[Buddha-l] Sanskrit speaking Buddha

[Stephen Hodge]

Dear Lance,

> 2. We do not know at what date vernacular Sanskrit was replaced by an
> early vernacular form of Middle Indian.
What exactly do you mean by "vernacular Sanskrit" -- something midway 
between the Vedic language (assuming that the language of the Vedas was 
truly vernacular, rather than a formal / ritual language) and later 
Classical Sanskrit (which does not seem very vernacular to me) ?   To avoid 
confusion, my feeling is that it would be better to distinguish the IA 
language spoken in Vedic times from later Sanskrit proper -- that is, 
"Sanskrit" in the sense that most people reading this list would understand. 
Surely Classical Sanskrit and the MIA languages both derive from this 
earlier IA language, one branch becoming increasingly artificial and 
literary and the other resulting in the simplications of the MIAs.

> Written Sanskrit is not used by Buddhists in any known source that can be
> dated before the second century A.D. Forms of Middle Indian were certainly
> used for writing by Buddhists between the third century B.C. and the first
> century.

Are you then assuming that very early Mahayana texts (or proto-Mahayana)
such as the Lotus Sutra or the earliest PP sutras (generally believed for a
number of reasons to have pre-dated c2nd CE)  were written / compiled in
some form of MIA prior to their Sanskrit, albeit a hybrid form, versions ?
I have no problem with this as it seems reasonable, though I would backdate 
the
introduction of Sanskritized versions somewhat before c2nd CE -- though no
more than 150 years.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge