private official documents are composed in Sanskrit to the present day. And though the language of the sacred writings of Buddhists and Gainas was borrowed from the vulgar dialects, the literature of India never ceased to be written in Pâninean 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.
There is a Monthly Serial published at Bombay,
