ted. The manuscripts hitherto published include Sutras from the
Samyukta and Ekottara Agamas, a considerable part of the Dharmapada,
and the Pratimoksha of the Sarvastivadin school. Fa-Hsien states that
the monks of Central Asia were all students of the language of India
and even in the seventh century Hsuan Chuang tells us the same of
Kucha. Portions of a Sanskrit grammar have been found near Turfan and
in the earlier period at any rate Sanskrit was probably understood in
polite and learned society. Some palm leaves from Ming-Oi contain
fragments of two Buddhist religious dramas, one of which is the
Sariputra-prakarana of Asvaghosha. The handwriting is believed
to date from the epoch of Kanishka so that we have here the oldest
known Sanskrit manuscripts, as well as the oldest specimens of Indian
dramatic art.[459] They are written like the Indian classical dramas
in Sanskrit and various forms of Prakrit. The latter represent
hitherto unknown stages in the development of Indian dialects and some
of them are closely allied to the language of Asoka's inscriptions.
Another Prakrit text is the version of the Dharmapada written in
Kharoshthi characters and discovered by the Dutreuil de Rhins
mission near Khotan,[460] and numerous official documents in this
language and alphabet have been brought home by Stein from the same
region. It is probable that they are approximately coeval with the
Kushan dynasty in India and the use of an Indian vernacular as well as
of Sanskrit in Central Asia shows that the connection between the two
countries was not due merely to the introduction of Buddhism.

Besides these hitherto unknown forms of Prakrit, Central Asia has
astonished the learned world with two new languages, both written in a
special variety of the Brahmi alphabet called Central Asian Gupta. One
is sometimes called Nordarisch and is regarded by some authorities as
the language of the Sakas whose incursions into India appear to
have begun about the second century B.C. and by others as the language
of the Kushans and of Kanishka's Empire. It is stated that the basis
of the language is Iranian but strongly influenced by Indian
idioms.[461] Many translations of Mahayanist literature (for
instance the Suvarnaprabhasa, Vajracchedika and Aparimitayus
Sutras) were made into it and it appears to have been spoken
principally in the southern part of the Tarim basin.[462] The other
new language was spoken principally on its northern edge a