The Indian is not the only, or exclusively prevailing, language in the whole peninsula; in several provinces, as for instance, on the southern coast, and in the Isle of Ceylon, quite a different language prevails; and the old cultivated and classical speech of India is there unknown. The name of Sanscrit, by which the latter is designated, denotes a cultivated or highly wrought language; but the Pracrit, which is employed together or alternately with the Sanscrit in the theatrical pieces of the Indians, signifies a natural and artless speech, and is not so much a distinct dialect as a softer pronunciation of the Sanscrit, which smoothes, suppresses, or melts down the hard and crowded consonants, and pays less regard to the more elaborate grammatical forms of this language. The Pracrit, which is used in dramatic pieces, particularly in the female parts, stands from its more simple grammar, in the same relation to the Sanscrit as the softer Italian or Portuguese is to the old Latin, without however the same heterogeneous alloy. But, independently of these variations in the later and beautiful language of Indian poetry, the language of that country is split and divided into a number of dissimilar and widely dissimilar dialects, such as the Malabar, for example; and almost in every province the common language undergoes a variety of changes; and this is the case even in Bengal. The country of the Upper Ganges, especially Benares, is renowned for being the chief seat of the Sanscrit tongue,--the place, at least, where it is best understood, and spoken with the greatest purity. Those languages which differ totally from the Indian belong in part to quite a different race of men, mostly, perhaps, to the Malays: for, so far is India from being entirely peopled by one single race of inhabitants, that we find in several of its provinces tribes of an origin totally different from that of the Hindoos. This great variety in the whole life, manners, and political institutions of the Indians, forms a striking contrast with the absolute unity, and internal uniformity of the Chinese Empire. It was perhaps this variety in the moral and political aspect of ancient India that gave rise to the denomination which it has received in the old sacred Median books of Zoroaster, where, in the first _fargard_, or section of the Vendidat, it is described as the fifteenth pure region of the earth, created by Ormuzd, and designated by the name of _Hapte Heando_--a name which signifies the seven Indias. As India is still split into a multitude of sects and religions, and divided into different tribes, speaking various languages; so, as Herodotus long ago observed, it has for the most part been ever composed of a multitude of great and petty states, although from its natural boundaries it might easily have been formed into one great monarchy, and really constitutes but one country in its geographical circumscription.