Haryana announces incentives to promote Sanskrit

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

Learn Samskrit

• http://sanskritdocuments.org/learning_tools/learning_tools.html
• http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/sanskrit/tutor.html
• http://chitrapurmath.net/sanskrit/step-by-step.htm
• http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/csas/publications/sanskrit/audio.html [Audio]
• http://www.taralabalu.org/panini/greetings.htm [Grammar]
• http://www.warnemyr.com/skrgram/ [Grammar]
• http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/ [Dictionary]
• http://www.ukindia.com/zip/zsan01.htm

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

• http://www.hummaa.com/music/justarrived.php?pg=ja&lg=7&lc=&ps=0&mhrdwk=1&rand=0.5933028437082346
• http://opinion.currentsamachar.com/sanskritblogs.php
• http://www.geetganga.org/audio/by/language/sanskrit
• http://www.purebhakti.com/

Samskrit - the mother of languages

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

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

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

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

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

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