OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF SANSKRIT 43 The vocabulary was further enriched from outside Indo- Aryan itself. The pre-existing vernaculars made a sizeable con- tribution to the Sanskrit vocabulary. This influence is strongest, it seems, in the case of Dra vidian words and that can be identified with certainty as Dravidian run into several hundred. Though a few are found already in the Vedic language, the majority do not become current before the classical language. A smaller proportion was provided by the Kolarian languages. Some words were introduced from outside India, e.g. from Iranian (varabdna-, * breast plate ') or from Greek (hard - hour See further Chapter VIII. Even when all these new words have been accounted for there remains a considerable number of words in classical San- skrit whose origin is unknown. Most were no doubt originally desi words in the Indian terminology, and since the linguistic complexity of pre-Aryan India must have been greater than anything that now appears, we should not be surprised to find so many words whose origin remains unexplained. Such in brief are the main changes which took place in San- skrit between the early Vedic and the classical period. In the pre-classical literature this evolution can be traced in its suc- ceeding stages. This literature, which is devoted entirely to religion and ritual, falls into three main sections. I. The Sam hit as of the Rgveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda. II. The Brahmanas, prose texts devoted to the mystical in- terpretation of the ritual. IIL The Sutras, containing detailed instructions for per- forming the ritual, of which the Srautasutras deal with the great public sacrifices, and the Grhyasutras with household ritual. The periods which are conventionally assumed for the com- position of this literature are (i) Samhitas 1200-800 B.C., (2) Brahmanas, 800-500 B.C., (3) Sutras 600-300 b.c. In the absence of any definite information, such chronology rests mainly on guess-work. On the other hand, the relative chronology of the succeeding strata can be established beyond all doubt by means of linguistic data contained in the texts themselves. The linguistic changes summarised above took place gradually and the language of the succeeding phases of the literature becomes steadily more and more similar to the classical norm. The gulf that separates the language of the
