The binding force of Hinduism is the use of Sanskrit language. It was not only used, as the language of the religion but was the official and court language of many ruling families of the north as well as the south for more than two thousand years. Ancient India has bequeathed to us a vast treasury of texts representing the intellectual and literary achievements of the entire country for thousands of years. Though India has more than 500 spoken dialects, yet it has only one sacred language, revered by one and all.
The Gupta rulers used Sanskrit not only as the court language but also as the spoken language inside and royal palace of Ujjain. Sanskrit has been the original source of different languages of the country like Hindi, Marathi, Gujrati, Bengali etc. Even southern languages like Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam could not escape the influence of Sanskrit.
With the spread of Buddhism and Jainism, Pali and Prakrit used to spread over the whole of India as the language of these two religions. Efforts for the linguistic unity of the country has been made. The Asokan Inscriptions were written in Prakrit language and Brahmi script at different places of the country. With the advent of the British, English became the official language throughout the country. What Sanskrit has done in the past, the English language tried to achieve in the modern period. In recent times, Hindi as part of the three-language formula is trying to bring about linguistic unity.