Fwd: What is Sanskrit's Status Today?

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>"Ashwini Kumar" <ashwini_kumarr

>What is Sanskrit's Status Today?

>Mon, 12 Aug 2002 23:38:08 -0400

>

>

>

>What is Sanskrit's Status Today?Source: Hindu Press International

>MUMBAI, INDIA, August 5, 2002: A recent BBC report by their correspondent,

>Sanjeev Srivastava, begins, "One of the oldest languages in the world,

>Sanskrit, is in danger of becoming extinct in India, the country of its

>origin. Although most Indian languages still use the basic grammar of

>Sanskrit, no more than a few thousand people in a country of more than one

>billion can claim to read, write and speak it fluently." The article goes

>on

>to say that Mumbai's Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan has few students for its

>Sanskrit courses, and that those students face poor job prospects upon

>graduation. The BBC article states that Sanskrit "lacks relevance,"

>although

>it fails to mention that the Hindu scriptures are in Sanskrit or that Hindu

>temple worship is conducted in the language. The article states, "There is

>a

>school of thought which believes that teaching and learning Sanskrit is a

>complete waste of time and resources, especially as most Sanskrit colleges

>are publicly funded." HPI recalls the origin of this school of thought: the

>1835 document entitled "Macaulay's Minute on Indian Education," in which

>Lord Macaulay argued successfully to curtail British government funding of

>Sanskrit colleges because "What we spend on the ... Sanskirt colleges is

>...

>a dead loss to the cause of truth." Macaulay added that it would be wrong

>for the government to "encourage the study of a literature admitted to be

>of

>small intrinsic value, only because that literature inculcates the most

>serious errors on the most important subjects." But modern scholars

>worldwide find great value in Sanskirt. <a

>href="http://imp.lss.wisc.edu/~gbuhnema/study.html">Click here</a> to view

>a

>list of 53 major colleges and universities in the world which have

>departments of Sanskrit or offer courses in it. They include the great

>universities such as Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Leiden, Oslo, Kyoto (which

>has a large department), and more. Germany has more universities teaching

>Sanskrit, 14, than India itself, ten, at least according to this list. The

>BBC article shows the continued impact of Macaulay's plan set forth 167

>years ago to, "form a class who may be interpreters between us and the

>millions whom we govern [in India]; a class of persons, Indian in blood and

>color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect." And

>toward this end, Macaulay argued that ridding India of its great

>institutions of Sanskrit learning would be a significant step. As a result

>of his Minute, the British rulers closed all Sanskrit colleges in India

>except at Banaras. Hindus should not let the same thinking pervail today,

>rather, India should lead the world in the study of Sanskrit.

>

 

 

 

 

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