There is an interesting passage in the _K_ullavagga, where we are told that, even during Buddha's lifetime, some of his pupils, who were Brâhmans by birth, complained that people spoiled the words of Buddha by every one repeating them in his own dialect (nirutti). They proposed to translate his words into Sanskrit; but he declined, and commanded that each man should learn his doctrine in his own language.[90] And there is another passage, quoted by Hardy in his Manual of Buddhism, p. 186, where we read that at the time of Buddha's first preaching each of the countless listeners thought that the sage was looking toward him, and was speaking to him in his own tongue, though the language used was Mâgadhi.[91] Sanskrit, therefore, as a language spoken by the people at large, had ceased to exist in the third century B.C. Yet such is the marvellous continuity between the past and the present in India, that in spite of repeated social convulsions, religious reforms, and foreign invasions, Sanskrit may be said to be still the only language that is spoken over the whole extent of that vast country. Though the Buddhist sovereigns published their edicts in the vernaculars, public inscriptions and private official documents continued to be composed in Sanskrit during the last two thousand years. And though the language of the sacred writings of Buddhists and _G_ainas was borrowed from the vulgar dialects, the literature of India never ceased to be written in Pâ_n_inean Sanskrit, while the few exceptions, as, for instance, the use of Prâkrit by women and inferior characters in the plays of Kâlidâsa and others, are themselves not without an important historical significance. Even at the present moment, after a century of English rule and English teaching, I believe that Sanskrit is more widely understood in India than Latin was in Europe at the time of Dante. Whenever I receive a letter from a learned man in India, it is written in Sanskrit. Whenever there is a controversy on questions of law and religion, the pamphlets published in India are written in Sanskrit. There are journals written in Sanskrit which must entirely depend for their support on readers who prefer that classical language to the vulgar dialects. There is _The Pandit_, published at Benares, containing not only editions of ancient texts, but treatises on modern subjects, reviews of books published in England, and controversial articles, all in Sanskrit. Another paper of the same kind is the _Pratna-Kamra-nandinî_, "the Delight of lovers of old things," published likewise at Benares, and full of valuable materials. There is also the _Vidyodaya_, "the Rise of Knowledge," a Sanskrit journal published at Calcutta, which sometimes contains important articles. There are probably others, which I do not know.