Sound, word and meaning - Sanskrit and the Classics

Abstract

The great family of Indo-European languages which are understood to have been spoken in the land of India, and of which Vedic Sanskrit is the Indian branch, existed as far back as the middle of the second millennium B.C. The Vedic language prevailed across a millennium and stretched over a vast area, the lndo-Gangetic plain. Only from the third century B.C. were the various Inda-Aryan speeches documented for us by inscription of the emperor Asoka. When the great grammarian Panini standardized the Sanskrit language at around this time, Sanskrit became the language of a vast outpouring of artistic, scientific, poetic and philosophical expression.