Author: Rajesh Tembarai Krishnamachari
Publication: Independent Media
Center
Date: May 24, 2003
URL: http://india.indymedia.org/print.php3?article_id=5113
The recent times have witnessed
a flurry of activities in the academic circles regarding our culture, heritage
and traditions. The emergence of right wing writers and an increasing undeniable
movement of the hoi polloi towards the far right has brought the conflict
between the so-called 'secular progressives' and the others (Whom the media
loves to call 'fascists') into sharp focus. Any and every topic concerning
our social millieu is seen through the glasses of these two sides. The
George Bush idiom of ' you are either with us or you are against us' seems
perfectly applicable here.
The issue of Sanskrit is no exception
to the general flow of things. While one side, backed by scientists and
abstract mathematicians has extolled the virtues of the language; the other
side has launched a no-holds barred attack on it even going to the extent
of condemning it as a 'dead Brahminic language'.What exactly is the truth
behind the matter? Is Sanskrit indeed the progenitor or precursor to our
modern day tongues? Is it the 'disease of language' as our marxist brethren
are so found of claiming?
I initially wanted to remain neutral
in my evaluation and give a critical report on the topic.Frankly speaking,
what jostled me out of my smugness was a rabidly vitriolic and vituperative
essay on the issue by one Shyam Rao.
(See http://www.dalitstan.org/books/a_sans/index.html
) The article abandoning any pretense of fairness and objectivity villifies
the language, castrates all those who praise it, finds fault with its script
and even blames it for India's illiteracy !!! One more compelling reason
for composing this article has been the abslolute ignorance of the present-day
youth regarding their ancient traditions. Drawn like a moth to a fire,
the educated pseudo- intelligent section of our society abhor any reference
to our 'antiquated customs', despise any allusion to our ' obsolete languages'.
That is particularly ironic and
tragic at a time when the rest of the world is exhibiting an active interest
in our ancient history and the achievements of our forefathers. Researchers
in Massachusetts Institute of Technology have commended the work of Panini
( for his work Ashtadyayi) in the fields of what is now called formal language
and automata theory. Germany has established radio stations regularly broadcasting
in Sanskrit. A couple of years back, I was searching of an original copy
of Bhavisya Puranam.The only authentic copy was found in,you can't guess
this one, U Texas Austin library.
Brainwashed by left leaning historians
at JNU into beleiving the Aryan invasion theory and other concocted bunkum,
the naive populace seems to lay great faith in the convoluted theories
of Indian-inferiority propagated by the Resident Non-Indian brigade. Add
to that the support these RNIs give to their masters abroad.(See article
on Hinduism in Encarta) The last two years has seen a lot of right-wing
authors like Koenraad Elst, Sita Ram Goel, Arun Shourie take on the leftist
brigade. You could now add the rediff columnists like Varsha Bhosle, Rajeev
Srinivasan and Francois Gautier to the list.
In the following monograph, I repudiate
the contentions of these pseudo-secularists point-by-point. Their first
claim is that it is a dead language and it was always so. Nothing could
be a bigger fabrication of truth than this statement. Even Tulasi's Hindi
is extinct today and so is Sangam Tamil. There are thousands of Sanskrit
institutions in India and abroad actively engaged in research in Sanskrit.I
quote Dr.S Radhakrishnan,"Sanskrit was all the time the lingua-franca of
the world of learning in India, and this it has held all the time in India."(Critics
would do well to study the case of Hebrew in Israel)
Sampad and Vijay in their book 'The
wonder that is Sanskrit' quote Prof Sheldon Pollock of U Chicago as replying
to a question to whether Sanskrit should be studied," It is indicative
of the appalling quality of public discourse on Sanskrit in India that
you even ask that question." To illustrate why the usually-phillistine
westerners are appreciating Sanskrit, consider the following comment in
Forbes magazine (July,1987), "Sanskrit is the most convenient language
for computer software programming."
The pseudo-secularists claim that
the terms Sanskrit and Hinduism are modern terms with no base in the past.
Well before the advent of the other tongues , there was only Sanskrit in
existence, hence no one thought of giving a name to it. That explains why
it is referred to as Chandasa(spoken dialect) rather than by the present
nomenclature of Samskrt(refined speech). Similiar is the case with Hinduism.
Consider the following analogy provided by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa(courtesy
my friend Mahalingam KB): If there is only one boy , I need not think of
any name for him.It is only when they are many that I need to assign names
to them like Ram and Shyam in order to differentiate between them. Unquote.I
hope that explains why it sufficed to call our faith as Sanatana Dharma(
Path for everyone) rather than any particular term.
Another popular claim amongst the
gumbal that forms 'the Mother Sanskrit Theory opposers' group is that the
inscriptions have all been in Prakrits rather than Sanskrit.They further
assume a prepoderance of such epigraphy everywhere esp in the Satavahana
kingdom. But how can they wish away the sea of contrary evidence found
in places as far-away like Indo-china and low cochin china.Even closer
home Sanskrit is omnipresent from the Pallava inscriptions to the wall
of the hallowed Tirumala-Tirupati temples."One thousand inscriptions have
been found in Champa, Cambodia and Indonesia, from the 3rd till the 13th
century."(Sampad & Vijay)
Secularists debunk the notion of
Sanskrit being a pure language by claiming that 50% of its words are of
Dravidian origin. Accepting it would be to consent to (x->y)<->(y->x)
In fact 70% of the words in North Indian tongues are either same or derived
form of words in Sanskrit(technically referred to as tatsama and tatbhava).
Telugu has around 65% Sanskrit words. Sangam literature as well as the
Tamil script show extensive Sanskrit influence.Similiar connection with
Kannada, Malayalam and Oriya can be made.
Dravidian parties had a field day
in the past banning Sanskrit in their states ostensibly because it is a
North- Indian language. Let them be aware of the fact that all the three
renowned commentators on the Vedas were from the south.( Sri Adi Sankara-Advaita,
Sri Ramanujacharya-Vishistadvaita, Sri Madhvacharya-Dvaita) Sanskrit truly
belongs to the whole nation. The same M S Subbulakshmi rendition of the
Vishnu Sahasranamam is played both in Badrinath-Kedarnath(Uttaranchal)
and Kanchipuram- Madurantakam(Tamilnadu).
Sanskrit has often been dismissed
as a Hindu language.(Probably this thought prevented Nehru-Gandhi brigade
from adopting Sanskrit as our national language).But have these 'eminently
erudite gentlemen' read or even heard of Muslim poets like Daraf Khan Gazi(Gangastakam)
or Khan Khadar Nawab Abdur Rahim(Rahima Kavyam).It has also been said,"Sanskrit
is the language of every man, to whatever race he may belong to."(Dr Shaidullah,
former Professor at Dhaka University).
The natives and others like Sir
William Jones( Was he motivated ??) have cast aspersions on the near perfect
syntax of Sanskrit. Firstly,'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.'
(See http://www.encyclopediaofauthentichinduism.org/articles/30_the_six_unmatched.htm)
Further sandhi and samasa have introduced an element of romance in its
study. The present lack of understanding of some of the more esoteric and
abstruse statements( see Vedic Mathematics by Bharti Krsna Tirtha Maharaj)
has more to do with our intellectual limitations than any defect in the
language.
The ancient Indians diligently followed
the adage that not even one letter should be superflous(called Alpaksharam).And
as a final blow to those self-styled scholars crying themselves hoarse
over synonymism,homonymism and hermaphriditism in the syntax of Sanskrit,
I quote some encomiums showered on the language by Prof James Santucci,California
State University:
1. Emphasized the study of sounds,
not letters
2. Emphasized the descriptive use
of grammar and not theprescriptive use of grammar
3. Most likely discovered the zero
element in morphology, mostcertainly employed it well before the Europeans
in linguistic analyses
4. Emphasized the notion of substitution
rather than transformation(vikåra)
5. Developed morphophonological
explanations (= sandhi)
6. Stressed in phonetics the place
and manner of articulation
7. Recognized ablaut correspondences;8.
described language in a formal manner and not as a logical system
9. Developed a metalanguage
10. Approached the sense of the
phoneme Unquote.
It should come of no surprise that
the course that fascinated the author(ie me) most during my undergraduate
education in IIT
Madras was a course on formal study
of logic.( See Fundamentals of Logic by Arindama Singh and Chinmoy Goswami)
A systematic analysis of Sanskrit semantics and syntax requires a combination
of linguistic skills and mathematic acumen. It is therefore of no surprise
that De Morgan once commented that the highest levels of modern mathematics
could never emulate the ancient Indians.
Sanskrit syntax should not be scrutinised
by MA Sanskrit fellows from JNU, but rather by abstract mathematicians
who have mastered the conventional techniques elucidated by Herbrand,Godel,Skolem,Tarski,Post,Turing
and others.
If you found the previous paragraph
too technically involved, here is the biggest joke of the millenium perpetuated
on the Dalistan site. I quote for you the whole nonsense.
"The result of Sanskritisation and
the enforcement of Devanagari are visible from the figures given in the
table below. Wherever Brahmins enforced the complex Devanagari script,
the masses of the population have been crushed into a sub-human existence.
Wherever one goes, one finds colossal illiteracy as a result of Sanskritisation
:
Script & Family Nation Literacy
.
-------------------------------------------------------
Dravidic
Malayalic Kerala 90.59 % Tamulic
Tamil Nadu 63.72 %
Kannadic Karnataka 55.98 %
Telugan Andhra Pradesh 45.11 %
Devanagari Bihar 38.54 %
Rajasthan 38.81 %
Uttar Pradesh 41.71
Madhya Pradesh 43.45 % "
Unquote. That excerpt was so hopeless
that I did not deem fit to even comment on it.
As a fitting reposte to irreverant
rants of personalities like Basham and Wendy etc, here is a quote from
Sri Aurobindo:"the ancient and classical literature of the Sanskrit tongue
shows both in quality and in body an abundance of excellence, in their
potent originality and force and beauty, ... which stands very evidently
in the front rank among the world's great literatures."
The tireless efforts of organisations
like Samskrita Bharati has debunked the notion that Sanskrit is a tough
language to master. Even the legendary Tamil poet Subramania Bharati beleived
that learning Sanskrit is not a formidable task. Indeed it is a pleasure
, the description of which requisites words beyond the furthest reaches
of English. To give you a flavour of its mystic poetry, take a look at
this:
' Yayayayayayayayayayayayayayayaya,
Yayayayayayayayayayayayayayayaya.'
[ Translation: The paduka which
adorn the Lord, which help in the attainment of all that is good and auspicious,
which give knowledge, which cause the desire,which remove all that is hostile,
which have attained the Lord, which are used for going and coming from
one place to another, by which all places of this world can be reached,
these paduka are for Lord Vishnu]
Any discerning student of poetry
might be presently lying prostate in obeisance to the man who penned such
verses. Sanskrit heritage is something to be proud of, not to be denigrated.
Our nation has a glorous history and Sanskrit is a product of that great
tradition of ours. It is incumbent upon us to saveguard our culture, its
values and then pass them on to posterity in all its elegance and beauty.
Sanskrit has innumerable aphorisms
and sayings to regulate our daily life and behaviour.It is indeed a language
for enlightenment for our soul. Scholars have called it devbhasa( the language
of the Gods) and Samskrta( the refined tongue). Sampad and Vijay aptly
quote Prof Friedrich Sclegel as saying:" Sanskrit combines these various
qualities possessed separately by other tongues: Grecian copiousness, deep-tone
Roman force, the divine afflatus characterising the Hebrew tongues."
