Speak Samskrit

Public Function - Manya Sri Mohan Rao Bhagwat addressing on Nov.22, Sunday at 5.00PM at Palace Grounds

2009-11-19T20:38:00.001-08:00

AUM

Namaste ji

Your id is in Bcc. I have mailed to all, who are in my contact list. If you are not in Bangalore, you may kindly forget this. Else, you might have received an invitation about this programme. If not received, kindly consider this as my personal invitation and attend the programme. Swayamsevaks are expected to participate in Ganavesh.

Shubham

Suresh Nayak

AUM

RASHTREEYA SWAYAMSEVAK SANGH

Bengaluru

PUBLIC MEET

Parama Poojaneeya Sarasanghachalak

Manya Sri Mohan Rao Bhagwat

Will address

22 Nov. 2009, Sunday at 5.00PM

Sri Krishna Vihar

Palace Grounds

Bengaluru

You are cordially invited with friends and relatives.

Dr. B.N. Gangadhar

Mahanagar Sanghachalak

Kindly note:

* The invitation is attached herewith, for your kind information.

Haryana announces incentives to promote Sanskrit

2008-12-10T02:00:00.001-08:00

http://www.hindusta ntimes.com/ StoryPage/ Print.aspx? Id=274bd2eb- 1168-4a41- b29b-74162cc9ded 7

Sanskrit is all set to get a major boost in Haryana. The state government has announced various grants for gurukuls (traditional residential schools) to promote the ancient language.

Announcing the incentives Friday, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said gurukul culture would be promoted in the state to encourage teaching of Sanskrit.

Hooda announced that gurukuls having 100 students would be given a grant of Rs 150,000 annually while those having 200 students would get a grant of Rs 250,000 per annum. Those having over 300 students would be given a grant of Rs 350,000, he added.

The number of students would be counted on the basis of those who take the examination finally, officials said.

The government has also announced new qualifications for recruitment of Sanskrit teachers.

Samskrit Website Links

2008-12-04T04:03:00.000-08:00

Learn Samskrit

Samskrit Resources

Samskrit Literatures - http://www.vedamu.org/Sankrit/sankritmain.asp
Sacred Texts - http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/index.htm
Upanishads - http://www.gatewayforindia.com/upanishad/upanishads.htm
Vedic Resources - http://is1.mum.edu/vedicreserve/
Resources - http://www.mywhatever.com/sanskrit/index.html

Sites

http://www.thevedicfoundation.org/
http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Sanskrit.htm
News - http://sudharma.epapertoday.com/
AIR Samskrit News - http://girvanavani.googlepages.com/newsheadlines

Songs

Samskrit - the mother of languages

2008-11-19T01:42:00.001-08:00

Samskrit is the oldest but best structured language in the world. This perhaps is the only language with provision for clear cut identification of second case. (I/we, You (single and plural and he/they.) This again is perhaps the only language with defined verbal endings for 1, 2 and 3/more persons).

What all this means that the sentence can be very short and the subject can be deduced from the verb endings.

Samskrit is perhaps the only language with precise rules and regulations for the combination of words, again making the sentence brief. (In Narayaneeyam one word can be expanded to a dozen or more qualitative attributes that occupy a whole paragraph in translation)

The best in the world in the three formats of texts (prose, poetry and drama) can be found in Samskrit. No other language contains as much books/treatises in all aspects of life like: science, art, technology etc. as much as Samskrit.

Samskrit was the unifying language of the nation. It is true that the British united politically and administratively the modern India, which perhaps was not a boon after all considering the fissiparous fightings in all issues that we see all around. In the past Bharat was one nation, culturally, in spite of several small kingdoms. There was no ban on movement and settling down of people from any kingdom, anywhere in the Bharata Desa. In fact outsiders were more than welcome as can be seen from the warm reception the early priests of Islam and Christianity received in our country. The rituals and practises subtly motivated the integration of the entire population across the borders of the petty kingdoms. Borders were for rulers and not for the masses. (no Sons of the soil theory.) All this unity in diversity was possible because of the popularity of Samskrit and the epics and puranas in it.

Samskrit is one language where rules are available to from words from roots. The concept of roots (dhatu?) is not there in the western languages, as far as I know.

Samskrit uses the passive voice extensively, which perhaps afford better flexibility. Most of the texts were in poetry form which could be memorised easily. Memorisation does not clutter the brain, as some modern educationists believe, but expands the reach of the brain and provides the quickest means of data retrieval.

Samskrit was thriving in this nation for thousands and thousands of years. The 400 years long rule by the Mughals or the 200 years rule of the Europeans could not dislodge it from it/s pre eminent positions. But our leaders of Independent India have managed to totally destroy it within a short span of 60 years or so. And in the process they have also destroyed the spirit of love and tolerance that most texts in Samskrit stood for.

Samskrit appears to be difficult to learn because of the innumerable rules and regulations. But it is not so. There are no uncertaintities and contradiction between the spoken and written word. For e.g.: in English a spoken `see' can be a written `see' or `sea' with totally different meanings. It is not so in Samskrit.

English is very difficult to master, but we do not realise it as we spend years and years learning it. One can master Samskrit by putting 20 % of this effort. But who cares?

Revival of Samskrit is a must for the survival of our ancient culture, which alone can bring peace and prosperity to our great nation. Perhaps, this could be reason, why our great scientists give Samskrit names to the new missions and weapon systems.

Almost two generations of Indians have are out of touch with this great heritage language because of deliberate selfish policies of the rulers. It is our duty to give at least a glimpse of this language and the treasures therein to the future generations. It is equally (if not more) important like tennis and jazz classes. Let us give them a chance to have a dip at the vast ocean whose depths can never be reached in a life span.

Specialities of Sanskrit Language and Literature

2008-11-17T23:02:00.000-08:00

http://sanskritdocuments.org/articles/SpecialitiesofSanskritLanguageLiterature.html

Prabhu Shastry londonprabhu at yahoo.co.uk

I. A few misconceptions about Sanskrit

In spite of an active, fact-finding and researching schedule all through the millennia, we find some prevailing superstitious elements about Sanskrit and Sanskrit pundits in India. To sum up these, those who are yet to know Sanskrit do not examine before believing what the antagonists want to hold:
* a. That Sanskrit is a dead language; that it is out-dated; that it is not and can never be and was never a spoken language.
* b. That it is a language of scriptures / religion; that only the people of certain professions like pundits or the priests study it to understand and help do rituals; that it has no use in the daily walks of life or for the common man.
* c. That since it is used in the scriptures (the language of gods), it is sacred and consequent to this, committing mistakes in Sanskrit is sinful and cannot be excused.
* d. That only the scholars can use it because, before using it, one needs to master the whole grammar which is the most complicated and that its vocabulary which is again endless.
* e. That there is a lot to memorise / learn by heart / mug up to learn Sanskrit; that even its learning is very difficult, labouring as well as boring and even dreadful.
* f. That on the racial discriminations, Sanskrit was once an ancient language owned by the Aryans; that it was a member of the Indo-Aryan family of languages; for the overdoing of this theory which is only a speculation or a hypothesis, that the non-Aryan races can think they should have no interest or discourage any efforts favouring Sanskrit. This is a over reacting to the idea of the Aryans. race who are blamed as the oppressors of the indigenous cultures of certain countries.

Falling prey to these widespread misnomers and some intimidating aspects which are often deliberately commissioned that, unfortunately, people shy away from studying Sanskrit. They either give up after some trial or never try to own this treasure of human wisdom stored in Sanskrit literature.

On the contrary, see how many virtues and advantages Sanskrit language and literature has to offer to all.

II. Advantages while studying Sanskrit

* 1. It is a natural language. There is a direct link between the sound and signs; it is phonetic. We write Sanskrit and other Indian languages exactly as we say which means that the writing of Sanskrit language is based on the sound of the spoken form.
In other words, Sanskrit has no spelling; there are no silent letters either. In contrast to Sanskrit, you can't read many English words properly unless you know English to certain extant. This means that a student is assumed to have known already the English language before one starts learning it!
Sanskrit coalescence (SANDHI) is yet another example of the natural flow in Sanskrit.
* 2. There is only one set of alphabet in Sanskrit. This avoids many complexities of writing capital / small and italic letters as they are in the Roman alphabet / European scripts.
* 3. There aren't many punctuation marks found in Sanskrit (Devanagari) script.
* 4. For writing Sanskrit language, any comprehensive alphabet can be used and vice versa.
* 5. Thanks to its phonetic scripts, there is an easy-flowing, natural and logical way to proceed while learning this wonderful language or to write any language after that.
To give a contrast example to this, see how difficult it is to learn the spelling-oriented European languages whose silent letters add to the complications.
By a careful examination of the Roman alphabet we can see that some sounds are repeated in it while many sounds are left out. Capital letters are a whole set of repetition.
* 6. There is logic in its sound system, and a natural continuity in its word-making as well as sentence-making. Compare this with pronouncing and spelling of the languages of other countries than India.
For example, unless one has visited England, one cannot guess the correct reading of the names / places like Reading, Gloucester, Leicester, Peugeot, Plymouth. .Chaos. in English, follows if not pre-learnt.
* 7. Sanskrit sentence structure is flexible. The declensions and the conjugations have a wide range. Hence every student has more freedom in composing sentences in Sanskrit. In contrast to this, every English sentence has to follow syntax (the law of particular order of words).
* 8. In Sanskrit, the order of words in a sentence does not matter. Thanks to this flexibility, a Sanskrit sentence may well follow any language the student is familiar with.

III. About its uniqueness

That Sanskrit is unique is the popular quotation we find in every manual of its teaching. Look at the few following realities:
* 1. Sanskrit is the oldest and living language on our planet. Hence in its study and research we see a wonderful history passing through many millennia.
* 2. It is the language of the most ancient Indian scriptures belonging to various faiths. Sanskrit is a spiritual language. Owing to these reasons, the description is very popular, like .as old as the hills., that Sanskrit is the language of Divinity, language of gods.
* 3. It is a language of classical literature . rich and abundant.
* 4. As its name itself explains, it is systematised and perfected. Its alphabets are impeccably arranged. They are easy to remember and help in memorising textual stanzas which explains why the oral tradition of Indian wisdom is so popular and long-standing in the entire world.
Virtually everything, including those subjects which are technical - like science, engineering, medicine, grammar, philosophy, law . are in poetry, easy to memorise and to quote them melodiously. Not even a Sanskrit dictionary (Amara-kosha) is spared from this impeccably convenient structure/formation.
* 5. Sanskrit literature is unique in its overwhelmingly poetic character.
* 6. Rationality is in everything including the arrangement of its alphabets. It is perfected. The Devanagari script used to write Sanskrit is also complete. Being phonetic, it can easily be adopted to write any language.
* 7. It is a global language. It has no territory, has no bias; hence has no limitations.
* 8. Sanskrit is a 'world language' in the real sense of the term. It hasn't got local variations or vernaculars nor dialects nor usages of slang words. Its uniformity owes to this aspect as well.
* 9. It has written rules of grammar, phonetics, etymology and epistemology which are all followed wherever Sanskrit is used. The wonder that this bedrock of Sanskrit grammar, which is, allows its purity to continue no matter however it grows.
Consequent to this, the uniformity found only in Sanskrit has not changed even after many millennia of its expansion as well as migration to so many lands outside India.
* 10. There is infinity in its word-formation possibilities and they are all well-structured, computerized long before the computers came in use.
* 11. There is a vibration or resonance in the sounds well-expressed in Sanskrit speaking.
* 12. Absolute freedom is in using this language because of "No syntax". This means that even a beginner can proceed with words as one.s thoughts progress.
* 13. Flexibility or adaptability - Same sentence can be said in a variety of ways.
Brevity and elaboration . both are possible, thanks to the 'classical' nature of Sanskrit. If one sentence in Banabhatta's novel - "Kadambari" virtually runs beyond 20 printed pages and a single word extends to 13 printed lines, imagine the range of expansion and contraction achieved by this celestial language namely, Sanskrit!
Here, a mention has to be made about the Dwi-sandhana Kavyas and other specimen of Chitra kavyas in Sanskrit which exhibit a funtastic world. On those lines you will be able to say a whole story . even of whole Ramayana if you like, in one set of formation, say, in one set of letters, or in one set of words . only nouns and those nouns only in the Nominative case, singular no. etc...
E.g.
.Ayodhya-emperor, three-wived-Dasharatha, child-less, performer-of-Putrakameshti-sacrifice, becoming-the-father-of-four-sons, - Rama- Lakshmana-Bharata-Shatrughna-as-well, consequently-the-sender-of-two-of-his-sons-namely-Rama-and Lakshmana-along-with-viswamitra-sage-who-came-with-request-for-the-king.s-help-to-rescue-his-sacrifice . . . . . ..
Such a never-ending phrase = ANANTYA-PADAM or ANANTYA-VAKYAM = one single sentence for the whole story i.e. going to any length can contain in it, not just an episode, but the whole epic of Ramayana itself. Such a feat is possible in a Sanskrit narration. There are many reasons for this amazing power of Sanskrit which all explain the richness and inexhaustibility of this classical language.
Depending upon how pedantic the narrator could be, even in one long word . running for many pages - one can fill in the whole story.
Owing to its enormous flexibility, only Sanskrit can imitate any language in the sentence structure.
* 14. Its universality. It can do all functions, - scriptural (holiness), technical (precision and derivative power) and romantic (resourceful and flowery style) but can never be slang.
* 15. Has a very rational derivative power. In Sanskrit, etymology (Niruktam) is a special science (Sastra) of finding the derivations. The derivative potential of Sanskrit words is breath-taking. Unbelievable it may look though, there are no proper nouns in Sanskrit! Every single Sanskrit word has a meaning built into the word itself; the root hidden in the word contains the meaning of that word. Hence a Sanskrit scholar seldom runs for a dictionary to find out the meaning of any new or a strange word one may come across. He uses the key of etymology which breaks the egg, and the contents come out!
* 16. Its economy. Sanskrit letters can be used to write other languages as well. Any lengthy expression could be put in brief in Sanskrit - as small as a word; or sometimes it is smaller than a word, say a syllable! E.g. A Bijakshara like OM.
Passive voice sentences are more in Sanskrit also owing to this reason which are surprisingly shorter expressions!
* 17. Sanskrit words possess a special vibration of sound waves whose resonance is very effective. People use Sanskrit Mantras for healing. They owe this mystic character and holiness to the essential spiritual character of Sanskrit.
* 18. Spirituality has moulded into Sanskrit! Hence its name , - perfection to be reached by any word.
Different voices . 3 of them . in Sanskrit make way for different aspects related to the same . i.e. Reality.

By knowing Sanskrit, you are now in touch with a language which is very natural (sound-oriented), rationally developed or systematised in its structure and versatile in its usage even while retaining its purity and uniformity. Its ancient, abundant, full of variety and everlasting literature passing through the longest period of time has plentiful wonders to offer to those interested in any of them.

IV. Benefits of the Sanskrit knowledge

See the previous paragraph as well. If you know Sanskrit,
* 1. Since Sanskrit is the oldest language of our planet, your ability to speak it amounts to a unique experience (and perhaps your special status!).
* 2. Clear in speech, perfect in pronunciation, articulate in conversation, sharp in memory, rapid in thinking, logical in analysis, rational in understanding, accurate in expression and communication, familiarity with a wide variety of concepts, liberal in views and polite in behaviour as well as a quick grasping of other languages and scripts also - are some opf the benefits attached to and traditionally proverbial attributed to a Sanskrit scholar.
* 3. Sanskrit is really the world-language. Its knowledge helps in studying:
a. European things of the past as a lot of technical terms are similar between Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Hittite etc. in many technical fields like medicine, law, physics, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and many more.
b. The languages, religion and cultures of the Middle east like Persian, Iranian and Arabic which owe a lot of similarity.
c. Indian things whether religions, philosophy, arts, science (like Ayurveda, Vedic mathematics, Vastu, Tantra, Kriyayoga and other specialisations) which are all the popular subjects in today.s world.
* 4. A glimpse of ancient world religions, languages, customs, traditions, culture can be easy to get through the glass of Vedic and Sanskrit literature.
* 5. In this modern age of computers, Sanskrit has one more thing to offer, - adoption of the already computerised contents or the Sutras in many of its technical subjects like Panini's Ashtadhyayi - the text book of grammar. Since both Sanskrit and the computer are having less irregularities, if not perfect, their combination should work marvellously for the benefit of mankind.
* 6. By knowing Sanskrit, you have an access to the most ancient, profound, rich and extensive literature of Sanskrit which strengthens your contacts / association/ understanding of a life style associated with that language.
In short, Sanskrit is the container of all that which is Indian. Like the saying, .England, without Shakespeare is a zero., they quote .India without Sanskrit would be zero.. In other words, understanding and appreciation of numerous Indian things whether music, dance, arts, rituals, tradition, religions, values, languages, science etc. will be easy for one who knows Sanskrit. By analogy of England, Netherland, Sovietland etc, India is, in fact, Sanskritland! The integrity of the Indian elements owe essentially to the Sanskrit language and literature which has the universal impact upon them.
* 7. You have now access to the most systematised oriental language.
* 8. You are now in touch with a language which is very natural (euphonic / built on sound factor), rationally developed, systematic in its structure and versatile in its usage even while retaining its purity and uniformity (without any regional vernaculars).
* 9. Sanskrit being the mother of all Indian languages and a sister of all the European languages, with its knowledge you are capable of learning most of the current world languages easily.
* 10. Owing to the spiritual contents predominant in its literature, the knowledge of Sanskrit adds many important dimension to our personality.

Sanskrit In Computing

2008-11-07T06:13:00.000-08:00

http://bhashaindia.com/patrons/Sanskrit/computing.aspx

By Sonia Pardesi Published on 17th June 2005
Introduction
The Indian culture, apart from consisting of a richness in tradition, can trace it’s roots to some of the most ancient languages to have evolved and existed in the world. Sanskrit being one of them, a classical language of India, is also one of the oldest languages of the world or rather the oldest language to have been recorded. Its evolution began with the Rig Veda (an ancient Sanskrit text composed around BC 2000), the Upanishads, Sama Veda, and Yajur Veda etc. The Aryan language, the Indic branch of the Indo-European family, came to India with the Aryan tribe. Through this language, have some of the various existing languages like Hindi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Marathi, and Bengali, Assamese etc. evolved. Thus, Sanskrit belonged to this era. Early Sanskrit was known as Vedic Sanskrit (BC 2000-500; the Vedas were written sometime during this period), whilst Classical Sanskrit was the spoken language. It was the spoken language of only a few learned classes and was not for the common man.
Sanskrit, being the quintessential language of the Devanagari script (Hindu scriptures are written in Devanagari), has accompanying languages like Konkani, Hindi, Marathi etc. which are also written in the same script. The Devanagari script can be further traced from the ‘Brahmi’ language (an ancient language of India). Sanskrit has become a Scheduled language (A Schedule) and it belongs to the VIII Schedule of the Indian Constitution (of regional languages), although it is hardly spoken today.
Besides being an ancient language, sustaining itself in the modern world, and spreading far and wide, Sanskrit has taken a step further by achieving a breakthrough and being initiated into the world of computing since the last few years. It not only has been developed in the form of fonts and types, but has also facilitated scripting. Through this, it has been made available on the Web, with a number of websites being conceptualized on it.
Let’s look at Sanskrit via computing and its development
Devanagari (a syllabic alphabet consisting of consonants with vowel signs), being a descendant of the Brahmi script, has evolved into a highly cursive script. Sanskrit uses this script. In the past, encoding for Indian languages was not a major issue for news and information sites as they had their own fonts to download, but it used to be a long process. Now with the introduction of the Unicode standard (Utf-8 for Devanagari), it has become a more simple and quick process to supply and receive information in one’s own language. So emphasis has been laid upon developing these Unicode fonts and web pages. The Devanagari Encoding consists of codes that allow browsers and screen readers to process data in the appropriate language. The letters in codes are always in lower case. For e.g. Sanskrit might have a code like ‘sa’. Software companies, Microsoft being one of them, have introduced Devanagari keyboards for Sanskrit, Hindi, and Marathi. These have to be installed from the Windows system disk. Since 1990, encodings for Sanskrit have been developed and modified. At around this time an encoding for Classical Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit Extended (CSX) was developed by John Smith, Dominick Wujastyk and other Indologists. In 1998, the CSX was modified to CSX+, which is still being used by Indologists (e.g. for the electronic files of the BORI edition of the Mahabharata).
As the CSX+ encoding was based on a particular code page, the old fonts were compatible with only the old Windows. Therefore, a new True type Font with the old CSX+ encoding was designed. This font (URW Palladio CSX+) takes care of all the internal aspects by the newer version of Windows.
An Indic True Type Font Package has been introduced by Elman Kniprath, which comprises of 15 True Type Fonts and a Microsoft Word for Windows DOT file that covers these languages. Sanskrit being one of them is also subjected to Phonetic Transcription. The old versions of 1.0 and 2.0 were incompatible with Unicode earlier, but the new versions 3.0 of these fonts are partly compatible with Unicode.
Books on Sanskrit have been advertised on websites pertaining to the language. E.g. the Rigveda Samhita, (a complete text in the Devanagari script), which has been written by, Prof. R.L.Kashyap and Prof. S. Sadagopan (published in 1998 by the Sri Aurobindo Kapali Sastry Institute of Vedic Culture) is a masterpiece of Indian Devanagari typography, thereby assisting Sanskrit students in their study.
Certain files are also available on Sanskrit websites to be downloaded by Sanskrit students on Rig Veda hymns. The web also promotes and encourages individuals to participate by reviewing, encoding, spreading the word about the particular site and implementing the available resources to make languages like Sanskrit easier (e.g. www.sanskritweb.net). It also consists of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), Sanskrit Link Pages and Mailing Lists-> where lively discussions take place in both Sanskrit and English languages. The topics discussed, may be Mahabharata shlokas posted with meanings, grammar, humor etc. In addition to this, the websites also provide tips on how to go about formats for printing documents (e.g. postscript and PDF [Acrobat]), and downloading fonts (from processing tools and also using the Itranslator). Certain sites also provide additional Sanskrit & scriptural documents available in Devnagari. One can also shop on these sites, which sell, audio/video cassettes on Sanskrit stotras.
The grammatical & phonetical know-how of languages like Hindi, Sanskrit, Konkani, etc available on the web facilitate user convenience by providing information on font usage. In the grammatical context Sanskrit, is a language, which brings out the differences in the meaning conveyed by the noun. This is made possible through the use of Suffixes, which distinguish each case. Due to this, Sanskrit packs a lot of information in a sentence. Thus, this shows that Sanskrit imparts much more information than what one sees from its grammatical construction. There are eight ways/cases of using a noun that have been identified in various languages of the world. In these languages the noun remains unchanged, while in Sanskrit & some ancient languages of the world like Greek & Latin the noun is modified with a specific suffix for each case. Primers generally address audiences in India where most languages are similar to Sanskrit. Therefore in traditional Sanskrit primers one is directly introduced to the cases.
Thus, the above explanation depicts how Sanskrit has been made easily available in the computing world thereby enabling easy access to information, and helping Sanskrit users find a simple way of processing & accessing data.

Kalam on why Sanskrit is important

2008-10-31T00:01:00.001-07:00

http://us.rediff.com/news/2007/feb/01kalam1.htm

Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad February 01, 2007 17:14 IST

President A P J Abdul Kalam on Thursday termed Guru Raghavendraswamy of Mantralayam as a 'divine soul' and recalled the rich cultural heritage of Sanskrit in Indian history.

Dr Kalam interacted with the students of Sree Guru Sarvabhouma Sanskrit Vidyapeetam at Mantralayam in Kurnool district. Reciting the Moola Mantram of Raghavendraswamigal, he said "We worship Guru Raghavendraswamy, the divine soul who practiced and taught truth and dharma (the right conduct). We chant his name as Kalpavrisha (the giver of limitless material wealth) and bow before him as Kamadenu (the giver of spiritual knowledge)."

"Though I am not an expert in Sanskrit, I have many friends who are proficient in Sanskrit. Sanskrit is a beautiful language. It has enriched our society from time immemorial. Today many nations are trying to research Sanskrit writings which are there in our ancient scriptures. I understand that there is a wealth of knowledge available in Sanskrit which scientists and technologists are finding today," he said.

"There is a need to carry out research on our Vedas, particularly Atharvana Veda, for eliciting valuable information in science and technology relating to medicine, flight sciences, material sciences and many other related fields. Cryptology is another area where Sanskrit language is liberally used," he added.

He suggested that the Sanskrit Vidyapeetam, apart from their academic activity, should take up the task of locating missing literature in Sanskrit available on palm leaves spread in different parts of the country so that these could be documented and preserved. He suggested that they should avail the help of digital technology for documenting those scriptures both in audio and video form which can be preserved as long term wealth for use by many generations.

He asked the Sanskrit Vidyapeetam to should go into details of lives of great scholars, poets, epic creators like Valmiki, Veda Vyasa, Kalidasa and Panini. He wanted the Vidyapeetam to invite well-known Sanskrit scholars so that they can stay and interact with the students for a certain period. "This will provide an opportunity for students to interact and get enriched in Sanskrit and Vedas," he noted.

Samskrit and Technical Age

2008-10-29T07:16:00.001-07:00

http://www.americansanskrit.com/read/a_techage.php

by Vyaas Houston, M.A.

The mentality of mankind and the language of mankind created each other. If we like to assume the rise of language as a given fact, then it is not going too far to say that the souls of men are the gift from language to mankind. The account of the sixth day should be written:

He gave them speech, and they became souls.
— Alfred North Whitehead, Modes of Thought

The quote of Whitehead may have created in the readers as many different responses as there are readers. One may perceive it as a noble and inspiring truth. Another may react to the notion that a "soul" could depend on language. Still another may be completely in the dark about what Whitehead is saying.

The quote will actually take on meaning according to context. And the context is largely determined by the meanings we attribute to words, especially in this quote the word "soul". "Soul", according to Webster can mean "the immortal part of human being" or "the seat of emotional sentiment and aspiration" or simply "a human being."

In addition to or apart from these definitions, each of us may bring our own religious or philosophical beliefs or experiences into the context, "the soul is this", or "the soul is that."

The point is this: wherever we go in our interpretation of Whitehead, we use language. So the question arises "where does the soul exist other than in language?"

Suppose we were to continue to challenge Whitehead in his implication that only human beings, by having speech, became souls. We say "animals have souls." But again the question occurs, where does the animal's soul exist other than in our describing it with language? Even if we were to have a vision of the soul of an animal, still we would have to return to language to report what we saw. The soul of the animal would continue to exist for us in memory as language. Through language we could even recreate a picture of the animal's soul.

Perhaps we should recreate North's recreation of creation and say "He gave speech, and they became souls, and in turn some of them gave souls to all creatures, to all life."

All of this is not to in any way invalidate the sanctity and perfection of creation but only to point out that we have greatly underestimated the sacred power of language. When the power of language to create and discover life is recognized, language becomes sacred. In ancient times, language was held in this regard. Nowhere was this more so than in ancient India. It is evident that the ancient scientists of language were acutely aware of the function of language as a tool for exploring and understanding life, and in the process of using language with greater and greater rigor discovered Sanskrit or the "perfected" language.

This along with the example of Whitehead's quote points out what is perhaps the most important distinction we can make in the fulfillment of our lives: either language uses us or we use language. Either we think that Whitehead is right or wrong based on what our already established definition of "soul" is or we discover the relation of his use of words, to our own use of words. This opens the possibility of seeing something that lies beyond both. Only in the latter do we actually communicate, free from the domination of unconscious memory dictating meaning.

In ancient India the intention to discover truth was so consuming, that in the process, they discovered perhaps the most perfect tool for fulfilling such a search that the world has ever known — the Sanskrit language.

Of all the discoveries that have occurred and developed in the course of human history, language is the most significant and probably the most taken for granted. Without language, civilization could obviously not exist. On the other hand, to the degree that language becomes sophisticated and accurate in describing the subtlety and complexity of human life, we gain power and effectiveness in meeting its challenges. The access to modern technology which has been designed to give ease, efficiency and enjoyment in meeting our daily needs did not exist at the beginning of the century. It was made possible by accelerated advancement in the field of mathematics, a "language" which has helped us to discover the interrelationship of energy and matter with a high degree of precision. The resulting technology is evidence of the tremendous power that is unleashed simply by being able to make the finer and finer distinction that a language like mathematics affords.

At the same time humankind has fallen far behind the advancements in technology. The precarious state of political and ecological imbalance that we are now experiencing is an obvious sign of the power of technology far exceeding the power of human beings to be in control of it. It could easily be argued that we have fallen far behind the advancements in technology, simply because the languages we use for daily communication do not help us to make the distinctions required to be in balance with the technology that has taken over our lives.

Relevant to this, there has recently been an astounding discovery made at the NASA research center. The following quote is from an article which appeared in AI Magazine (Artificial Intelligence) in Spring of 1985 written NASA researcher, Rick Briggs:

In the past twenty years, much time, effort, and money has been expended on designing an unambiguous representation of natural languages to make them accessible to computer processing. These efforts have centered around creating schemata designed to parallel logical relations with relations expressed by the syntax and semantics of natural languages, which are clearly cumbersome and ambiguous in their function as vehicles for the transmission of logical data. Understandably, there is a widespread belief that natural languages are unsuitable for the transmission of many ideas that artificial languages can render with great precision and mathematical rigor.

But this dichotomy, which has served as a premise underlying much work in the areas of linguistics and artificial intelligence, is a false one. There is at least one language, Sanskrit, which for the duration of almost 1000 years was a living spoken language with a considerable literature of its own. Besides works of literary value, there was a long philosophical and grammatical tradition that has continued to exist with undiminished vigor until the present century. Among the accomplishments of the grammarians can be reckoned a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical not only in essence but in form with current work in Artificial Intelligence. This article demonstrates that a natural language can serve as an artificial language also, and that much work in AI has been reinventing a wheel millennia old.

The discovery is of monumental significance. It is mind-boggling to consider that we have available to us a language which has been spoken for 4000 - 7000 years that appears to be in every respect a perfect language designed for enlightened communication. But the most stunning aspect of the discovery is this: NASA, the most advanced research center in the world for cutting edge technology, has discovered that Sanskrit, the world's oldest spiritual language, is the only unambiguous spoken language on the planet.

In early AI research it was discovered that in order to clear up the inherent ambiguity of natural languages for computer comprehension, it was necessary to utilize semantic net systems to encode the actual meaning of the sentence. Briggs gives the example of how a simple sentence would be represented in a semantic net:

John gave the ball to Mary.
give, agent, John
give, object, ball
give, recipient, Mary
give, time, past

He further comments, "The degree to which a semantic net (or any unambiguous nonsyntactic representation) is cumbersome and odd-sounding in a natural language is the degree to which that language is 'natural' and deviates from the precise or 'artificial.' As we shall see, there was a language (Sanskrit) spoken among an ancient scientific community that has a deviation of zero."

Considering Sanskrit's status as a spiritual language, a further implication of this discovery is that the age old dichotomy between religion and science is an entirely unjustified one.

It is also relevant to note that in the last decade physicists have begun to comment on the striking similarities between their own discoveries and the discoveries made thousands of years ago in India which went on to form the basis of most Eastern religions.

Because of the high level of collaboration required in uncovering the nature of energy and matter, it is inconceivable that it ever could have taken place without a common language, namely mathematics. This is a perfect example of using a language for discovering and designing life. The language of mathematics, being inherently unambiguous, minimizes personal interpretation and therefore maximizes opportunity for exploration and discovery. The result of this is a worldwide community of scientists working together with extraordinary vitality and excitement about uncovering the unknown.

It can also be inferred that the discoveries that occurred in India in the first millennia B.C. were also the result of collaboration and inquiry by a community of spiritual scientists utilizing a common scientific language, Sanskrit. The truth of this is further accented by the fact that throughout the history and development of Indian thought, the science of grammar and linguistics was attributed a status equal to that of mathematics in the context of modern scientific investigation. In deference to the thoroughness and depth with which the ancient grammatical scientists established the science of language, modern linguistic researchers in Russia have concluded about Sanskrit, "The time has come to continue the tradition of the ancient grammarians on the basis of the modern ideas in general linguistics."

Sanskrit is the most ancient member of the European family of languages. It is an elder sister of Latin and Greek from which most of the modern European languages have been derived. The oldest preserved form of Sanskrit is referred to as Vedic. The oldest extant example of the literature of the Vedic period is the Rig-Veda. Being strictly in verse, the Rig-Veda does not give us a record of the contemporary spoken language.

The very name Sanskrit meant "language brought to formal perfection" in contrast to the common languages, Prakrits or "natural" languages.

The form of Sanskrit which has been used for the last 2500 years is known today as Classical Sanskrit. The norms of classical Sanskrit were established by the ancient grammarians. Although no records are available of their work, their efforts reached a climax in the 5th century B.C. in the great grammatical treatise of Panini, which became the standard for correct speech with such comprehensive authority that it has remained so, with little alteration until present times.

Based on what the grammarians themselves have stated, we may conclude that the Sanskrit grammar was an attempt to discipline and explain a spoken language.

The NASA article corroborates this in saying that Indian grammatical analysis "probably has to do with an age old Indo-Aryan preoccupation to discover the nature of reality behind the impressions we human beings receive through the operation of our senses."

Until 1100 A.D., Sanskrit was without interruption the official language of the whole of India. The dominance of Sanskrit is indicated by a wealth of literature of widely diverse genres including religious and philosophical; fiction (short story, fable, novels, and plays); scientific literature including linguistics, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine; as well as law and politics.

With the Muslim invasions from 1100 A.D. onwards, Sanskrit gradually became displaced by common languages patronized by the Muslim kings as a tactic to suppress Indian cultural and religious tradition and supplant it with their own beliefs. But they could not eliminate the literary and spiritual-ritual use of Sanskrit.

Even today in India, there is a strong movement to return Sanskrit to the status of "national language of India." Sanskrit being a language derived from simple monosyllabic verbal roots through the addition of appropriate prefixes and suffixes according to precise grammatical laws has an infinite capacity to grow, adapt and expand according to the requirements of change in a rapidly evolving world.

Even in the last two centuries, due to the rapid advances in technology and science, a literature abundant with new and improvised vocabulary has come into existence. Although such additions are based on the grammatical principles of Sanskrit, and mostly composed of Sanskrit roots, still contributions from Hindi and other national and international languages have been assimilated. For example: The word for television, duuradarshanam, meaning "that which provides a vision of what is far away " is derived purely from Sanskrit.

Furthermore, there are at least a dozen periodicals published in Sanskrit, all-India radio news broadcast in Sanskrit, television shows and feature movies produced in Sanskrit, one village of 3000 inhabitants who communicate through Sanskrit alone, not to mention countless smaller intellectual communities throughout India, schools, as well as families where Sanskrit is fostered. Contemporary Sanskrit is alive and well.

The discussion until now has been about Sanskrit, the language of mathematical precision, the world's only unambiguous spoken language. But the linguistic perfection of Sanskrit offers only a partial explanation for its sustained presence in the world for at least 3000 years. High precision in and of itself is of limited scope. Generally it excites the brain but not the heart. Sanskrit is indeed a perfect language in the same sense as mathematics, but Sanskrit is also a perfect language in the sense that, like music, it has the power to uplift the heart.

It's conceivable that for a few rare and inspired geniuses, mathematics can reach the point of becoming music or music becoming mathematics. The extraordinary thing about Sanskrit is that it offers direct accessibility by anyone to that elevated plane where the two, mathematics and music, brain and heart, analytical and intuitive, scientific and spiritual become one. This is fertile ground for revelation. Great discoveries occur, whether through mathematics or music or Sanskrit, not by the calculations or manipulations of the human mind, but where the living language is expressed and heard in a state of joy and communion with the natural laws of existence.

Why has Sanskrit endured? Fundamentally it generates clarity and inspiration. And that clarity and inspiration is directly responsible for a brilliance of creative expression such as the world has rarely seen. No one has expressed this more eloquently than Sri Aurobindo, the 20th century poet philosopher:

The Ancient and classical creations of the Sanskrit tongue both in quality and in body and abundance of excellence, in their potent originality and force and beauty, in their substance and art and structure, in grandeur and justice and charm of speech and in the height and width of the reach of their spirit stand very evidently in the front rank among the world's great literatures. The language itself, as has been universally recognized by those competent to form a judgment, is one of the most magnificent, the most perfect and wonderfully sufficient literary instruments developed by the human mind, at once majestic and sweet and flexible, strong and clearly-formed and full and vibrant and subtle, and its quality and character would be of itself a sufficient evidence of the character and quality of the race whose mind it expressed and the culture of which it was the reflecting medium.

Sanskrit after all is the language of mantra — words of power that are subtly attuned to the unseen harmonies of the matrix of creation, the world as yet unformed. The possibility of such a finely attuned language is only conceivable by drawing upon sounds so inherently pure in combinations so harmoniously blended that the result is as refreshing and pure as the energy of creation forming into mountain streams and lakes and the flawless crystal structures of natural gems, while at the same time wielding the power of nebulae and galaxies expanding into the infinitude of space.

But from the perception of Rishis, the source of language transcends such conceptions. In Sanskrit, vaak, speech, the "word" of Genesis, incorporates both the sense of "voice" and "word". It has four forms of expression. The first, paraa, represents cosmic ideation arising from the original and absolute divine presence. The second, pashyantii (literally "seeing") is vaak as subject "seeing," which creates the object of madhyamaavaak, the third and subtle form of speech before it manifests as vaikhariivaak, the gross production of letters in spoken speech.

Sanskrit is a language whose harmonic subtlety, mysteriously sources the successive phases of creation all the way to origination. This implies the possibility of having speech oriented to a direct living truth which transcends individual preoccupation with the limited information available through the senses. Spoken words as such are creative living things of power. They penetrate to the essence of what they describe. They give birth to meaning which reflects the profound interrelatedness of life.

It is a tantalizing proposition to consider speaking a language whose sounds are so pure and euphonically combined. The mere listening or speaking inspires and produces joy and clarity. And yet it has been precisely the tendency of humanity as a whole to merely be tantalized by happiness, but not actually to choose it. It's as though we had been offered the most precious gem and we answered, "No, I'd rather be poor." The only possible background for such a choice is the unconscious belief that, "I can't have it. I can't be that."

Interestingly enough, this is exactly what is triggered in people who are faced with the opportunity to learn Sanskrit. The basic attitude towards learning Sanskrit in India today is, "It's too difficult." Actually Sanskrit is not difficult. On the contrary, there are few greater enjoyments. The first stage, experiencing the individual power of each of the 49 basic sounds of the Sanskrit alphabet is pure discovery, especially for Westerners who have never paid attention to the unique distinctions of individual letters such as location of resonance and tongue position. The complete alphabet must have been worked out by learned grammarians on phonetic principles by long before it was codified by Panini around 500 B.C. It is arranged on a thoroughly scientific method, the simple vowels (short and long) coming first, then the complex vowels (dipthongs), followed by the consonants in uniform groups according to the organs of speech with which they are pronounced.

The unique organization of the Sanskrit alphabet serves to focus one's attention on qualities and patterns of articulated sound in a way that occurs in no other language. By paying continuous attention to the point of location, degree of resonance and effort of breath, one's awareness becomes more and more consumed by the direct experience of articulated sound. This in itself produces and unprecedented clarity of mind and revelry in the joy of language. Every combination of sound in Sanskrit follows strict laws which essentially make possible an uninterrupted flow of the most perfect euphonic blending of letters into words and verse.

The script used to depict written Sanskrit is known as Devanaagari or that "spoken by the Gods." Suitably for Sanskrit, it is a perfect system of phonetic representation. According to linguists, the phonetic accuracy of the Devanaagari compares well with that of the modern phonetic transcriptions.

Because of its inherent logic, systematic presentation and adherence to only the most clear and most pure sounds, the Sanskrit alphabet in its spoken form, is perhaps the easiest in the world to learn and recall. Once the alphabet is learned, there is just one major step to take in gaining access to the Sanskrit language: learning the case and tense endings. The endings are what make Sanskrit a language of math-like precision. By the endings added onto nouns or verbs, there is an obvious determination of the precise interrelationship of words describing activity of persons and things in time and space, regardless of word order. Essentially, the endings constitute the software or basic program of the Sanskrit language.

The rigor of learning the case endings is precisely the reason why many stop in their pursuit of Sanskrit. Yet by an effective immersion method, fluent reading of the Devanagari script, accurate pronunciation, and the inputting of the case and tense endings can easily be accomplished. Such a method must take advantage of the fact that Sanskrit grammar is structured by precise patterns, and once a pattern has been noted it is a simple exercise to recognize all the individual instances that fit the pattern; rather than see the pattern after all the individual instances have been learned. Color coding provides a tremendous support in this regard.

Learning the case endings through the chanting of basic pure sound combinations in musical and rhythmic sequences is a way to overcome learning inhibitions, attune to the root power of the Sanskrit language and access the natural computer efficiency, speed and clarity of the mind.

Although learning Sanskrit in some ways presents challenges similar to those of learning calculus or music, it also induces a lubrication and acceleration of mental function that actually makes such a process exciting and enjoyable. Perhaps the greatest immediate benefit of learning Sanskrit by this method is that it requires participants to relinquish control, abandon prior learning structures and come into a direct experience of the language.

The actual simplicity and enjoyment of the sounds of Sanskrit provides everyone with an opportunity to learn a subject which is technically precise with fluidity and ease. This tends to produce a complete reversal of the inhibiting competitive environment in which most life education traditionally took place, by creating an atmosphere in which mutual support generates personal breakthrough and vice-versa.

One thing is certain, Sanskrit will only become the planetary language when it is taught in a way which is exciting and enjoyable. Furthermore it must address individual learning inhibitions with clarity and compassion in a setting which encourages everyone to step forth, take risks, make mistakes and learn. Already we have outstanding examples of this approach in the work of teachers such as Jaime Escalante, whose remarkable achievements in teaching advanced calculus to underprivileged high school students in East Los Angeles were featured in the Academy Award nominated movie, "Stand and Deliver."

Another hope for the return of Sanskrit lies in computers. Sanskrit and computers are a perfect fit. The precision play of Sanskrit with computer tools will awaken the capacity in human beings to utilize their innate higher mental faculty with a momentum that would inevitably transform the world. In fact the mere learning of Sanskrit by large numbers of people in itself represents a quantum leap in consciousness, not to mention the rich endowment it will provide in the arena of future communication.

Sanskrit has always inspired the hearts, mind and souls of wise people. The great German scholar Max Muller, who did more than anyone to introduce Sanskrit to the West in the latter part of the 19th century, contended that without a knowledge of the language (Sanskrit), literature, art, religion and philosophy of India, a liberal education could hardly be complete — India being the intellectual and spiritual ancestor of the race, historically and through Sanskrit.

Max Muller also pointed out that Sanskrit provides perfect examples of the unity and foundation it offers to the Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon languages, not to mention its influence on Asian languages. The transmission of Buddhism to Asia can be attributed largely to the appeal to Sanskrit. Even in translation the works of Sanskrit evoked the supreme admiration of Western poets and philosophers like Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, Melville, Goethe, Schlegel and Schopenhauer.

The fact is that Sanskrit is more deeply interwoven into the fabric of the collective world consciousness than anyone perhaps knows. After many thousands of years, Sanskrit still lives with a vitality that can breathe life, restore unity and inspire peace on our tired and troubled planet. It is a sacred gift, an opportunity. The future could be very bright.

Bibliography

The Mother on Sanskrit, by Sri Aurobindo Society, Pondicherry, India.
A History of Sanskrit Literature, by Arthur A. MacDonnell, M.A., Ph.D., Motilal Banarsidas, Delhi, 1962.
A Short History of Sanskrit Literature, by H. R. Aggarwal, M.A., P.E.S., R.D.E., Munshi Ram Manohar Lal, Delhi, 1963.
A Companion to Contemporary Sanskrit, by Hajime Nakamura, Motilal Banarsidas, Delhi, 1973.
Sanskrit, V. V. Ivanov and V. N. Toporov, Nauka Publishing House, Moscow, 1968.

Rellevance of Sanskrit in Contemporary Society

2008-10-21T00:08:00.001-07:00

by B Mahadevan

[B Mahadevan is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. This write-up is an edited transcript of the lecture delivered by Professor Mahadevan at the Indian Institute of World Culture, Bangalore during August 10, 2003 at the invitation of Sri Thirunarayana Trust Bangalore.

This is the first draft of the write-up and is likely to undergo further refinements and corrections. Comments and suggestions are welcome.]

http://www.iimb.ernet.in/~mahadev/samskrit_why.pdf

Introduction

I have chosen to talk about the relevance of Sanskrit in today's society. In fact I have been thinking about this often, for the last 10 years. To tell you the truth, until I was doing my PhD, I was learning, writing examinations and talking about Sanskrit using several other languages such as Tamil, English and Hindi. That is what most of us do when it comes to Sanskrit. Yet we pass judgments about Sanskrit, we discuss about how important Sanskrit is, we discuss as to what is good in Sanskrit and what is not good in Sanskrit – everything in some other language, usually in one's own 'Matrubhasha' and predominantly in English. I was also doing that.

Only when I was doing my PhD I happened to acquire some knowledge in Sanskrit, and ever since then, after I finished my PhD, the first question that naturally came to my mind was – 'why do we need Sanskrit?' I personally liked it; I personally enjoyed whatever little I have understood. I am not a Sanskrit scholar – let me clarify. But whatever little I have understood and have gone through in the last 10-12 years – there was one question that was ringing in my mind all the time, 'Do we need Sanskrit? And, if we need Sanskrit, what do we need it for?'

So it is only natural that I broached the subject with anybody who was willing to talk about it. What I am presenting today is, in some sense, an accumulation of my thoughts arising out of these discussions. I have discussed these issues with my students; I have discussed these in my house;

I have discussed these with my colleagues in the Indian Institute of Management; I have discussed these with professionals belonging to different areas like management consultants, software and so on. In some sense what I am going to present today represents a certain evolution of my thought in this subject. I would think that it continuously evolves in my mind. I personally don't think that I have reached any substantive conclusion or opinion on this particular issue, but what I would like to share with you is what appears to be a reasonable way of putting the pros and cons of the subject in the society and it being so, what does it mean, and what do we do? So that is going to be the broad context in which I intend to spend the next 45 - 50 minutes, or one hour, depending on the interest.

[For full article, please visit http://www.iimb.ernet.in/~mahadev/samskrit_why.pdf]

Facts making people to think of learning Samskruta

2008-10-17T00:45:00.001-07:00

1) The best language to be used in the computers -
ref:Forbes 1987 magzine

2) The best type of calendar being used is hindu calendar(as the new year starts with the geological change of the solar system) -
ref: German State University

3) The most usefull languge for medication i.e persons by talking Samskruta will be healthy and free from disease like bp,diabities,cholestrol etc.. as talking in Samskruta makes activate the nervous system of the human body so that the persons body gets activated with positive charges
ref:American Hindu University
(after constant study)

4) The language which contains most advanced technology in it in their books called Vedas, Upanishads, Shruti, Smruti, Puranas, Mahabhaarath, Ramayana etc...
ref: Russian State University, NASA etc..(NASA contains 60,000 manscripts of palm leaf with them which they are using to study)
(unverified reports say that the Russians, Germans, Japanese, Americans are actively researhing new things from our sacred books and are producing them back to the world by their name on it.17 countries in the world have a university or more to study about Samskruta and gain new technology but there is not a single university dedicated to Samskruta for its real study in INDIA (BHAARATH).

5) Mother of all languages of the world - all the languages(97%) have been directly or indirectly influenced by this language. -
ref: UNO

6) There is a report by a NASA Scientist that America is creating a 6th and 7th generation super computers based on the Samskruta language for the use of super computers to their maximum extent.project deadline is 2025(6th generation) 2034(7th generation) after this there will be a language revolution all over the world to learn Samskruta.

7) The best language availabe in the world for translation purpose -
ref: forbes 1985 magzine

8) The language presently being used in advanced kirlian photography techniques.(advanced kirlian photography techniques are present only in Russia and USA presently.INDIA does not posses even the simple kirlian photography techniques today.)

9) US, Russia, Sweden, Germany, UK, France, Japan, Austria are presently researching about the significance of Bharatanatyam and the Nataraja (the cosmic dance of Shiva.There is a statue of Shiva or Nataraja in front of the UN office in Geneva.)

10) The UK is presently researching on a Defence system based on our Shri Chakra.

Aren't these facts making people to think of learning samskruta ?

Learn Samskruta which was our mother tongue in the past, which contains many things in it. For our country to survive and hit the world back we need to study Samskruta.

For further information, contact <raghuram.mv.1988@gmail.com>

Why Study Sanskrit?

2008-10-16T10:53:00.001-07:00

http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/sanskrit/why_sans.php

Introduction

The study of languages is always fascinating. For this reason alone, one can study or learn Sanskrit. The members of the Samskritapriyah group are more than fascinated by this language. They come from different disciplines and have had a long lasting association with Sanskrit. This group, comprising scientists, linguistic scholars, computer scientists, Indologists and above all, well respected Sanskrit scholars, feels convinced that there are aspects to Sanskrit not yet seen or observed in other languages.
While the lessons are the primary means to learning the language, the information presented alongside will more than arouse the curiosity of the reader. It must be emphasized that the views expressed here are not intended to start a big debate on the language itself. The group has carefully studied the information presented here, for validity, correctness and authenticity. As a consequence, the information should appeal to the scientific mind.
Sanskrit, earliest of the ancient languages.
There is sufficient evidence available today to say that Sanskrit is the oldest language of the world.
Among the current languages which possess a hoary antiquity like Latin or Greek, Sanskrit is the only language which has retained its pristine purity. It has maintained its structure and vocabulary even today as it was in the past.
The oldest literature of the world, the Vedas, the Puranas and the Ithihasas which relate to the Indian subcontinent, are still available in the same form as they were known from the very beginning. There are many many scholars in India who can interpret them today, much the same way great scholars of India did years ago. Such interpretation comes not by merely studying earlier known interpretations but through a steady process of assimilation of knowledge linking a variety of disciplines via Sanskrit.
Sanskrit is as modern as any language can be
Sanskrit is very much a spoken language today. Even now, as we enter the twenty first century, Sanskrit is spoken by an increasing number of people, thankfully many of them young. Among the learned in India, it continues to be a bridge across different states where people, in spite of their own mother tongue, use it to exchange scholarly and even general information relating to the traditions of the country. The News service offered by the Government of India through television and radio continues to feature daily Sanskrit program catering to local as well as international news.
The grammar of Sanskrit has attracted scholars world over. It is very precise and upto date and remains well defined even today. Of late, several persons have expressed the opinion that Sanskrit is the best language for use with computers. The Samskritapriyah group does not subscribe to this view however.
Sanskrit is a Scientist's paradise
Sanskrit, the vocabulary of which is derived from root syllables, is ideal for coining new scientific and technological terms. The need to borrow words or special scientific terms does not arise.
From the very beginning, scientific principles have been hidden in the verses found in the Vedas, Upanishads and the great epics of India. Concepts and principles seen in present day mathematics and astronomy, are all hidden in the compositions and treatises of many early scholars of the country. Some of these principles and concepts will be shown in the information section that will accompany the lessons.
Linguistics
The precise and extremely well defined structure of Sanskrit, coupled with its antiquity offers a number of areas in linguistics research including Computational Linguistics. Also, Sanskrit distinguishes itself in that it is the only known language which has a built-in scheme for pronunciation, word formation and grammar.
Sanskrit, a language for Humanity
Sanskrit is a language for humanity and not merely a means for communication within a society. The oldest surviving literature of the world, viz. the Vedas, encompass knowledge in virtually every sphere of human activity. The fact that many profound principles relating to human existence were given expression through Sanskrit, continue to amaze those who study Sanskrit. A Sanskrit Scholar understands the world better than most others.
Sanskrit perfectly depicted (and continues to depict) the social order of the day and offers clues to historical developments within the Society. The language has been used effectively to describe the virtuous and the not so virtuous qualities of great men, women, kings and queens, the philosophers and Saints of the country.
Philosophy, Theology and Sanskrit
Sanskrit abounds in Philosophy and Theology related issues. There are so many words one encounters within Sanskrit that convey subtly differing meanings of a concept that admits of only one interpretation when studied with other languages. The language thus has the ability to offer links between concepts using just the words.
Sanskrit for your emotions
The connoisseurs of the Sanskrit language know that it is the language of the heart. Whatever be the emotion one wishes to display, be it devotion, love, affection, fear, threat, anger, compassion, benevolence, admiration, surprise and the like, the most appropriate words of Sanskrit can flow like a gushing stream.
Some Unique Characteristics of the language
Sanskrit is co-original with the Vedas.. The vedas cannot be studied without the Vedangas, which are six in number. The first three deal with the spoken aspects of the language. The first of these three, namely Siksha, tells us how to pronounce the letters of the aksharas. Siksha divides the letters into three classes- Swaras, Vyanjanas and Oushmanas. Depending on the effort (Prayatna), place of origin in the body (Sthana), the force used (Bala) and the duration of time (Kala), the letters differ from each other in their auditory quality and meaning.
Vyakarna, known as the grammar of Sanskrit, is the second Vedanga which describes meaningful word formations. This is usually referred to as Sphota or meaningful sound.
The third Vedanga, Niruktam, describes certain fundamental root words used in the Vedas. Classification of words into groups of synonyms is an example. For instance, approximately a hundred and twenty synonyms for water are given in Niruktam.
The fourth Vedanga, Chandas, describes the formation of sentences in metrical form. Unlike English which used a very limited number of metres (basically four), Sanskrit offers about two dozen Vedic metres and innumerable conventional metres.
The remaining two Vedangas, Kalpa and Jyothisha deal with space and time.
The letters of Sanskrit
Sanskrit comprises fifty one letters or aksharas. In other languages, we refer to the letters of the alphabet of the language. We know that the word alphabet is derived from the names of the first two letters of Greek. The term alphabet has no other meaning except to denote the set of letters in the language.
In contrast, the word "akshara" in Sanskrit denotes something fundamental and significant. One of the direct meanings of the word is that it denotes the set of letters of Sanskrit from the first to the last. The word also means that the sound of the letter does not ever get destroyed and thus signifies the eternal quality of the sound of the letters. The consequence of this meaning is that the sound of a word is essentially the sounds of the aksharas in the word, a concept which will help simplify text to speech applications with computers.
There are two aspects of non destruction in the above explanation. The first one refers to the phonetic characteristics of the language, i.e., in any word, the aksharas retain their sound. The second aspect of non destruction, amazingly, is that the aksharas retain their individual meanings as well! To give an example, the word "guru" consisting of the aksharas "gu" and "ru" stands for a teacher- one who dispels darkness (ignorance) of the the mind (person). "gu" means darkness and "ru" means the act of removal.
Now, aren't we beginning to see something very interesting?
The popular Sanskrit language is based on root syllables and words. Unlike the other languages of the world, every word in Sanskrit is derived from a root. It is a well accepted fact that all Indo-European languages have a common origin. On the basis of the above mentioned fact that all the words of Sanskrit are traceable to specific roots, a feature not seen in other languages, one can presume that Sanskrit is most certainly the origin.
Massive, yet precise
One can learn Sanskrit purely for the sake of the great epics of India. The Ramayana has 24,000 verses fully in metre and the Mahabharata qualifies as the world's largest epic with 100,000 verses. The Mahabharata says, "what is here may be elsewhere, what is not here is nowhere." The precision with which the verses convey information on so many different aspects of life in a society, is a factor one must reckon as the ultimate in composition.

The Origin of Sanskrit

2008-10-10T08:57:00.001-07:00

http://www.thevedicfoundation.org/valuable_resources/Sanskrit-The_Mother_of_All_Languages_partI.htm

The one which is introduced or produced in its perfect form is called Sanskrit. The word Sanskrit is formed from "sam + krit" where (sam) prefix means (samyak) 'entirely' or 'wholly' or 'perfectly,' and krit means 'done.' Sanskrit was first introduced by Brahma to the Sages of the celestial abodes and it is still the language of the celestial abode, so it is also called the Dev Vani.

Sanskrit was introduced on the earth planet, by the eternal Sages of Sanatan Dharm along with the Divine scriptures such as the Vedas, the Upnishads and the Puranas. A famous verse in Sage Panini's Ashtadhyayi tells that the Panini grammar that is in use now is directly Graced by God Shiv.

Once, at the end of His Divine ecstatic dance induced by the enthralling effects of Krishn love, God Shiv played on His damru (the mini hand-drum which God Shiv holds in His hand). Fourteen very distinct sounds came out of it. Sage Panini conceived them in his Divine mind and on the basis of those Divine sounds, reestablished the science of Sanskrit grammar which already eternally existed.

Since the start of human civilization on the earth, people and the Sages both spoke pure Sanskrit language. The historical records indicate that three public programs of the recitation of the Bhagwatam and the discourses on Krishn leelas had happened in Sanskrit language in 3072 BC, 2872 BC and 2842 BC in which Saints and the devotees participated. Later on when the population increased, the prakrit form of speech with partly mispronounced words (called apbhranshas) was developed in the less educated society and became popular.

The Manu Smriti says that the ambitious chatriyas of Bharatvarsh went abroad to the neighboring countries to establish their new kingdoms and, as they were cut off from the mainstream of the Bhartiya civilization and culture, they developed their own language and civilization as time went on. Natural calamities (such as ice ages) totally shattered their civilizations but still the survivors, in the spoken form of their primitive languages, held many apbhransh words of the original Sanskrit language which their remote ancestors had retained in their memory. As a result of this affiliation with Bhartiya culture and the Sanskrit language, Sanskrit became the origin of the growth of the literary development in other languages of the world.

The phonology (the speech sound) and morphology (the science of word formation) of the Sanskrit language is entirely different from all of the languages of the world. Some of the unique features of Sanskrit are:

1.	The sound of each of the 36 consonants and the 16 vowels of Sanskrit are fixed and precise since the very beginning. They were never changed, altered, improved or modified. All the words of the Sanskrit language always had the same pronunciation as they have today. There was no 'sound shift,' no change in the vowel system, and no addition was ever made in the grammar of the Sanskrit in relation to the formation of the words. The reason is its absolute perfection by its own nature and formation, because it was the first language of the world.
2.	The morphology of word formation is unique and of its own kind where a word is formed from a tiny seed root (called dhatu) in a precise grammatical order which has been the same since the very beginning. Any number of desired words could be created through its root words and the prefix and suffix system as detailed in the Ashtadhyayi of Panini. Furthermore, 90 forms of each verb and 21 forms of each noun or pronoun could be formed that could be used in any situation.
3.	There has never been any kind, class or nature of change in the science of Sanskrit grammar as seen in other languages of the world as they passed through one stage to another.
4.	The perfect form of the Vedic Sanskrit language had already existed thousands of years earlier even before the infancy of the earliest prime languages of the world like Greek, Hebrew and Latin etc.
5.	When a language is spoken by unqualified people the pronunciation of the word changes to some extent; and when these words travel by word of mouth to another region of the land, with the gap of some generations, it permanently changes its form and shape to some extent. Just like the Sanskrit word matri, with a long 'a' and soft 't,' became mater in Greek and mother in English. The last two words are called the 'apbhransh' of the original Sanskrit word 'matri.' Such apbhranshas of Sanskrit words are found in all the languages of the world and this situation itself proves that Sanskrit was the mother language of the world.

Considering all the five points as explained above, it is quite evident that Sanskrit is the source of all the languages of the world and not a derivation of any language. As such, Sanskrit is the Divine mother language of the world.

A Glimpse of the Perfection of Sanskrit Grammar

2008-10-10T08:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.thevedicfoundation.org/valuable_resources/Sanskrit-The_Mother_of_All_Languages_partII.htm

Sage Panini conceived fourteen very distinct sounds from God Shiv's damru (small hand-drum which God Shiv holds in His hand) and created the entire Sanskrit grammar called Ashtadhyayi. Those Divine sounds are:

There are total of 52 letters (16 vowels and 36 consonants).

The vowels are:
The consonants are:

A glimpse of the perfection of Sanskrit grammar can be seen by the extensiveness of its grammatical tenses. There are ten tenses: one form for the present tense, three forms for the past tense and two forms for the future tense. There is also imperative mood, potential mood, benedictive mood (called asheerling, which is used for indicating a blessing), and conditional. Each tense has three separate words for each of the three grammatical persons (first person, second person and third person), and it further distinguishes if it's referring to one, two, or more than two people (called eakvachan, dvivachan and bahuvachan). Then there are three categories of the verbs called atmanepadi, parasmaipadi and ubhaipadi. These forms indicate whether the outcome of the action is related to the doer or the other person or both. In this way there are ninety forms of one single verb.

Sanskrit words are formed of a root word called dhatu. For instance: kri root word means 'to do,' gam root word means 'to go.' So, there are ninety forms of each of these verbs like, karoti, kurutah, kurvanti, and gachchati, gachchatah, gachchanti etc. In English language there are only a few words like: do, doing and done, or go, gone, going and went; then some more words have to be added to express the variations of the tense like: is, was, will, has been, had, had had, etc. But in the Sanskrit language there are ready-made single words for all kinds of uses and situations.

This is elucidated with an example of kri-dhatu (parasmaipadi).

As far as nouns and pronouns are concerned, there are words for all the three genders and each word has twenty-one forms of its own which covers every situation. Then there is a very elaborate and precise system of composing, phrasing, making a sentence, joining two words and coining any number of words according to the need.

Regarding Sanskrit vocabulary, there is a dictionary of the root words and prefixes and suffixes called dhatu path at the end of Ashtadhyayi. It has an abundance of words and furthermore, Sanskrit grammar has the capacity for creating any number of new words for a new situation or concept or thing.

There is a detailed system of every aspect of the grammar. All the aspects of the Sanskrit grammar along with the dictionary were received as one packet from the very beginning along with the Vedas. Moreover, from the historical and logical point of view, since the very first day the linguists have learned about the existence of the Sanskrit language, they have seen it in the same perfect form. No 'sound shift,' no change in the vowel system, and no addition was ever made in the grammar of the Sanskrit in relation to the formation of the words.

In the last 5,000 years, since the Sumerians uttered the communicating words in a very limited scope and their wedge-shaped cuneiform writing came into existence, there has been no such genius born who could produce a grammar as perfect as Sanskrit.

All the languages of the world started in a primitive form with incomplete alphabet and vowels, having only a few words in the beginning which were just enough for the people to communicate with each other. Even the advanced international language of today, the English language, when it took its roots from West Germanic around 800 AD, was in an absolutely primitive form. As it developed, it assimilated about 30% of its words from Latin and numerous words from French and Greek. Slowly developing and improving its vocabulary, the style of writing and the grammar from Old English (which had only two tenses) to Middle English, to Early Modern English, and then to Modern English, took a very long time.

As late as the beginning of the 17th century when its first dictionary was published in London in 1604, there were only 3,000 words. The title of the dictionary was, "A Table Alphabetical, conteyning and teaching the true writing and understanding of hard unusual English wordes, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine or French & c." Somewhat similar is the story of all the ancient and modern languages which started from a very primitive stage of their literal representation with no regular grammar. Proper grammar was introduced at a much later date as their society reached a significant level of communication.

From the exacting nature of the pronunciation of its 52 letters to the science of word formation, there has never been any kind, class or nature of change in the science of Sanskrit grammar. Sanskrit has been in its perfect form since the very beginning.

Six Unmatched Features of Sanskrit

2008-10-10T08:08:00.001-07:00

http://www.thevedicfoundation.org/valuable_resources/Sanskrit-The_Mother_of_All_Languages_partIII.htm

The perfection of the pronunciation (of the consonants and the vowels) and the uniqueness of the grammar that stays the same in all the ages from the very beginning of human civilization and up till today are such features which prove that Sanskrit is not manmade; it is a Divine gift to the people of this world. The following six examples demonstrate some of the unique features of Sanskrit that distinguishes it from other languages of the world.

1. The vowel-consonant pronunciation of the alphabet

The most striking feature of the Sanskrit language is the vowel-consonant pronunciation of the alphabet and the uniqueness of every consonant (or its combination) as a complete syllabic unit when it is joined with a vowel. For example: Its 16 vowels are the actual 'voice pattern' of the sound and 36 consonants are only the 'form' of the 'voice pattern' of the sound. So a consonant ( ) alone cannot be pronounced as it is only a 'form' of the 'voice pattern' until it is attached to a vowel. Thus, a vowel, which itself is a 'voice pattern,' can be pronounced alone (like,) or it can be modulated by adding a consonant to it (like,).This system was not adopted in the languages of the world. Thus, their syllables have no uniformity. For example, in come and coma 'co' has two different pronunciations, and in come and kind or kiss, the letter 'c' and 'k' both have the same pronunciation.

In Sanskrit, the basic structure of its vowel-consonant pronunciation is the unique foundation of the language that precisely stabilizes the word pronunciation where each letter (or a combination of consonants with a vowel) is a syllable.

2. Formation of the Sanskrit words

The second unmatched feature is the formation of the Sanskrit words. Since the beginning there was a complete dictionary of root words called dhatu that could create any number of words based on the requirement by adding a proper prefix and suffix described in detail in the Sanskrit grammar. There are 90 forms (conjugations) for every verb to be used in the 10 tenses and 21 forms for other words. The formation, modulation and creation of words have been originally the same, in an absolutely perfect state since the beginning, as they are today.

3. The uniqueness of the grammar

The most impressive uniqueness of the Sanskrit grammar is that, along with the Sanskrit language, it is unchanged in every age because it is a Divinely produced grammar. Its conjugation system, word formation and the style of poetry formation are all unique, unchanged and perfectly detailed since it appeared on the earth planet through the descended Saints. Take a line of the Yajurved,

There is a noun janah (people), and verb gachcòhanti (to go into) which is formed of gam dhatu (to go), like, gachcòhati, gachcòhatah, gachcòhanti. All the 90 conjugations of the verb gaccòh (to go) and all the 21 forms of the noun jan (people) are used in the same way without any change in the Vedas, in the Puranas and in other Sanskrit literature as well, because they are ever perfect without any sound shift. The Sanskrit language represents the literal form of the Divinity on the earth planet.

4. The style of literary presentation

The three styles of Sanskrit are: (a) the Vedas (sanhita), (b) the Upnishads and (c) the Puranas. All of them were reproduced during the same period before 3102 BC. But their literature has its own style. The difference in the style and the uses of words in all the three kinds of scriptures does not mean any evolution or improvement in the vocabulary.

Vedic verses do not use the full range of words as is used in the Puranas because the Vedic verses are mainly the invocation mantras for the celestial gods and that too for ritualistic purposes, not for the devotion to supreme God. So they don't need too many words to relate a mantra. The language of the Bhagwat Mahapuran is very scholarly, poetic and rich as it explains the richest philosophy of God, God's love and God realization along with its other affiliated theories. The language of the other 17 Puranas is less rich. The language of the Upnishads sometimes leans towards the Vedic sanhita side. The peculiar characteristic of the Vedas can be observed in the tenth canto, chapter 87, of the Bhagwat Mahapuran where the Vedas themselves are offering their homage to supreme God Krishn.

The whole chapter is like this, grammatically perfect, but it is a kind of twisted and uncharming style of language. This is the style and the character of the Vedas (the sanhita). All the chapters of the Bhagwatam, before and after this particular chapter, have elegant literary presentation but this particular chapter, which is in the style of the language of the Vedas, stands out with its own peculiarity. The difference in the literary presentation of the Vedic sanhita and the Puranas has their own nature and style and do not relate to their seniority or juniority.

5. The apbhransh

In every society there are many classes of people. Some are educated, some are less educated and some are much less educated. Accordingly, the quality of their speech differs. Thus, during the time of Ved Vyas, when Sanskrit was the spoken language of India, there may have been some people who spoke a localized form of less perfect Sanskrit. As time went on a new language developed in the Bihar area of North India which was a combination of the localized dialect with the apbhransh words of Sanskrit. The pronunciation of the Sanskrit word changes when it is spoken by the people who are less educated or not educated in the Sanskrit language, and then such words permanently enter into their locally spoken language. These, partly mispronounced words, are called the apbhransh. Just like the words teen and sat are the apbhransh of the Sanskrit words trai and sapt which mean three and seven. It was called the Pali language in which the teachings of Gautam Buddh were written around 1800 BC. Still, Sanskrit remained the spoken language of the literary class of India at least up to the time of Shankaracharya.

When Shankaracharya went to have an audience with Mandan Mishra he found two parrots in two cages that were hung in front of his house. They were happily uttering Sanskrit phrases, which they had memorized by listening to the scriptural discussions that were usually happening in the house. All over India Shankaracharya debated in Sanskrit language wherever he went. It was around 500 BC.

That was the time when the Greek and Latin languages were in the course of their development. Trade communications between India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Greece were already well established. The stories of the Puranas and the Bhagwatam had already reached, in a broken form, into those countries which they then adopted in their society and incorporated into their religious mythology. The Iliad and the Odyssey in their earliest and incomplete forms were composed around 600 BC, and later on certain Sanskrit apbhransh words were added in the Greek and Latin languages.

6. Sanskrit, the scriptural language up till today

Sanskrit is the language of Bhartiya scriptures. It is also the language of the Divine abodes. The word 'language' is termed as bhasha in Sanskrit. Thus, the bhasha of Vaikunth abode in its original form descended on the earth planet through Brahma in the form of the Vedas and the Puranas and all of its affiliates and branches along with its grammar. First it was called the bhasha as it was the only language of India, literary and spoken both. Later on, when its offshoots developed, it began to be called the Sanskrit bhasha (Sanskrit language) to distinguish it from the other local languages that used the apbhransh words of Sanskrit mixed with their locally spoken tongue. For convenience, these local languages were called the 'prakrit' languages by the history writers.

Sanskrit maintained the glory of eternal Bhartiya scriptures in its perfect linguistic representation since its appearance on the earth planet. If someone's conscience fails to comprehend the eternal authenticity of the Sanskrit language for some reason, then at least, according to the above descriptions, one can surely understand its unparalleled perfection that had the capacity of introducing hundreds of thousands of words according to its root system since the very beginning, when even the earliest known cursive writing systems of the world (Greek and Hebrew etc.) were at their infancy and were struggling to standardize the pronunciation and to improve their vocabulary.

Geopolitics and Sanskrit Phobia

2008-10-08T08:46:00.000-07:00

http://rajivmalhotra.sulekha.com/blog/post/2005/07/geopolitics-and-sanskrit-phobia.htm

Overview

Rajiv Malhotra

This paper discusses the historical and contemporary relationship between geopolitics and Sanskrit, and consists of the following sections:

I. Sanskrit is more than a language. Like all languages, its structures and categories contain a built-in framework for representing specific worldviews. Sanskriti is the name of the culture and civilization that embodies this framework. One may say that Sanskriti is the term for what has recently become known as Indic Civilization, a civilization that goes well beyond the borders of modern India to encompass South Asia and much of Southeast Asia. At one time, it included much of Asia.

II. Interactions among different regions of Asia helped to develop and exchange this pan-Asian Sanskriti. Numerous examples involving India, Southeast Asia and China are given.

III. Sanskrit started to decline after the West Asian invasions of the Indian subcontinent. This had a devastating impact on Sanskriti, as many world-famous centers of learning were destroyed, and no single major university was built for many centuries by the conquerors.

IV. Besides Asia, Sanskrit and Sanskriti influenced Europe's modernity, and Sanskrit Studies became a large-scale formal activity in most European universities. These influences shaped many intellectual disciplines that are (falsely) classified as "Western". But the "discovery" of Sanskrit by Europe also had the negative influence of fueling European racism since the 19th century.

V. Meanwhile, in colonial India, the education system was de-Sanskritized and replaced by an English based education. This served to train clerks and low level employees to administer the Empire, and to start the process of self-denigration among Indians, a trend that continues today. Many prominent Indians achieved fame and success as middlemen serving the Empire, and Gandhi's famous 1908 monograph, "Hind Swaraj," discusses this phenomenon.

VI. After India's independence, there was a broad based Nehruvian love affair with Sanskrit as an important nation-building vehicle. However, successive generations of Indian intellectuals have replaced this with what this paper terms "Sanskrit Phobia," i.e. a body of beliefs now widely disseminated according to which Sanskrit and Sanskriti are blamed for all sorts of social, economic and political problems facing India's underprivileged classes. This section illustrates such phobia among prominent Western Indologists and among trendy Indians involved in South Asian Studies who learn about Sanskrit and Sanskriti according to Western frameworks and biases.

VII. The clash of civilizations among the West, China and Islam is used as a lens to discuss the future of Sanskriti across South and Southeast Asia.

VIII. Some concrete suggestions are made for further consideration to revitalize Sanskrit as a living language that has potential for future knowledge development and empowerment of humanity.

I. Sanskrit and the Multicultural Sanskriti (Indic Civilization)

In modern Westernized universities, Sanskrit is taught primarily as a language only and that too in connection with Indo-European philology. On the other hand, other major languages such as English, Arabic and Mandarin are treated as containers of their respective unique civilizational worldviews; the same approach is not accorded to Sanskrit. In fact, the word itself has a wider, more general meaning in the sense of civilization. Etymologically, Sanskrit means "elaborated," "refined," "cultured," or "civilized," implying wholeness of expression. Employed by the refined and educated as a language and a means of communication, Sanskrit has also been a vehicle of civilizational transmission and evolution.

The role of Sanskrit was not merely as a language but also as a distinct cultural system and way of experiencing the world. Thus, to the wider population, Sanskrit is experienced through the civilization named Sanskriti, which is built on it.

Sanskriti is the repository of human sciences, art, architecture, music, theatre, literature, pilgrimage, rituals and spirituality, which embody pan-Indic cultural traits. Sanskriti incorporates all branches of science and technology - medical, veterinary, plant sciences, mathematics, engineering, architecture, dietetics, etc. Pannini's grammar, a meta-language with such clarity, flexibility and logic that certain pioneers in computer science are turning to it for ideas is one of the stunning achievements of the human mind and is a part of this Sanskriti.

From at least the beginning of the common era until about the thirteenth century, Sanskrit was the paramount linguistic and cultural medium for the ruling and administrative circles, from Purushapura (Peshawar) in Gandhara (Afghanistan) to as far east as Pandurang in Annam (South Vietnam) and Prambanam in Central Java. Sanskrit facilitated a cosmopolis of cultural and aesthetic expressions that encompassed much of Asia for over a thousand years, and this was not constituted by imperial power nor sustained by any organized church. Sanskriti, thus, has been both the result and cause of a cultural consciousness shared by most South and Southeast Asians regardless of their religion, class or gender and expressed in essential similarities of mental and spiritual outlook and ethos.

Even after Sanskrit as a language faded explicitly in most of Asia, the Sanskriti based on it persists and underpins the civilizations of South and Southeast Asia today. What Monier-Williams wrote of India applies equally to Southeast Asia as well: "India's national character is cast in a Sanskrit mould and in Sanskrit language. Its literature is a key to its vast religious system. Sanskrit is one medium of approach to the hearts of the Indians, however unlearned, or however disunited by the various circumstances of country, caste, and creed" (Gombrich 1978, 16).

Sanskrit unites the great and little traditions:

A bi-directional process facilitated the spread of Sanskriti in South and Southeast Asia. The top-down meta-structure of Sanskrit was transmitted into common spoken languages; simultaneously, there was a bottom-up assimilation of local culture and language into Sanskrit's open architecture. This is analogous to Microsoft (top down) and Linux (bottom up) rolled into one. Such a culture grows without breaking down, as it can evolve from within to remain continually contemporaneous and advanced.

Pan-Indic civilization emerged in its present composite form through the intercourse between these two cultural streams, which have been called the "great" and "little" traditions, respectively. The streams and flows between them were interconnected by various processes, such as festivals and rituals, and scholars have used these "tracers" to understand the reciprocal influences between Sanskrit and local languages.

Marriott has delineated the twin processes: (i) the "downward" spread of cultural elements that are contained in Sanskrit into localized cultural units represented by local languages, and (ii), the "upward" spread from local cultural elements into Sanskrit. Therefore, Sanskrit served as a meta-language and framework for the vast range of languages across Asia. While the high culture of the sophisticated urbane population (known as "great tradition" in anthropology) provides Sanskriti with refinement and comprehensiveness, cultural input produced by the rural masses ("little tradition") gives it popularity, vitality and pan-Indian outlook.

Once information about local or regional cultural traits is recorded and encoded in Sanskrit, they become part of Sanskriti. On the other hand, when elements of Sanskriti are localized and given local flavour, they acquire a distinct regional cultural identity and colour. Just as local cultural elements become incorporated into Sanskriti, elements of Sanskriti are similarly assimilated and multiply into a plurality of regional cultural units.

Sanskriti includes the lore and repository of popular song, dance, play, sculpture, painting, and religious narratives. Dimock (1963, 1-5) has suggested that the diversity to be found in the Indic region (i.e. South and Southeast Asia) is permeated by patterns that recur throughout the country, so that each region, despite its differences from other regions, expresses the patterns - the structural paradigmatic aspects - of the whole. Each regional culture is therefore to be seen as a structural microcosm of the full system.

Sanskrit served two purposes: (1) spiritual, artistic, scientific and ritual lingua franca across vast regions of Asia, and (2) a useful vehicle of communication among speakers of local languages, much as English is employed today.

Early Buddhist scriptures were composed and preserved in Pali and other Prakrit (local) languages, but later started to also be composed in what is known as "hybrid Sanskrit." There was a trend using elegant, Paninian Sanskrit for both verbal and written communication. Tibetan was developed based on Sanskrit and is virtually a mirror image of it.

By the time of Kalidasa (600 C.E.) Sanskrit was mastered diligently by the literati and was, therefore, never a dead language. It is living, as Michael Coulson points out, because people chose it to formulate their ideas in preference to some other language. It flourished as a living language of inter-regional communication and understanding before becoming eclipsed first by Persian and then by English after the military and political conquest of India.

Refuting the habit of dividing the Prakrit languages of India into two structurally separate "North" and "South" independent families, Stephen Tyler explains that "[M]odern Indo-Aryan languages are more similar to Dravidian languages than they are to other Indo-European languages" (Tyler 1973: 18-20).

There is synergy between Sanskrit and Prakrit: A tinge of Prakrit added to Sanskrit brought Sanskrit closer to the language of the home, while a judicious Sanskritization made Prakrit into a language of a higher cultural status. Both of these processes were simultaneous and worked at conscious as well as subconscious levels (Deshpande 1993, 35). As an example of this symbiosis, one may point to various Sanskrit texts in medieval India which were instruction manuals for spoken or conversational Sanskrit by the general public (Deshpande 1993; Salomon 1982; Wezler 1996).

Understanding this leads us to a vital insight about Sanskriti: Given this relationship between Sanskrit and local languages, and that Sanskriti is the common cultural container, it is not necessary for everyone to know Sanskrit in order to absorb and develop an inner experience of the embedded values and categories of meaning it carries. Similarly, a knower of the local languages would have access to the ideas, values and categories embodied in Sanskriti.

Unlike the cultural genocides of natives by Arabic, Mandarin and English speaking conquerors and colonizers, Sanskrit had a mutually symbiotic relationship with the popular local languages, and this remained one of reciprocal reinforcement rather than forced adoption through coercion or conquest.

This deeply embedded cultural dynamism could be the real key to a phenomenon that is often superficially misattributed to the British English: how modern India despite its vast economic disadvantages is able to produce adaptive and world-class individuals in virtually all fields of endeavour. This dynamism makes the assimilation of "modern" and "progressive" ideologies and thought patterns easier in India than in many other developing countries. In fact, it facilitates incorporating "modern" innovations into the tradition. It allows India to achieve its own kind of "modernity" in which it would also remain "Indian," just as Western modernity is built on distinctly European structures despite their claim of universality. This is why Indians are adaptive and able to compete globally compared to other non-Western traditions today.

[For full article, please visit http://rajivmalhotra.sulekha.com/blog/post/2005/07/geopolitics-and-sanskrit-phobia.htm]

Sanskrit speaking village in Madhya Pradesh

2008-09-20T09:02:00.000-07:00

by Aditya Ghosh, Hindustan Times

Prem Narayan Chauhan pats his oxen, pushing them to go a little faster. Ziighrataram, ziighrataram chalanti, he urges them. The animals respond to their master's call, picking up pace on the muddy path that leads to his 10-acre cornfield. Chauhan, 35, dropped out of school early, after Class II. He does not consider it remarkable that he speaks what is considered a dying language (or that his oxen respond to it).

For him, Sanskrit is not a devabhasha, the language of the gods, but one rooted in the commonplace, in the ebb and flow of everyday life in Jhiri, the remote hamlet in Madhya Pradesh, where he lives. Mutterings under banyan trees, chit-chat in verandahs, pleasantries on village paths, disputes in the panchayat — in Jhiri, it's all in Sanskrit.

And then, a cellphone rings. The moment of contemporary reality is fleeting. Anachronism and Amar Chitra Katha take over as the conversation begins: "Namo, namah. Tvam kutra asi?" (Greetings. Where are you?) A lost world rediscoveredJhiri is India's own Jurassic Park. A lost world that has been recreated carefully and painstakingly, but lives a precarious existence, cut off from the compelling realities of the world outside.

The 1,000-odd residents of this hamlet, 150 km north of Indore, hardly speak the local dialect, Malwi, any longer. Ten years have been enough for the Sanskritisation of life here. Minus the Brahminical pride historically associated with the language — Jhiri has just one Brahmin family. The much-admired 24-year-old Vimla Panna who teaches Sanskrit in the local school belongs to the Oraon tribe, which is spread over Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. And the village is an eclectic mix of Kshatriyas, Thakurs, Sondhias, Sutars and the tribal Bhils. Panna has been key in popularising Sanskrit with the women of Jhiri. With mothers speaking the language, the children naturally follow. Take 16-year-old unlettered Seema Chauhan. She speaks Sanskrit as fluently as Panna, who studied the language for seven years for her Master's degree.

Chauhan is a livewire, humouring and abusing the village girls in Sanskrit. "I just listened to Vimla didi," she says. "In fact, I'm often at a loss for words in Malwi." Just married to a man from a neighbouring village, she says confidently, "My children will speak in Sanskrit because I will talk to them in it." As eight-year-old Pinky Chauhan joins us, she greets me politely: "Namo namaha. Bhavaan kim karoti?" (What brings you here?) Her father Chander Singh Chauhan laughs and says, "My wife started speaking to me in this language, so I learnt it to figure out what she was saying behind my back." Let's get official Mukesh Jain, CEO, Janpad Panchayat, Sarangpur tehsil (which includes Jhiri), recalls, "I could not believe it when I first came here. It can get difficult during official interactions, but we encourage them." All kinds of logistical problems crop up in Jhiri.

This year, 250 students did their school-leaving exams in Sanskrit. "A Sanskrit teacher had to work along with all the examiners of other subjects," says Jain.

But there are some positive offshoots too. Thanks to Sanskrit, Jhiri has re-discovered some lost technologies of irrigation, conservation and agriculture from the old scriptures.

A siphon system of water recharging, for instance, resulted in uninterrupted water supply through the year in the fields. Small check-dams, wells and irrigation facilities followed. "It is matter of pride for us to retrieve these old techniques from the scriptures. With no help from the government and without using any artificial systems, we've reaped great benefits," says Uday Singh Chauhan, president of the Vidya Gram Vikash Samity, which runs development programmes in the village. But Jhiri's pride stops at Sanskrit. The first doctor, engineer, economist, scientist or linguist is yet to walk out from it. After finishing school, most village youth join a political party. Electricity is a matter of luxury, so is sanitation. Even the school does not have a toilet, which is the single biggest reason for girls dropping out at the senior secondary level. The average age of marriage for women is 14. Even Panna, who was thinking of doing her PhD, had to give in to the wishes of the wise men of Jhiri who got her married to the other schoolteacher, Balaprasad Tiwari.

There is no public transport; an Internet connection is unimaginable. Jhiri desperately needs to connect to the rest of the world, to explore its infinite possibilities, to grow. But Jhiri is still a success story, especially when you consider that a similar experiment, started a couple of decades ago in Muttur village of Karnataka's Shimoga district, failed, because of the caste factor — it remained caged with Brahmin patrons. "About 80 per cent people of the village are Brahmins who know Sanskrit but won't speak it. This is because the carpenters and blacksmiths would not respond to it," says Dr Mathur Krishnaswami, head of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bangalore, who was involved with the movement. "No language in the world can survive until the common man starts speaking it," he points out. Muttur failed. Jurassic Park destroyed itself. Jhiri must not.