The Brahmans who compiled," says H. H. Wilson, "a code Hindu law, by command of Warren Hastings preface their performance by affirming the equal meri… - Horace Hayman Wilson

The earliest seat of the Hindus within the confines of Hindusthān was undoubtedly the eastern confines of the Panjab. The holy land of Manu and the Purānas lies between the Drishadwatī and Saraswatī rivers, the Caggar [Ghaggar] and Sursooty [Sarsuti] of our barbarous maps. Various adventures of the first princes and most famous sages occur in this vicinity; and the Āshramas, or religious domiciles, of several of the latter are placed on the banks of the Saraswatī . . . These indications render it certain, that whatever seeds were imported from without, it was in the country adjacent to the Saraswatī river that they were first planted, and cultivated and reared in Hindusthān.

The system of learning Bengalee among the natives .... their notion of learning Bengalee was by learning Sanscrit. If you make a man a good Sanscrit scholar he will be able to write Bengalee with perfect accuracy and elegance.... Bengalee is the language most akin to Sanscrit. I have taken pains to ascertain the proportion of Sanscrit in the first 500 words... they amount to 350.... Sanscrit forms the very body of most of the dialects, particularly of Upper India, and though it is not so essentially a part of the languages of Southern India, yet it enters so largely into the composition of even the language of Malabar, that four-fifths of the words are Sanscrit.

We must confess that we are disposed to look upon this limit |two hundred years for the Brahmanas] as much too brief for the establishment of an elaborate ritual, for the appropriation of all the spiritual authority by the Brahmans, for the distinctions of races or the institutions of caste, and for the mysticism and speculation of the Aranyakas or Upanishads: a period of five centuries would not seem to be too protracted for such a complete remodelling of the primitive system and its wide dissemination through all those parts of India where the Brahmans have spread.