The literary tradition of India goes back to more than 3,000 years, and during the greater part of this time it was dominated by Sanskrit, first in its Vedic, and later in its classical form. The early Aryan invaders of India brought a language of great richness and precision with them, along with other elements of a developed culture and a highly cultivated poetic tradition. The chief custodians and exponents of this poetic art were the families of priests, eventually to develop into the Brahman caste, who were also the guardians and practitioners of the Vedic religion.

The ancient period is acknowledged and recognised by predominance of Hindu sages and saints, who were of the habit to pen down their thoughts and beliefs on life and divinity in scripts, legendary now-a-days as manuscripts. However, the language applied by these writers emote a much more complex and intricate pattern, when it comes to understanding and grasping them. It becomes, hence, evident that these writings were not targeted to the layman; rather they suited the high-classed Brahmin individuals, who were well-versed in ancient literary idioms. Herein comes the interlude of ancient Indian languages, which are time and again deduced by scholars, historians and archaeologists and who designate them into distinct phases and styles. The ancient Indian languages count up to three types: the Sanskrit language, the Pali language and the Prakrit language.

The hymns to various deities composed by members of Brahmans were orally preserved, first among the several families concerned, and were eventually united into one great collection known as the Rig Veda. The compilation of the later Vedas followed after no great interval, and the corpus of Vedic poetry, whose beginnings may be fixed somewhere round 1300 B.C., was probably complete in the main by about 1000 B.C. After this date hymn; were no longer composed in the old poetic tradition, and instead there developed an extensive prose literature devoted to ritual matters, in a form of language notably younger than that of the hymns, and showing some signs of being based on a dialect situated somewhat further to the east. This prose literature was also entirely oral, and its language is remarkably uniform. The period of the older Brahmanas may be put roughly at 1000-800 B.C., but the language continued to be used without noticeable change for two or three centuries more. The next milestone in the history of Sanskrit is the Grammar of Panini, which describes in complete detail a form of the language younger than that of the Brahmanas, and based on the spoken usage of the educated Brahmans of the time. As per the history, a rough estimate of the date of Panini may be the fourth century B.C. His grammar quickly gained universal acceptance, and as a result the form of the Sanskrit language as described by him was fixed for all time.

The reason why Sanskrit as a language evolved no further after Panini was due to the fact that by this time the Aryan language had become divided into two. On the one hand Sanskrit, the language of learning, and in particular the language of the Brahman caste and of its religion, and on the other hand Prakrit, the language of the masses. These terms did not in fact come into use until some centuries later, but the dichotomy was already established by the time of Lord Buddha and Lord Mahavira. From this time on normal linguistic evolution affected only the vernacular language, Prakrit language or Middle Indo-Aryan; Sanskrit remained fixed and continued to be used as the language of the educated classes. With the time, the difference between it and the ordinary spoken language increased.

Indian languages have evolved from various ancestries and lineages as well, which are closely interlinked with the different ethnic groups. Broadly, language in India can be classified into six groups, namely - Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan, Negroid, Austric and Others. Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit wholly come under the section of Indo-Aryan language, with first signs noticed approximately during 5th century B.C. Perhaps the most prominent feature of ancient Indian language culture was the overriding concern for preservation of sacred texts and the purity of language in which they were composed. This ‘overriding concern’ arose out of readiness of the society not only to devote the resources (time, human and material resources, energy) for this transmission, but also to the maturation of a technique that would vouch clarity and dependability of the texts. Indeed, Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit had been so scrupulously dealt with, that even today research scholar both in India and overseas devout special time to decipher them in detail. Such is the mysticism of ancient languages in India.

Although the gap between Sanskrit and the ordinary spoken language grew progressively, this did not have an adverse effect on the use of Sanskrit, but rather its importance grew with time. But gradually Prakrit was replaced by Sanskrit until finally Sanskrit was almost exclusively used for this purpose. A similar development took place among the Buddhists. Prakrit had developed as Indo-Aryan speech, which took on the form of unrefined popular dialects. Indian ancient languages possessed many variations amongst them, with even varied usage in religious perspectives, daily life and times in penning. Prakrit was descended in inscriptional form, dating back to 4th -3rd century B.C. Virtually all over India, Prakrits were used in liberty for inscriptions almost up to the Gupta period. Vararuci’s Prakita-prakasa (5 A.D.) and Hemachandra’s Prakrit grammar (12 A.D.) are the earliest surviving grammatical works in Prakrit. Pali finds its very first usage in early Buddhist literature.

Originally, according to the directions of Buddha himself, their texts were composed in Middle Indo-Aryan, and the scriptures of the Theravada School are preserved in one form of this, namely Pali, but later, shortly after the Christian era, the northern Buddhists turned to Sanskrit. The old scriptures were translated into Sanskrit, and new works were composed in that language. As an intermediate stage some schools developed a mixed or hybrid language which continued in use for some time. The Jainas, though at a much later date, followed the example of the Buddhists, and also began to compose in Sanskrit instead of Prakrit. On the whole it can be said that during the last 600 years of pre-Muslim India Sanskrit was more extensively and exclusively used than at any time since the close of the Vedic period.

During ancient times, Sanskrit language witnessed the very first initiations in Vedic period, with the four cardinal Hindu scriptures serving as master outputs to erudite Indians sections. In fact, evolvement of Sanskrit is divided into Vedic Sanskrit and Modern Sanskrit. The Vedic literature, both, verse and prose, was composed and handed down orally. This was a remarkable achievement, and it was only possible because of the Brahmans. In the field of secular literature Sanskrit epic poetry was the next most important development, but the oral tradition in this field seems to have continued for some time. The epic language also, though following Panini as a rule, admits a considerable number of irregularities. The use of Sanskrit prose for scientific, technical, and philosophical purposes is first exemplified on a large scale by the Mahabhashya, Patanjali’s commentary on Katyayana’s Varttikas to Panini’s grammar, which can be dated with some certainty to the second century B.C. After this time, and particularly during the early centuries of the Christian era, a great corpus of technical scientific literature, covering the fields of philosophy, medicine, politics, and administration, etc., came into existence. In the same period the rules of Panini were more strictly applied, and deviations from them were disapproved.

Indologist stand in arguments as to their opinion involving the origin of Pali language. According to some scholars, Pali is considered as Magadhi Prakrit or Magadhi-language. On the other hand, some others hold that there exists a close relationship of Paisaci Prakrit with Pali. Including this, it has also been believed that this language was the spoken medium during ancient times in the Vindhya region.

In spite of the introduction of several modern languages, literary composition in Sanskrit has continued on a modest scale down to the present time, and an interesting development has been the successful adaptation of the language to the expression of modern ideas. From the practical point of view the main use to which the Sanskrit language is put at present is as a source of vocabulary for the modern languages. Sanskrit is able to provide on a large scale the new technical terms which are continually needed, and which the modern languages cannot supply from their own resources.