Linguistic Survey of India- Vol.III, Dardio Or Pisacha Language Part-II,1915.

Abstract

The word ‘ Dard ' has a long history, and the people bearing'the name are a very Name of Sub-family Ancient tribe. They arp n^entione'd. by Herodotus,1 though not by .name, and are the-Daradfai-of Ptolemy, the Derdai of Strabo, the Dardae of'Pliny and Nonnus, and the Dardanoi 'of Dionysios Periegetes.5 In Sanskrit literature j;hey ate s'poken'Ofas ‘ Darada*‘6r ‘ Darada/ -which, name is o f frequent occurrence not only in geographical works, blit also- in the epic -poems' and in the Puranas. Kalhana, ill his History of Kashmir entitled the S dj a - tafangini, often refers to them under the name o£ ‘ Daradas 5 or ‘ Darads,’ and mentions them as- inhabiting the country where we now find the Shins who -at. the present day arer still, called / * # « * Dards. To the Greek and Roman writers, the word had a w-ider signification and included not only the predecessor^ of the Shins,, but also the ^people whose seat was in the country that we now call Chitral. In other * words', under the nam'e of the Dard' country, they included the whole mountainous tract' between the Hindukush -and the frontiers of India proper. Accordingly, at' the present day this track > is known as ‘ Dardistan,’—a conventional and convenient name, though, as it includes, much: country not occupied by Cards'proper, not strictly accurate.3 Eollowing the example of the extended connotation o£ the word, ‘ Dardistan,’ it is convenient to give thegeneral name ‘ Dardic 5 to all the Aryan' languages spoken -in this tract. As we shall see in the following pages, this tract was* once inhabited by tribes whom Sanskrit writers grouped together under the title of ‘ Pisacha.’ Clear traces of the language of these tribes are to be found in the modern languages of the'locality, and for this reason, in earlier volumes of this Survey, I have called these modern tongues -the ‘ PiSacha languages.5 This name is eminently suitable and is more accurate than ‘ Dardic,v but some of the speakers of these languages take exception to it on the ground that, in Indian mythology, the-ivord ‘ Pisacha’ was also used to connect a cannibal demon, and it must be admitted that this was the most common acceptation of the word. In such circumstances, it is useless to explain that a tribe speakings, Pisacha language is not necessarily of Pisacha descent. In some cases, indeed, it would be easy to prove the reverse. But the argument is not accepted, and objections -are raised to the ‘use of the name ‘ PiSacha.’