22 SOCIAL SCIENTIST supposed) bastions against Brahminism which were ultimately broken down, but the agency through which Brahminism was reared on Dravidian soil, as the Indo-Aryan empires were in North India.,.^': The Chera,Chola andPandya emperors were the best representatives of the ruling class in the Brahminical world of that historical epoch.5 The imperial States, which were formed in different regions of India, on the basis of the Asiatic mode of production and Brahminical and Buddhist cultures, created a qualitative difference between the superior language patronised by the ruling class and the inferior languages and dialects spoken by the common people. In ancient times, the language of the rulers was Sanskrit, while the masses spoke a number of Prakrit dialects. [ Sanskrit was not merely the official language for transacting administra-! tive business of the State, it was at the same time the exclusive medium used for the study of scriptures, philosophy, literature and the fine arts. The Buddhist and Dravidian empires made a limited use of Pali or Tamil but without challenging the superior status of Sanskrit which had become the symbol of an upper class elitist culture in ancient India. Ram ! Gopal, a bourgeois historian, admits that, (c Sanskrit has no region of its own—it is not and was perhaps never the spoken language of any region. Even during the days of its sway all over the country, its position was like the rich in society—a few in a thousand had the capacity to express themselves through it. Sanskrit was the cultured and cultivated form of a spoken language, one of thpse known as Prakrit. Understandably, therefore, it became the language of the learned and Governments."6 Though Sanskrit had no specific region of its own, yet as the 'holy' and official language, it dominated all regions even in the absence of a centralised State structure. The Prakrit dialects of the North, the Dravic(ian languages of the South and numerous tongues spoken by the aboriginal tribes scattered all over India, remained for centuries the media of common speech, folklore and folk songs for the oppressed masses. All provincial, regional and tribal languages of modern India have evolved from these unrecognised Indian languages of common people, 'During the middle ages, Persian replaced Sanskrit as the state language. Unlike Sanskrit, it was not an artificial language. The people of Persia spoke it and the rulers of Persia and the neighbouring countries in Central and West Asia used it for transacting administrative business of their governments. The impact of Persian language and culture over North-West India began with Darius, the Iranian King who conquered this area even before Alexander's invasion. As the official language of the Muslim courts and administration in Delhi, Persian soon acquired a pan-Indian status. ' Both Muslim and Hindu upper classes patronised it as the medium of their class culture. Arabic and, to a lesser extent, Sanskrit were also encouraged by the^ ^ State as well as by the Muslim and Hindu elites. In course of time, the ^ spoken language of the metropolitan Delhi region. Khan Boli was propagated by the ruling circles as the second official language for their