maghavan tava , ajagmiran U), and that before vowels the terminations of the acc. pL -an, in, tin appear as -dm, itfir and ufhr (sargatk iva, paridhitfir ati ). In such cases later San- skrit has regularised the Sandhi by the analogical extension of a form that was originally justified only in a certain context (e.g, -an, -in, -tin was the regular phonetic development before
